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MI6 Community Novel Bondathon - Reborn!

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  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,459
    So ... are we on YOLT? I have that one and can start it if we are ...
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,474
    I've only made it about 20 or so pages in, been slacking.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    So far I’m loving DN. It feels a little like a spiritual successor to LALD, which I also loved. Jamaica is a great Bond location. The reference to Solitaire was an interesting bit. Quarrel and Ryder are great characters. The suspense and action is terrific!
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    Tracy knows her cars.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    YOLT is certainly the weirdest and most uncanny of Bond novels, especially toward the end, when Fleming takes Bond to places he'd never been at before. One critics called the novel a "fertility myth." Bond really is reborn at the end. Kissy surely takes the prize as the strongest Bond girl, a far cry from the comparatively passive Solitaire. No other woman in the series exerts her will as much. I agree that the loose ends from this novel deserved better than what we eventually got in the 1990s. Benson was probably inspired by Pearson's Bond biography, but the latter made better decisions.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 5,979
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Who really knows, but Moore and Lazenby seem like extremely likable people. Dalton and Pierce also, maybe to a lesser extent. Connery seems a bit of a prick, and Daniel just comes off was a completely unlikeable tool in every interview that I've seen him in.

    Funny that, regardless, as @Revelator said, Connery is my favorite Bond, with Craig still holding at third, regardless of my assessments of their personalities (based on what little and superficial evidence that I have to go on).

    I saw Lazenby at a Q&A in L.A. a few years ago. He's a character, to say the least! He was all about "shagging broads."
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited April 2019 Posts: 5,979
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Going to the Spoiler Tag for talk of the conclusion of YOLT, as I know that at least two members are reading through for the first time.
    As I said at the beginning, this feels different from the other entires; far more dreamlike and whimsical. In that way, Roald Dahl did mirror the novel, in tone if not story.

    Kissy is one of my favorite literary Bond Girls, so underused and underdeveloped in the film (I actually picture Aki when reading). My heart breaks for her every time I read that final chapter, never mores than this time. And once again, as we have been reminded throughout the series, from the first novel to the one previous to this, Bond cannot ever be allowed to be happy. It must forever elude him, in the face of being who he really is; even he recognizes that in himself, though nothing else, at the conclusion.

    The idea that some subpar knockoff hack thought it a good idea twenty-five years later to write a story that brings back Bond's son, simply to be almost immediately killed, and tells us that Irma Bunt survived, just galls me.
    Great observation.

    And Bunt surviving is one of the strangest dangling plots of the film series.
  • DoctorNoDoctorNo USA-Maryland
    Posts: 754
    Is there anywhere here or online where Fleming's Murder on Wheels and Russian Roulette are printed completely?

    I'd like to read them and I don't have the Horowitz editions that include them.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    edited April 2019 Posts: 12,270
    Finished Dr. No. I seriously loved this book - I’d probably pick Doctor No as my favorite villain and Honey as my favorite Bond girl so far from all the novels. It was action-packed, scary, romantic, and occasionally funny too. An awesome experience. It earns #1 spot for now.

    Novel Ranking:

    1. Dr. No
    2. Moonraker
    3. Live and Let Die
    4. From Russia with Love
    5. Casino Royale
    6. Diamonds Are Forever
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    Read the first four chapters of Goldfinger. A stellar start - not surprising ;) very entertaining. These books never disappoint.
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    I'm glad you're enjoying them.
  • Agent_99Agent_99 enjoys a spirited ride as much as the next girl
    Posts: 3,108
    Birdleson wrote: »
    GF is definitely strongest early on.

    The car chase across Europe is my favourite part, but a lot of that's thanks to the film, and having travelled some of those roads myself.

    I'm still sad that I'll never get to fly my vehicle across the Channel on the air ferry.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    edited April 2019 Posts: 2,896
    There are other ways of crossing the channel in a car...

  • Agent_99Agent_99 enjoys a spirited ride as much as the next girl
    Posts: 3,108
    The Chunnel's great but I was hoping for something more like the glass walk-through tunnel in an aquarium...
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited April 2019 Posts: 17,809
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Since several of us are nearing the end, it is time once again to post Fleming’s unfinished Bond stories (not to be confused with the unused television scripts that are slowly rolling out as supplements in certain editions of the Horowitz novels). Below are a couple of interesting and enticing looks at what could have been. And maybe someday some of these elements or characters will pop up in an EON film. Thanks to @Dragonpol for putting these up on his blog.

    Not long before he died, Fleming actually began a short story in which James Bond met Zographos. It never got beyond the first page and a half, but it managed to convey something of the excitement its author felt for the really great ice-cold gambler.



    …’It was like this, Mr Bond,’ Zographos had a precise way of speaking with the thin tips of his lips while his half-hard, half-soft Greek eyes measured the reactions of his words on the listener…‘The Russians are chess players. They are mathematicians. Cold machines. But they are also mad. The mad ones forsake the chess and the mathematics and become gamblers. Now, Mr Bond.’ Zographos laid a hand on Bond’s sleeve and quickly withdrew it because he knew Englishmen, just as he knew the characteristics of every race, every race with money, in the world. ‘There are two gamblers…the man who lays the odds and the man who accepts them. The bookmaker and the punter. The casino and, if you like’ – Mr Zographos’s smile was sly with the ‘shared secret and proud with the right word – ‘the suckers.’



