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Comments
I've enjoyed them all. They are all quite readable, but certainly requiring critique considering the standard set by Fleming.
The only one that left me seriously eye-rolling was Deaver's Carte Blanche (2011). His Bond was way off.
The latest batch of Young Bonds from Steve Cole (4 in the pipe so far) are real good, and Horowitz's debut, I thought was solid. Looking forward to his second.
By Kingsley Amis
The first James Bond novel published after the death of Ian Fleming in 1964, this classic thriller follows James Bond on a mission to a small Aegean island to track down M’s kidnappers―the malign Colonel Sun Liang-tan and his ex-Nazi commander cohort, the deadly Von Richter.
Lunch, a quiet game of golf, a routine social call on M, who is convalescing in his Regency house in Berkshire―the life of secret agent James Bond has begun to fall into a pattern that threatens complacency, until the sunny afternoon when M is kidnapped and all of his house staff savagely murdered.
The action ricochets across the globe, but quickly enough lands Bond on a volcanic Greek island, where the malign Colonel Sun Liang-tan of the People's Liberation Army of China is collaborating with the ex-Nazi commander, Von Richter, in planning a world-dominating conspiracy. The stakes have never been higher, nor the dangers more complex. Bond’s allies―the beautiful, brown-haired Greek agent, Ariadne Alexandrou; along with a tough-as-nails former World War II resistance fighter―are quickly neutralized by the venomous Colonel Sun. Alone and unarmed, faces off against these two nefarious villains.
Stripped of all professional aids, James Bond faces the deadly devices of Colonel Sun and his Nazi cohort in a test that brings him to the verge of his physical abilities.
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books
$25.95
Yes - a terrorist attack on a plane. Finishing on a revelation. A very good opening I thought - especially compared with the plodding opening of Licence Renewed. Gardner could get to the action much quicker in this one.
That's just after the 'PTS' - A captivating atmosphere and really menacing events in this chapter. Another great piece of description from Gardner - the opening 40 pages of the book are actually very intriguing and drew me in. Compare this to the last forty pages of the book which feel as if whole pages have been redacted it jumps around so much. It reads more like an outline or treatment of a final act then the actual finished prose.
Ah I love that bit! Have fun reading!
I read all of Gardner's up til Brokenclaw. Then I gave up. They too often disappointed.
I liked Nobody Lives Forever quite a bit for it's intriguing plot, but all the others were poor to mediocre.
Then you read the best of Gardner's output for that is just about where his quality dropped off in my opinion. The others, as Revelator put it, "dribbled to an end." (Opinions will vary. Case in point: I happen to like quite a lot about his first run of about 8 novels.)
I'm actually looking forward to revisiting Gardner's earlier novels with a fresh mind once the Fleming Bond-a-Thon (+Colonel Sun) concludes. Been long enough. I'm curious to see what I think of them today. My favorite from Gardner, No Deals, Mr. Bond, is the only one I've read at all recently.
Currently, I'm reading Devil May Care for the first time. Novelizations and Young Bonds aside, this is the only continuation novel I haven't read. It's better than I expected it to be so far. Certainly much better than Carte Blanche. Many had decried this as an affront to Fleming himself. Yes, Faulks goes a bit overboard with trying to sound like Fleming, but his prose is still good. And yes, some curious decisions are made with established characters (isn't this true of all continuation authors?) and yes, the book right now is feeling like a FRWL retread, but it has its moments. The tennis match against the villain, for instance, has been a highlight. I can't image the latter half of the book will have me rank it below Carte Blanche, but we'll see.
I did read Devil May Care and didn't like it at all from what I can recall. I remember the villain literally having a Monkey's paw! And I'm sorry but I just cannot see James Bond playing tennis!
The Benson Bonds were marginally better than Gardner's output but not by much. I got rid of all my Gardner and Benson books.
Agreed. Colonel Sun is an incredible achievement in it's closeness to Fleming's writing.
I think Fleming would have loved it!
He is a pretty formidable teenager. I think we are looking at still age 15, around 1935.
Looks like he'll be stirring it up with Russian types.
This developing Young Bond is looking a lot like his future self. He's a good size for 15, tall, strong, skilled fighter (judo at Fettes)
He's much more proactive, than in the earlier Higson books. He has a nose for trouble and a sense of duty, to do the right thing ie stand up to evil, as he encounters it.
He's very much on the secret service radar. His dad appears to have been connected, and his Uncle Max was indeed secret service.
Both are deceased but figure in the back-story to this adventure.
Young Bond has an agent contact within the service.
He's brash and brave, and the girls love him, even the femme fatale types. He kind of keeps them at bay though. He's not into his womanising years yet.
By my count this is the 59th Bond novel.
