It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Mon Dieu, Agent_99 PussyNoMore missed you !
Still, a good evening. Horowitz was very generous with his time.
The Pussy is half way through the epistle and will post his definitive (spoiler free) view shortly.
Waterstones got in touch regarding my delivery address registration issue, and I finally got the opportunity to place an order for a signed copy. Nice!
Firstly, he considers Bond much more difficult to do than Sherlock Holmes. Principally because Conan Doyle’s style is more structured and formulaic and you are telling the story through Watson. Fleming, on the other hand, he considers to be just a fabulous writer whose standard is so difficult to match.
Secondly, he was asked the perennial question about setting a Bond novel in modern times. He responded by saying that he considered a contemporary literary Bond to be completely irrelevant to today and that he should be kept in period. He also went on to say that it would be fabulous if Netflix would do faithful period interpretations of Fleming’s work as period set in their time (clearly he is a man of consummate good taste).
Last but by no means least, he confirmed that he will be doing another Holmes book. With regards to Bond he said it would be down to IFP to ask and suggested that obviously the success of FAAD would be a factor.
PussyNoMore is 70% through the epistle and if he was IFP he would be camping outside Horowitz’s front door right now with a contract and pen at the ready !
I was reminded of this at the talk, because Horowitz made it very clear that he as an author wanted to take a back seat to Bond and Fleming, and in fact his aim was to entice new readers towards Ian Fleming's books.
What a lovely speaker and person he is - warm, witty, clever and enthusiastic. (I'd expect no less from a Tintin fan.)
I especially liked the way he involved the two sign language interpreters, who were taking turns and doing a really good job (seeing one of them sign 'the bit in The Spy Who Loved Me where the parachute opens and it's a Union Jack' was an absolute highlight of the evening).
I even managed to put my hand up and ask a question, which I'm usually too shy to do. It was "Who do you picture when you're writing Bond?" and the answer was "Sean Connery, because of the age I am."
There was a long signing queue, but everyone got a nice conversation at the signing table. I told him that (1) I like Trigger Mortis more than Colonel Sun (2) the first Bond novel I read was the same as his: Dr No in the film tie-in cover, and I think he appreciated both these facts.
He not only signed the hardbacks I'd been lugging around a humid London all day, but my FAAD-branded takeaway coffee cup from Waterstones (I asked them for an extra, explaining that otherwise I would have to keep an unhygienic coffee-stained one in my home forever).
Sorry I missed @PussyNoMore again - I did manage to meet up with @mybudgetbond and there was much speculation as to what this man of mystery might look like.
When last I checked, my copy of FAAD from Waterstones has made it as far as Chicago and should reach Austin by Tuesday if the tracking is to be believed. That gives me just a few short days to finish my Thunderball reread!
Anyone seen this? Nice promotional items!
https://www.waterstones.com/book/forever-and-a-day/anthony-horowitz/9781785174438
Thanks, @Birdleson. I see it has a 'Special Editions' tab at the right hand side of the webpage. I'll order that one come pay day later in the week then! :)
Yes, the signed edition has the extra bits with Horowitz introducing the Fleming material plus the two Fleming pages. Also the page edges of the book are done in yellow.
I know this because I bought the Waterstones sedition today. After already getting the ordinary edition.
Incidently the signed edition had £4 off in the shop.
Yes, certainly. as you say, it is the main attraction before anything else! I only wish I hadn't been so tardy and ordered it earlier from the Waterstones website! Oh, well. At least I have the paperback edition.
Dear fellow Bondonians,
PussyNoMore has finished ‘Forever And A Day’ and is pleased to publish his spoiler free review.
Before he says what he’s going to say, there is an important caveat.
FAAD has to be seen within the context of the poisoned chalice that continuation writing actually is. There are simply too many constituencies to please. You have the estate, who want the maximum bucks for their buck. The film fans who want you to mimick the silliness of the overblown movies. The publisher that wants to appease their corporate masters. New readers, who simply want a good thriller. And, perhaps must demanding of all, the literary aficionados who haunt this end of this hallowed cyber hall. Who, without hesitation, will flay you to within an inch of your life with an elephant’s foreskin if you put a foot wrong. Messrs Faulks, Deaver and Boyd all bare the scares and can all testify to this phenomena.
With the weight of all of this on his shoulders, Horowitz has delivered a triumph albeit a slightly flawed one.
By writing a prequel to Casino Royale, he has freed himself from the constraints of Fleming’s canon and has given himself the creative space needed to deliver something truly worthy of the master.
The early chapters in particular are simply brilliant. He walks in Fleming’s footsteps with real grace and elegance as we learn how Bond became 007. For ‘The Pussy’, this is the strongest part of the book and the chapter titled ‘Strawberry Moon’ is simply off the Richter scale.