    What seems to have excited Fleming most of all was the thought that the Greek Syndicate and Zographos were the bankers and in the long run had the odds in their favour. It made him think that somehow, whether through skill or crime or self-control or knowledge of human nature, a really determined man could beat the system, establish his final ascendancy, his uniqueness as a human being, over Zographos’s ‘suckers’ and all the other dull worthy people who gambled without appreciating what they were up to.



    This was what Fleming always wanted to do. But since he was a careful man with a profound appreciation of money and a gambler in the imagination, he never did. It was left to James Bond to risk everything on that single throw and clean out the bank.’ (‘The Life of Ian Fleming,’ John Pearson, The Companion Book Club, London, 1966, pp. 207-8)



    An extract from Fleming’s second uncompleted Bond short story and Pearson’s reading of it is also given:



    “‘In the early morning, at about 7.30, the stringy whimperings of the piped radio brought visions of a million homes waking up all over Britain…of him, or perhaps her, getting up to make the early morning tea, to put the dog out, to stoke the boiler. And then will this shirt do for another day? The socks, the pants? The Ever-ready, the Gillette shave, the Brylcreem on the hair, the bowler hat or the homburg, the umbrella and the briefcase or the sample case? Then ‘Dodo’, the family saloon out on the concrete arterial, probably with her driving. The red-brick station, the other husbands, the other wives, the clickety-click of the 8.15 round the curve by the golf course. Hullo Sidney! Hullo Arthur! After you Mr Shacker…and the drab life picking up speed and flicking on up the rails between the conifers and the damp evergreens.

    Bond switched on his electric blanket and waited for his hot water with a slice of lemon and contemplated the world with horror and disgust.’



    Into this opening of a short story he never finished Fleming managed to cram his horror of the idea of marrying and settling down. It was a typical piece of Flemingesque black fantasy – he must be one of the few men it is totally impossible to imagine stoking an early morning boiler before driving off in a family saloon with a bowler hat and a caseful of samples. It gives some idea of the passion with which he clung to his independence during the long years of the romance before ‘Annee Rothermere’ became ‘Madame F’.

    Thanks for sharing these, @Birdleson. Yes, it would be nice to know more about these stories. I consider them literary fragments and as such it would be great to see them published in their complete form (perhaps in an updated version of Octopussy).

    Pearson notes that he hasn't quoted all of the first shory story fragment on Zographos as it ran to a page an a half. Zographos of course is also mentioned in passing in Casino Royale. It would be nice to know if IFP have these uncompleted short stories in their archive including the rest of the Zographos story. Hopefully they'll eventually see the light of day somewhere.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Yes, I would love to see that. I’ve also thought of a further updated OP collection that contained these items in complete form, along with ALL the Fleming television outlines and scripts. It would still be the shortest book in the collection.

    Unless they find Fleming's Moonraker screenplay...a man can dream...
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited April 2019 Posts: 17,809
    Revelator wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Yes, I would love to see that. I’ve also thought of a further updated OP collection that contained these items in complete form, along with ALL the Fleming television outlines and scripts. It would still be the shortest book in the collection.

    Unless they find Fleming's Moonraker screenplay...a man can dream...

    Yes, that's another "holy grail" Fleming item that one hopes will turn up some day. I'm not sure exactly who would have copies of it but it surely must be in an archive somewhere.

    I also agree with @Birdleson about the eventual inclusion of the Fleming TV treatments in Octopussy. That would be great to see for the Fleming Bond completist.
  • DoctorNoDoctorNo USA-Maryland
    Posts: 754
    I’m all for these additions to the Octopussy collection... first time I’ve heard of Fleming’s screenplay for MR. Wow.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    GF has been a very solid read so far through 10 chapters. The golf sequence was pretty awesome. It’s fun to see Bond repeatedly embarrass a cheat such as Goldfinger. I expect things will get rough for Bond soon though.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,809
    I concur, @Birdleson. Colonel Sun is the closest we have to an honorary Fleming Bond novel. It's very close to being Fleming literary Bond canon, as witnessed by the use of its torture scene in Spectre. It also helps enormously that it was written around the same time as the Fleming originals and by a literary writer and Bond scholar.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,809
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I also like how Amis follows Fleming's tradition of opening an adventure with Bond dealing with the repercussions of the previous novel; or at least referencing them.

    Yes, the reference to the wound from Scaramanga's Derringer slug was a nice signal reminding us we are very much picking up where Fleming left off.

    John Gardner also used this method in his later Bond continuation novels too, often referencing the previous mission.
  • vzokvzok
    Posts: 4,025
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Since several of us are nearing the end, it is time once again to post Fleming’s unfinished Bond stories (not to be confused with the unused television scripts that are slowly rolling out as supplements in certain editions of the Horowitz novels). Below are a couple of interesting and enticing looks at what could have been. And maybe someday some of these elements or characters will pop up in an EON film. Thanks to @Dragonpol for putting these up on his blog.

