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Yup — Casino Royale through From Russia With Love.
NTTD will be released in Oct along with (presumably) TMWTGG, which would be the last of the full Fleming novels.
Something nice to look forward to.
Fingers crossed for YOLT. Which books are we still missing?
YOLT, TMWTGG, and both short story collections.
I'm guessing we get the novels this year and the short story collections next year.
Here's certainly hoping. That would be nice. It deserves its place as a companion to the Fleming canon.
I have a copy and have not read it yet to my shame.
I agree, Colonel Sun would be a good Folio choice.
Correct, they met on at least two occasions. Amis sent Fleming the text of his James Bond Dossier and the two met to discuss it. Eric Jacobs's biography of Amis states that Fleming gave his impressions of the Dossier over lunch at L'Etoile restaurant in Charlotte Street:
Amis went with some misgivings. Although his book was more pro than anti, Amis had pulled Fleming up where he thought he had gone wrong, complaining, for instance, when the Bond books slipped into "the idiom of the novelette." But Fleming wasn't worried about any of that. He had only two complaints to make. Oddjob had been sucked, not blown, out of the pressure-cabin of an aircraft. And there was no St. Andrews Golf Club; the club in question was the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Apart from these, Fleming had no objections or corrections and no quarrel with Amis's critical judgments. (p. 271)
Fleming afterward provided a blurb for the Dossier: "Intelligent, perceptive, and of course to me highly entertaining. The whole jape is quite spiffing and heaven knows what a smart reviewer will do about the book."
Amis and Fleming's second encounter is described in one of Ann Fleming's letters to Evelyn Waugh, dated July 19, 1964:
Kingsley Amis came to dinner; his anger was well concealed, or has perhaps gone in middle age. I suspected he wrote of Ian to further his own sales, but it seemed a genuine admiration, he thinks Ian should write a straight novel.
The reference to "anger" is a joke about Amis's status as one of the "angry young men," a group of artists who shook up the British arts establishment in the 1950s. I wish Fleming had lived long enough to follow Amis's advice!
This personal link between the authors is something that distinguishes Colonel Sun from all the other continuation novels, I think.
Shame on you [-X
It certainly does. Colonel Sun being written in the 1960s helps, as does the fact that Amis and Fleming had met a few times. It gives it much more legitimacy and authenticity than a period set book written after the fact does, as is the current practice of IFP with Faulks, Boyd and Horowitz. Period set novels are often sanitised and rather clunking and obvious with their weaving in of real world happenings. Amis was also a very famous post-war British literary author and brought his own prestige to the role of Bond continuation scribe. He remains to this day the most high-profile author to have ever penned a Bond continuation novel. Amis had of course also written two books on the literary Bond (both published in 1965) so was well qualified to pick things up from where Fleming left off.
In fact, Colonel Sun was listed along with the Fleming novels in either the first or second page (depending on the edition) of the Pan Fleming paperback Bonds. Colonel Sun was of course first printed in paperback form in the UK by Pan Books in 1970. The only other novel to have the unique distinction of being listed along with the Fleming books by Pan was John Pearson's James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 (1973).
I suppose you could also include John Pearson's James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 (1973) as well. Pearson worked under Fleming at the Sunday Times and later wrote the first biography of Fleming, published in 1966. It all depends on your definition of a Bond continuation novel though as Pearson's book was more of a fictionalised biography of Bond than a straight novel. (These were popular in the 1970s. Pearson later wrote a fictional authorised biography of Biggles in 1978 for instance). It's open to debate. The same could also be said for the two Christopher Wood film novelisations from the late 1970s. It's something of a grey area, you could say, with perhaps no definitive answer.
Yes, we certainly can't have that.
I encourage you to read it. Just consider the Pearson book to be set in an alternate continuity/universe. Pearson knew Fleming well, was a good writer, and understood both Bond and Fleming. His book might discount Moonraker but it has plenty of adventures and scenes that recall and supplement Fleming's Bond and even add an extra dimension to the myth. Bond himself gains an extra layer of characterization in Pearson's hands, which can't be said about many other continuation authors.
My understanding is that it directly contradicts parts of Moonraker, but obviously someone who's read it can chime in more accurately.
Yes, I agree about it being odd that it removes Moonraker as a legitimate Bond adventure. Like you I consider it to be the best of the Bond novels. It was also the first one I read. I think one can read the Authorised Biography in tandem with the Fleming novels but it's obviously not canon and doesn't overrule Fleming. Fleming canon should always come first in any dispute with a later work.
I know that deception operations like that were mounted during World War II and the Cold War but if it means cancelling out the best novel in the Bond series by following Pearson then it's obviously a bridge too far!
If Moonraker was the only fictional Bond novel Fleming wrote, he should have written more of them. ;)
I see that sarcasm is still very much alive and well at MI6 Community. :D
I never joke about Die Another Day, Double-Oh Dragonpol. 😐
That's why you're @Some_Kind_Of_Hero! ;)
Must be one of the top 4 books. My money is on YOLT.