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James Bond novelizations
If someone has the Christopher Wood e-books released by Ian Fleming Publications (James Bond and Moonraker and James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me), please send me a PM. Thanks.
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Also, this thread will be toast soon. An FYI.
Sadly most have been closef.
I remember those!
I actually found TSWLM's novelization in a library ages ago. First Bond novel I read, before I read Ian Fleming. All things considered Christopher Wood did a decent job injecting some Fleming elements in a story that was more a scifi extravaganza than anything else. I was actually disappointed when I saw the movie.
Does anyone know the pub dates of both books? I keep finding conflicting info. Does anyone have any definitive proof about which book came first?
Thank you.
@BondFan666, your question was merged with this thread, along with @Dragonpol's answer.
I think that now that Daniel Craig is done, and all of his movies connect, they should write them into one big novel. They could write it Moonraker style, with each movie being the day of week, in style to MR. An author that could write it would be Bruce Feirstein. He's had success with writing Bond movies and video games, why not give him a big book to try? He could even put in Bloodstone, as that's his work as well. I know it would possibly be over 1,000 pages, but the films were successful enough for an average reader to be interested. A great title for it would be Once Upon a Spy.
Here’s a possible controversial opinion: the following Bond media should have gotten novelizations: Roald Dahl writing a YOLT book, someone from EA for NightFire, Bruce Feirstein or Raymond Benson for Everything or Nothing, and Jeffery Deaver or John Logan for Skyfall. These Bond adventures deserved to be in print as well. They would have worked well as books. Raymond Benson has done video game novels after Bond. Bruce Feirstein would work best with his material and we could have gotten another Adult Bond novel in the 6 year gap.
I've consulted the book The Schøyen Collection Ian Fleming and James Bond (Adrian Harrington, 2020) by John Gilbert which I acquired recently. On page 157 it has the following information on the Licence to Kill novelisation:
"Licence to Kill is bibliographically complex; the trade hardback of this title was issued simultaneously in the United Kingdom and America, hence both £sterling and $dollar prices appear on the front flap. The print run was evidently rather small.
The British version of the trade edition was published in April 1989 and has a cancelled title-page; the 'Collector' edition (bound in dark blue cloth) and the 'Signed Limited' edition (bound in burgundy cloth) followed in May, both these cloth versions being printed in America with integral title pages."
Gilbert places the LTK novelisation after the WLOD novel chronologically in this book.
My copy says "First published in Great Britain in 1989 by Coronet Books."
The back of the book as a teaser for the following titles: Scorpius, Role of Honour and Nobody Lives Forever.
The American LTK has an ad for WLD at the back of it. That also seems to indicate that LTK came first.
But most sources suggest WLD came first, including IFP. It's also how Gilbert lists it. I wouldn't think they would be mistaken.
My Win, Lose or Draw hardcover funnily enough doesn't list LTK.
It has the following at the front of the book:
At the back flap it states the following:
"John Gardner is the author of many suspense novels, including the epic Secret Generations trilogy. Win, Lose or Die is his eighth contribution to the James Bond cycle"
I italicized not in the original copy
Wonder why it was called a cycle?
My GE novelization by Boulevard does mention LTK.
My LTK novelization by Charter has an ad for WLD in it and it says Coming Soon.
I would love to find a UK review for WLD which would indicate a pub date.
I have a review of WLOD from the satirical British magazine Private Eye (dated Friday 4 August 1989, page 24) and entitled "Moonraking it in" which I've sent you a copy of.
I notice that the review of the LTK novelisation appeared in issue 20 of 007 Magazine while the review of WLOD appeared in issue 21, suggesting LTK possibly came out before WLOD in the UK. Of course issue 20 was the LTK special so they may have wanted to include the LTK novelisation in it first.
I find it interesting that the flaps of the books don't mention the novelizations. I believe the last novelization was DAD? Why did IFP stop having them happen?
"[The Licence to Kill novelisation] was a one-off idea, and I thought it might be fun. It wasn't. I did it, but I wouldn't want to do it again. I should've known... I started working on it and the screenplay changed daily. I would get phone calls saying "John, scenes 230-235 are out, and new pages are being couried to you." It drove me mad. (Since the time of this interview, Gardner agreed to write the novelisation of GoldenEye, but on his terms. He accepted the assignment on the condition that he have more freedom to "add and subtract" what he wanted and not be held to the screenplay during shooting.)"
This probably explains why the GoldenEye novelisation feels closer to the film than LTK. He didn't have an original novel out in 1995 so, with no deadline from Glidrose/IFP to worry about, maybe he had the freedom to wait until the final script was locked in. Though clearly he wrote it before filming was finished considering Admiral Chuck hasn't been changed from American to Canadian. And maybe that "add and subtract" bit explains why Xenia's red Ferrari is yellow in the book.
This interview does make me think that DC's novels could have been novelizations. Scripts are changing all the time, while the novelization author could have a few original ideas of their own.
I find it ironic that you bring up OHMSS in the OP thread. Originally, it was going to tie back to the mission, with Octopussy wanting to help her with her vendetta against Blofeld and Spectre. She would have been a villain. It still could be a storyline of sorts in the future. As stated above and in the novelizations thread, Octopussy would truly be an interesting choice, that could still be done today. Surprisingly, TMWTGG would be another interesting one to adapt. The author could have more time to build on the interesting ideas in the script that film production didn't.