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Yes, you are a great and prolific writer on all things Bond. :)
Love it, thankyou!
Anyway, my signed edition came yesterday from Ian Fleming.com, and included a promotional beermat and a card. The cover art is very reminiscent of the last two Horrowitz Bond books I think. I like it.
It'll be a while before I get round to reading it, as I haven't read the previous one, (which I only recently bought).
I haven't heard of any Waterstones special editions or anything. I assume anyone on here that's got this, has the same edition as mine.
I thought that the added beermat and card were nice little promotional items and they came as a surprise to me. The last time I can think of anything like that being included with a new Bond continuation novel was the Avante Carte paper credit card promotional insert that came with some editions of John Gardner's Scoripus (1988). I believe they were handed out with purchases at book signings and some were even signed by Gardner himself.
I think that, like the young Bond or Moneypenny diaries, I don't feel like it's as important to immediately get my nose into it in the same way as a full-on Bond book. And a lot of that is because when Horowitz, (or whoever) comes out with a new James Bond adventure, it's got the added interest of let's see what they've done with the character. You know, how does this new Bond compare to Fleming's Bond? Is there anything jarring? (didn't Gardner have him listening to Jazz, or was it Benson?), are there any homages to Fleming's Bond? (plenty in the AH novels). Do we feel the Fleming spirit was captured? These are things I like to ask when I read a new Bond book.
With James Bond missing, and this new (astoundingly diverse) 00 team leading the action, that specific area of Bondian interest simply isn't there for me. I suspect it's the same for a lot of us.
But KS is a great writer, and I'm looking forward to kicking my pre-conceptions and ancient attitudes around the playground a bit so I can enter the new 00 world in earnest.
I suppose that was always to be expected to a certain extent but I do find a little bit of a shame that people don't give the spinoffs a chance. I get that people want to see James Bond as the protagonist and I do too but we've got 70 years worth of that, I like a bit of variety to shake things up.
And I am going to sound like an evangelist but screw it, I think Kim's books are excellent and I'm a little over half way through A Spy Like Me but she captures Fleming arguably better than Horowitz because she has to create the feeling without Bond being there. But what I think is so great about the Double O duology atm is that it's about Bond, but not with Bond. We get to see him through the eyes of others. It's so supremely respectful of the Fleming canon with how it weaves in its references but still allows the new characters to shine and tell its own story. And I love all of her characters but Johanna Harwood is for my money one of the best female characters in franchise, if not the best character in the franchise. If I thought she was great in DoN, she gets even better in ASLM.
But I guess I'd better drop my mic there before get into any specifics and I should go and actually finish it.
Yea, a great read is a great read. And Fleming's finest hour (FRWL) doesn't feature Bond for the first third of the book if I remember right.
Well said. I like a bit of change, once in a while. At least Kim Sherwood is a Bond fan. And it’s nice to read Bond story with no input from Purvis and Wade. Not bashing them. I’m just happy that other people can write Bond without me worrying if Bond will go rogue. Please let us know what you think @CharmianBond and @ColonelAdamski I’m ok with spoilers.
Similarly, in TSWLM Bond doesn't appear until two- thirds of the way through the novel.