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Had to do a little research on that Solo cover. Found a nice little interview with designer Suzanne Dean – who also worked on the Vintage Classics re-issues. Some interesting points regarding Solo:
«What was your inspiration for the Solo book jacket artwork?»
“worked on the hardback edition of Solo. It was set in 1969, so like the classics, I wanted to achieve a period feel while ensuring the book still felt fresh and contemporary.”
Any chance she'll do the cover design this time around? So much to take from these two little paragraphs regarding the creative process. Just what a Bond fan would like to hear. Hopefully they will think in the same lines for Forever and a Day!
Suzanne Dean certainly succeeded in achieving a period feel whilst being fresh and contemporary. PussyNoMore thinks that she took some styling cues from Hawkey’s iconic PAN ‘Thunderball’ cover. No bad place to go for inspiration and her return could well be a positive thing.
As the variations in post Chopping first edition U.K. cover art, has most Bondologists book shelves looking like a ‘diner des chiens’,uniformity going forward probably has little value.
In this scenario, they may as well give each designer the creative freedom to try and make each event new, different and better.
PussyNoMore is holding his breath!
I'm guessing a character will say something like
Cue groans from the reader! :P
There is a noticeable sense of inspiration there, yes. She also made no effort to hide the inspiration they took from Saul Bass (even more for the Vintage Classics re-issues, by the look of it). Just great to see designers being so completely open about their inspirations in an interview setting.
Will be interesting to see how they go about designing this one. We're talking early fifties, a French setting (one would imagine?), and possibly Bond at a casino – by looking at that teaser cover. Wonder if Horowitz himself as anything to say, as well.
Regarding the title: Didn't Horowitz write in a comment that coming up with a title was the most difficult part of writing Bond? Will have to wait until I read the book before judging the title as good, bad or just OK.
I might have been mistaken; think I read somewhere that the novel takes place not long before CR? Maybe that was just a comment speculating if this was the case – and not necessarily established to be so.
PussyNoMore can't remember Fleming ever specifying that. He was always ambiguous about the timing - in any event PNM doubt's that Horowitz would mess with Fleming's Bond chronology.
A good bet for the year may be 1950 but perhaps we should open a book on it ?
That's what I thought too. Strange. Bond was seconded into the British Secret Service from the Royal Navy.
Sorry but PussyNoMore does not think that these events would have to have taken place during the war. That is an assumption.
It could be that he earned his two kills during the war but wasn't made a 00 until the late 40s/early 50s. I think two kills (sanctioned assassinations as well, I doubt self defence counts) is just a sort of minimum requirement. Makes you eligible but there's a lot more training and tests before you actually get promoted.
Absolutely and the reference to both could have been within a cold war context.
PussyNoMore has confidence that Horowitz will play this well.
There is sufficient ambiguity in Fleming's Bond history to allow for creative latitude.
How else do you explain the second job? Quotes below from Casino Royale (1953):
'The next time in Stockholm wasn't so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He'd managed to get two of our men captured - probably bumped off for all I know.'
This has to be occurring in a World War II context surely? Note it's the Germans, not the Russians.
And Bond did get his Double-O status directly after these two assassinations:
'For those two jobs I was awarded a Double O number in the Service.'
You can't argue with the facts. They're there in black and white. Speculation is not enough. Where's the evidence it took place during the Cold War? I don't see any in the passage quoted above.
But maybe it's not so clear either way, since it was brought up here. To be honest I never thought it was in question.
Still doesn't mean an instant promotion though. They said in the extract on the website that they'd been preparing him. Could be that after those two kills he was selected and some sort of training process started, taking us post World War 2, and then when 007 is killed they're forced to move things forward earlier than planned.
I'm talking about the original Fleming novel, not the 2006 CR film website though.
I'm not on about that, I was talking about the extract on the site for Forever And a Day. It says they'd been preparing Bond. It could be that his two kills did get him selected as CR states, but the training/preparation process could have taken a couple of years, meaning WW2 is over by the time he actually becomes 007.
Oh, sorry. I'm sure Horowitz will have some way of explaining it in his new novel.
Chapter 9 - The Game is Baccarat
Chapter 20 - The Nature of Evil
So regarding the Japanese, I don't think they maintained a consulate in NYC during wartime (meaning from around December 1941 and after). I also doubt England would send a Royal Navy officer on an assassination job to the US during the war. A colleague from our organization in New York I take to be an MI6 counterpart.
Where Bond references "Service", it's the same Service and that's MI6.
From Bond's obituary in You Only Live Twice.
Chapter 21 - Obit.
I agree most with this. I think we’ll learn a lot from FAAD and because of that I’m very excited.
Perhaps he was awarded the number but it took some time before he was able to use it.
Quizas. We find out in May.
You're correct on both counts, but it's also possible Fleming was either mistaken or intentionally bending the truth for dramatic purposes.
I favor a WWII time period for both kills because they make more sense in that context. The Japanese cipher expert would have been endangering Britain's war effort, whereas after WWII Japan was under American occupation and its intelligent services were either defunct or under American control. So the Japanese expert is more plausible and threatening as a wartime figure.
The Norwegian doubling for the Germans is less clear-cut, but since Germany was occupied by the Allies and Soviets up to 1955 and thereafter divided, it makes more sense that Bond's direct reference to Germans refers to Germany when it was whole and even more dangerous.
True, but I think Fleming would have done a better of this if Bond's victims had been Russian or from Eastern Bloc countries, rather than linked to Germany and Japan, the bad guys of WWII. It should also be said that CR was published in 1953, just 8 years after the war, and is still haunted by that conflict, as shown in Bond's conversation with the one-armed Frenchman. Bond is a Cold Warrior forged in the furnace of the Hot War, which makes him more formidable and battle-tested.
Given that CR is set in 1952, albeit Fleming did save publication until PussyNoMore’s birth year, the Pussy’s wonga is on a 1950/51 setting for FAAD.
Hopefully we will see Bond’s Bentley roaring through France to the Cote d’Azur when it was at its most glamorous.
Again, haven't been following too closely, will accept being corrected if I'm wrong.
Pussy's understanding is that like "Murder On Wheels", the original material is sourced from the stories that Fleming wrote for the aborted TV project.
Maybe it will be Fleming himself who enunciates on Bond's appointment to the OO section ?
Now that would be interesting !
PussyNoMore is excited.
Been thinking that may be a possibility, too.
Regarding what year the story takes place; one could maybe just ask the author on Twitter…?