14 Flemings
1 Amis, 1 Pearson
14 original Gardners
6 original Bensons
7 movie novelizations ( 2 Wood, 2 Gardner, 3 Benson)
5 Higson Young Bonds
3 MP Diaries
The 4 celebrity authors, Faulks, Deaver, Boyd, Horwitz
4 Cole Young Bonds
Horwitz's upcoming 2nd entry should be #60 unless Cole gets another Young Bond out before.
===I am very pleased with this new hardcover.
Ordered from England via Amazon Canada affiliate.
We don't get the Cole Young Bonds here.
The book has a collectable snob appeal.
It ships directly from Blackwell's, located at 48-51 Broad Street, part of Trinity College Oxford no less.
The book comes author signed, with a nice little, "Thank You For Your Order" note from Blackwell's, "For Learning-For Life"
And an official Blackwell's bookmark, with a sketch of the prestigious Trinity College location, and inspired literary quotation from one John Masefield.
I shall keep these materials with the book forevermore - shelved with the rest of my Bond lit collection all 59 volumes, mix of pb & hc
===I must admit living in Canada, it's a real rush to acquire first edition Bond-lit hardcovers from actual English sellers. Oxford based no-less.
The cover price is even in actual UK pounds, 14.99. Awesome!
This is an official England HC from actual England
:)
btw, I didn't order a signed copy. I think it's a case of early bird gets the worm.
He clearly signed a whole bunch of books for certain sellers.
The adult Bond continuation novels are certainly a very mixed bag.
The first (Colonel Sun) and the most recent (Trigger Mortis) are the best, with everything in between varying from good effort (first few Gardners) to what the hell was that (Benson & Deaver).
Ironically it was the efforts - or lack of them - from the acclaimed literati that annoyed PussyNoMore the most. Both Faulks and Boyd are great writers and consequently they raised the expectations of fans the most, only to dash them by producing half backed efforts that would have made Enid Blyton a more appropriate choice. What they were smoking when they scribed their Bonds remains one of the great questions of our time? One can only conclude that they took the wonga and ran!
Ultimately the responsibility for all of this lies with IFP (formerly known as Gildrose) who have, IPNSHO (in PussyNoMore's not so humble opinion) been responsible for the epic mismanagement of one of the world's most valuable literary franchises.
On their watch, the sales of adult Bond continuation novels have gone up and down like a whore's draws and this has to be down to the fact that they had absolutely no idea as to where they want the franchise to go. All of this did, of course, come to a head with the complete belly flop that was Solo. The sales of this stinker were clearly so bad that it shocked even the members of the lucky sperm into severing their ties with the lovies and searching out the more workman like Horowitz to save their, and our, bacon.
Trigger Mortis was a very creditable - if slightly imperfect - start and PussyNoMore thinks his second may well scale the heights and be his FRWL. He will have learnt from his first effort and there is every prospect that he will knock one out of the proverbial park with his new one.
Hopefully IFP will have the good sense to hold onto him!
Grant meets Bond quite late in the novel, and I was afraid that the meeting between these two would be a short one. It was, but the way Fleming writes these pages, suits the story just perfect. Nice bit of change introducing Bond so late in the novel, but i still found myself reading those first ten chapters much faster than the rest of the book, just to get to the part where Bond shows up. Other than that, the book was more or less flawless.
I'm a bit unsure where to rank it, really. I found it better than Moonraker, but not as good as Live and Let Die and Diamonds Are Forever. Possibly equal to Goldfinger.
Would love too, @Birdleson, but I don't have a copy of the novels after Goldfinger, unfortunately. :-(
If I get around to do so while the Book Bondathon is still going, I might join, but something tells me I might not have the time anyway. Enjoying reading the thread, though!
Right now I'm about a third through Diamonds Are Forever, and I'm really digging it so far. Fun to see what bits they kept in the movie, and what things were radically changed.
Rather ironic, given you avatar. It's actually my favourite of all the Bond novels.
Heh, good catch. I'm certainly a fan of the movie Moonraker. :)
I'm not sure why the novel didn't click with me, but that's happened with the movies as well. Some Bond films I loved from my childhood I hated when I watched it again, but came back to appreciating when I saw them yet again. Happened to me with the Moonraker film, actually! It's entirely possible when I re-read the novels in the future I'll enjoy it much more.
Which is utterly wrong ;-) For me Moonraker isn't a very good book (compared to the other entries). I love the way Drax is played out (and his little trick), but it feels too much Biggles, not enough Bond to me (btw I love Biggles).
It certainly is.
My ranking so far (which I'm sure will be controversial):
1. Diamonds Are Forever
2. Live and Let Die
3. Casino Royale
4. Moonraker
The book and movie at first blush are radically different, but when rereading the book, I was startled to see how many actual moments from the book were touched on in the movie
There's plenty of obvious stuff, but
even the pts mudbaths at Blofeld's lair seems inspired by the books mudbath scene where Bond observes the jockey.
It wasn't until the re-read, that I realized Bonds first meeting with Tiffany in the movie, is inspired by the their first meeting in the book, even if the two scenes are quite different, the broad strokes are similar.