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Which Bond novel are you currently reading?

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  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 19,102
    Reflsin2bourbons wrote: »
    A lot of characters from Kim Sherwood's novels take their name from that long file bit in Casino Royale.

    CR also introduces the idea of a chap who heads the 00 section, but the idea is never brought up again. Perhaps slightly more realistic for him to exist on a day-to-day basis, but M I think simply had to be used for scale reasons

    Plus Q gets his(?) only mention too.
  • Reflsin2bourbonsReflsin2bourbons
    Posts: 516
    From Russia With Love has a line about Q's craftsmen working on the Bond's attaché case; so technically that implies Q's existence as one person.

    Quite interesting as well that Q's first appearance is not even close to gadgets or arms or even equipment but booking travel and rooming organization, work that I would have though have gone to a secretary or something like that.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,674
    He's the master of Bond's quarters, I suppose!
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 19,102
    Reflsin2bourbons wrote: »
    From Russia With Love has a line about Q's craftsmen working on the Bond's attaché case; so technically that implies Q's existence as one person.

    Ah I missed that one, thank you! I guess if it’s phrased like that technically it could still be a department (you could say ‘google’s craftsmen are busy working on’ something), but I agree it sounds more like a person, especially as we’re being shown there’s a guy called ‘M’.
    NickTwentyTwo wrote: »
    He's the master of Bond's quarters, I suppose!

    Arf! :))
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited 9:33pm Posts: 6,964
    Controversial opinion: Fleming was a better short story writer than novelist.

    And allegedly both GF and MR began as short stories.

    Fleming was forever repurposing short stories, teleplays, and screenplays. He desperately wanted to make the leap from page to screen. And boy, did he.
  • 007HallY007HallY
    edited 10:10pm Posts: 5,942
    echo wrote: »
    Controversial opinion: Fleming was a better short story writer than novelist.

    And allegedly both GF and MR began as short stories.

    Fleming was forever repurposing short stories, teleplays, and screenplays. He desperately wanted to make the leap from page to screen. And boy, did he.

    I don't think it's an outlandish thing to say. Subjective, sure, but it makes sense in theory. Fleming's short stories might not quite be as popular or enduring as his novels, but an understandable criticism to make about his books is his plotting. It's how we get weird moments like Goldfinger randomly agreeing to make Bond his personal secretary. Even something like the Russian agent in CR not having specific orders to kill Bond is a bit of contrived leap. I'm sure there are more examples, but there's definitely sense he 'wrote himself into a corner' more than once, and like most writers had to figure out how to get out (incidentally he often more than makes up for with his prose, which keeps most readers engaged).

    It might just be the limitations of the short story format and having to be concise, but you can argue structurally a lot of Fleming's short stories have better plotting (TLD, Risico, OP, and FYEO especially have very good set ups and pay offs). So yeah, I can understand that.
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