    Not long before he died, Fleming actually began a short story in which James Bond met Zographos. It never got beyond the first page and a half, but it managed to convey something of the excitement its author felt for the really great ice-cold gambler.



    …’It was like this, Mr Bond,’ Zographos had a precise way of speaking with the thin tips of his lips while his half-hard, half-soft Greek eyes measured the reactions of his words on the listener…‘The Russians are chess players. They are mathematicians. Cold machines. But they are also mad. The mad ones forsake the chess and the mathematics and become gamblers. Now, Mr Bond.’ Zographos laid a hand on Bond’s sleeve and quickly withdrew it because he knew Englishmen, just as he knew the characteristics of every race, every race with money, in the world. ‘There are two gamblers…the man who lays the odds and the man who accepts them. The bookmaker and the punter. The casino and, if you like’ – Mr Zographos’s smile was sly with the ‘shared secret and proud with the right word – ‘the suckers.’



    What seems to have excited Fleming most of all was the thought that the Greek Syndicate and Zographos were the bankers and in the long run had the odds in their favour. It made him think that somehow, whether through skill or crime or self-control or knowledge of human nature, a really determined man could beat the system, establish his final ascendancy, his uniqueness as a human being, over Zographos’s ‘suckers’ and all the other dull worthy people who gambled without appreciating what they were up to.



    This was what Fleming always wanted to do. But since he was a careful man with a profound appreciation of money and a gambler in the imagination, he never did. It was left to James Bond to risk everything on that single throw and clean out the bank.’ (‘The Life of Ian Fleming,’ John Pearson, The Companion Book Club, London, 1966, pp. 207-8)



    An extract from Fleming’s second uncompleted Bond short story and Pearson’s reading of it is also given:



    “‘In the early morning, at about 7.30, the stringy whimperings of the piped radio brought visions of a million homes waking up all over Britain…of him, or perhaps her, getting up to make the early morning tea, to put the dog out, to stoke the boiler. And then will this shirt do for another day? The socks, the pants? The Ever-ready, the Gillette shave, the Brylcreem on the hair, the bowler hat or the homburg, the umbrella and the briefcase or the sample case? Then ‘Dodo’, the family saloon out on the concrete arterial, probably with her driving. The red-brick station, the other husbands, the other wives, the clickety-click of the 8.15 round the curve by the golf course. Hullo Sidney! Hullo Arthur! After you Mr Shacker…and the drab life picking up speed and flicking on up the rails between the conifers and the damp evergreens.

    Bond switched on his electric blanket and waited for his hot water with a slice of lemon and contemplated the world with horror and disgust.’



    Into this opening of a short story he never finished Fleming managed to cram his horror of the idea of marrying and settling down. It was a typical piece of Flemingesque black fantasy – he must be one of the few men it is totally impossible to imagine stoking an early morning boiler before driving off in a family saloon with a bowler hat and a caseful of samples. It gives some idea of the passion with which he clung to his independence during the long years of the romance before ‘Annee Rothermere’ became ‘Madame F’.

    Great stuff. It would be tremendous if they could gather these unfinished works of Fleming within his collection of novels.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    Read through Chapter 14: Things That Go Thump in the Night - one of my favorite chapters from all these books so far. Excited to see how Part 3 will wrap things up and be similar and/or different from the film. There is a good balance of similarities and differences from the book/film versions for GF.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Is that the chapter with the cat? If it is, it’s one of my favorites too.

    When Bond discovers the truth about what happened to Jill and he and Tilly are caught by Oddjob and brought to Goldfinger.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    As @Birdleson recommended several pages ago, I think I'll read the both the short story collections together instead of leaving the one for the end after TMWTGG.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    Finished with Goldfinger. I loved the first two Parts, but the third was a bit slow at points and not quite as exciting as the film version’s climax. Along with CR, this is probably just the second time I prefer the film version over the novel version. Still a very good read though with a lot of great moments! The villains and story give it an edge over DAF for me in the ranking.

    Novel Ranking:
    1. Dr. No
    2. Moonraker
    3. Live and Let Die
    4. From Russia with Love
    5. Casino Royale
    6. Goldfinger
    7. Diamonds Are Forever
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    Began the short story collections by reading through From a View to a Kill. Not at all like the film (besides the inclusion of Paris), but a pretty entertaining story! Enjoyed it quite a bit. I look forward to reading more of these - it makes for an interesting changeup in between the traditional novels.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,474
    I got a few chapters in but got this sickness back over the last few days. I've felt like garbage, not even able to read and focus. Hopefully I manage to get rid of it this week and get back into things. Sorry for the hold up.
  • PropertyOfALadyPropertyOfALady Colders Federation CEO
    Posts: 3,675
    The glass shield should make an appearance in film somewhere down the line.
  • FoxRoxFoxRox
    Posts: 12,270
    For Your Eyes Only was an even better short story than From a View to a Kill. All the characters and action were simply perfect. That was an awesome Bond story.
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