The rest of the novel doesn’t quite hold to the same high standard but Horowitz does deliver a ripping yarn, that has a decent plot and which has some interesting characters.
One the love interest, Madame Sixteen, is exceptionally well drawn. By making her a strong woman with a war experience, Horowitz manages to deliver some glamour without falling foul of the #metoo brigade. Sixteen plays an interesting role in the whole story.
The villains are, as you would expect, suitably grotesque and the main baddie, Scipio, is particularly disgusting and will probably displease those with a weight problem. That said, he had this reader cheering him on to comit ever more dastardly deeds and the fact that he can only communicate through a translator makes him refreshingly different and extremely Flemingesque. The master will be smiling.
Location in a Bond novel is key and this one hops between London, Sweden and France with the cote d’azur being the main destination and it works well. Horowitz does a good job at restoring all the glamour that it had in the ‘50s before the developers went berserk.
The action, when it comes is well done and is clearly a forte of Horowitz. You find yourself turning the pages at machine gun speed and it’s all very exciting.
Something that Horowitz also does well in this prequel is to flesh out Fleming’s sketchy outline of pre-Casino Royale 007. He also takes ownership of some tropes such as how Bond came to smoke Morland cigarettes and drink his famous Martini. All nice Bondonian touches that will be loved by the cognoscenti.
So, great story, great location, great characters, great action. It must be the Holy Grail ?
Well, nearly but there are a some minor flaws:
First off, some of the dialogue is a little clunky and would have benefited from tighter editing.
Secondly, although Horowitz does action well, some of it is a bit ‘Boy’s Own’. He should have stuck with the adult tone that he demonstrated in the ‘Strawberry Moon’ chapter. He should have kept it dark. It all went a bit filmic at some points. He should have remember he was writing early noir Bond not Alex Ryder.
Thirdly, he doesn’t do sex hardly at all. Fleming’s writing was actually quite erotic. There are no nipple stiffening moments here and The Pussy misses this because it added a little frisson. Fleming was never pornagraphic but he was erotic and this element is missing from Horowitz’s writing.
Lastly, there is a much touted end “twist” which is frankly so obvious that The Pussy got it in the first fifty pages.
That said, these are small things and in the round, ‘Forever And A Day’ is a great read. It is better than ‘Trigger Mortis’ and is the best continuation novel since ‘Colonel Sun’.
Will it please all of the different constituencies?
Well, the estate will make a bomb. The film fans that read will probably wonder where Daniel Craig is and why isn’t it set in the present day but beyond that, there is probably enough crash, bang, wallop to keep them happy. The Managing Director of Cape will probably get promoted, new readers should love it. It has the verve of Fleming and the elan of a modern thriller. As for the aficionados, well there will inevitably be some nit picking and some will say it’s not Fleming. But that is pretty obvious because he is dead but if they are looking for his ghost, he’s alive and well and he’s just written Forever And A Day.
Indeed, it is good enough to get ‘The Wizard’ to set aside his Jackie omnibus.
PussyNoMore thinks IFP should be camped outside Horowitz’s front door now with a contract for a third.
Read and enjoy.
Kind Regards,
PussyNoMore.
“007 Forever. Politically Correct Never”
I've been doing the same thing and haven't had that issue at all. There's a slight mention of a previous mission maybe once or twice, if that, in each novel, so once you put one down it's best to forget the other characters and start fresh.
I try and do at least 20 pages a day if I can manage, but usually when I get to the end of one of these I can't help myself and I'm dying to know how the last 60-80 pages go as things accelerate further and further. On weekends I'm bound to go through an entire book, or at least a huge chunk of one. Think I did about 150 pages of DAF yesterday, going to wrap it up tonight.
That's they way I've usually been reading books, but lately the need for reading big chunks each night just hasn't been there. Now I find it just OK reading whatever amount of pages I'll manage before feeling tired, and continue the next night. Will probably go back to the usual reading habits during the summer, when I (hopefully) will have more time for reading.
Oh, I definitely know that feeling! I've been where you just don't feel the desire to read a book for ever so long. My way of avoiding that is to read just a couple of books, then stop for a few weeks or a month or so - before getting into reading again. It's like with everything else - too much of it, and you'll grow tired eventually.
No doubt, I think that's going to be my plan. My only fear with that is pausing for a few weeks to a month sometimes translates to two months, then four months, then boom, before I know it it's been a year and I've slacked off irreversibly and not read a thing. Hoping I don't fall into that pattern again.
Way to easy to fall into that pattern, that's for sure! Helps to have a few books you really look forward to reading, though! I'm reading Dr. No now, but already know I have Forever and a Day, as well as the latest from John le Carré, A Legacy of Spies, to look forward to. That's all the books I've planned on reading this year. Any other books will be a bonus.
How many books is that in total?