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I think I missed the covers???
They are not official, i.e. they are not canon. What is Ian Fleming is canon. You may say I'm a purist, but there are worse things to be called.
You are building a strawman and making a false analogy. The films are a different medium and adaptation from the novels as source material. Or extensions of the source material, when not directly adapted from the novels. The continuation novels are an extension of the original Fleming work in the same medium. And thus at best superfluous to the literary Bond.
This review by fellow Montrealer Kevin Burton Smith is about a different continuation from a different universe, but it sums up pretty well what I find wrong about continuators and their work in general: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/non_fiction/r040.html
US: http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Mortis-Anthony-Horowitz/dp/0062395106/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1_har?ie=UTF8&qid=1432997109&sr=8-1&keywords=trigger+mortis+horowitz
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trigger-Mortis-James-Bond-Novel/dp/1409159132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432997266&sr=8-1&keywords=trigger+mortis
So, an adaptation that can possibly bastardize everything the original story stood for is accepted because it's in a different medium; but continuations in the same medium, despite their quality, are to be ignored simply because they're continuations?
It is the nature of movies or any kind of adaptations to potentially bastardize the source material. Like Hemingway said about author's involvements in adaptations of their work, "take the money and run". That does not mean they are all bastardized versions. Just that they stand on a class of their own. Regarding Bond movies, I consider them from different fruits from the same tree. I may add that the best ones are the ones closer to the source material.
And if a continuation novel can be of good quality, then fine. I am skeptical however about the quality of continuations to begin with. Ian Fleming wrote James Bond. Forgive me if I am naive enough to think he understood his character and universe better than anybody else. Maybe understood is not the right word. His instinct was better on the subject than anybody else? I like Horowitz's title so far and some of his ideas are at least interesting. And I have no doubt he genuinely loves Bond. So this one I might actually purchase.
It's not really the nature of an adaptation to bastardize the source material. The nature of the adaptation is to present the source material in a different medium, or pay homage to the source material.
And no one's calling you naive for feeling that Fleming understood his character more than anyone, but you are at least implying that no one else can even understand the character enough to write a good story, and are writing off the continuations solely on the fact that they are continuations, as opposed to judging them on their own merits.
And don't worry, I will judge any book on its merit. I even praise on these forums Christopher Wood on his novelization of TSWLM for having a prose that was somewhat Flemingesque and for injecting some Fleming tone and sensibilities to a story that was so foreign to the source material.
But I will say that in general (NOT ALWAYS) continuations are poor copies of the original material. I also find more commendable a writer who inspired himself from Fleming using his own original creations.
I would prefer Bond in the present context too, Deaver not withstanding.
There is a problem with either approach: Ian Fleming conceived James Bond as a contemporary character, that said if one wants to be close and as faithful as possible to Fleming's Bond he would need to have him live in the time when his original adventures were written... a time Fleming knew well and found his inspiration from. In the meantime, we are not Fleming's contemporaries and neither are the authors of continuations. There is a dimension of temporal exoticism that is added if one decides to write a Bond story as a period piece. Something of course foreign to the original novels, which are contemporary to their author.
And, on a side note, people advocating for Bond novels to be adapted as period pieces (in the series or as TV films) often forget this: because we are not from the time, we have an extra distance between the source material and us. Bond would not only be spy fiction but also pseudo-historical fiction.
I never finished reading Carte Blanche.
The world's most famous spy, James Bond b]Bond is not a spy- K. Amis[/b, has just returned victorious from his showdown with Auric Goldfinger in Fort Knox. By his side is the glamorous and streetwise Pussy Galore, who played no small part in his success. As they settle down in London b]This sounds like what Tiffany Case did after DAF[/b, the odds of Galore taming the debonair bachelor seem slim—but she herself is a creature not so easily caught.
Meanwhile, the struggle for superiority between the Soviet Union and the West is escalating. In an attempt to demonstrate Soviet strength, SMERSH plans to sabotage an international Grand Prix in the hot zone of West Germany. At the Nürburgring Racing Circuit, Bond must play a high-speed game of cat and mouse to stop them, but when he observes a secretive meeting between SMERSH's driver and a notorious Korean millionaire [ Hugo Drax or did he become a millionaire like ESB?]it becomes clear that this is just the infamous organization's opening move.
An orphan of the Korean War, he has a personal reason for wanting to bring America to its knees. [this takes place in 1958, how old is this kid 17, 13?] He's helping SMERSH decisively end the white-hot space race—but how? With the help of an American female agent b]Why? To assuage guilt and to please the PC gods?] [/b], Bond uncovers a plan that leads first to Florida and then to New York City, where a heart-stopping face-off will determine the fate of the West. [[b]Thunderball?[/b
This thriller has all the hallmarks of an original Ian Fleming adventure and features welcome familiar faces, including M and Miss Moneypenny. Horowitz delivers a smooth and seductive narrative of fast cars and beautiful women [Do we get the sex like we got in Col Sun and gambling and does Bond smoke ?], ruthless villains and breathtaking plot that will leave readers hanging until the very end.
It sounds dicey but it may work. Fingers are crossed.
I can't wait!
I did like theGardner novels. Bensons novels could get a little too homagy, but they were still readable Bond modern adventures.
Deavers 2011 book was bad because he had such a dickish approach to the character.
What Horowitz is doing is not new. We've seen this before with both Pearson and Weinberg, who both inserted fresh Bond into the Fleming timeline and I think did a decent job, so the idea can work with good writers.
However there is only so much room to work with, squeezing inbetween the Fleming stories.
I'd like to see another good writer like Gardner pick up Bond in the now, and away we go.
==I do like the description for the new book.
It does hold promise. Still curious as to how AH plans to deal with the no small matter of Pussy avoiding incarceration.
Bond could vouch for her maybe, and get some sort of deal for her.
That's quite possible, although it does seem that Fleming had her on her way to a stay in the klink.
That isn't saying much, though. I'm not a fan of Goldfinger, so i'm not overjoyed with the connections. But I will be adding Trigger Mortis to my collection, however it turns out.
There is a good period of time between CR and LALD that is unaccounted for: in LALD Bond says he's been through many adventures with Felix Leiter. There has to be some mission we don't know about inbetween both novels.
I did enjoy the 14 volume set of fresh Gardner adventures.
not sure how i feel about both covers.. with the exception of the UK cover for Devil May Care, i feel like all the covers for the recent Bond novels since have been fairly mediocre or terrible (both US and UK versions) - and Trigger Mortis is no exception... but if i had to choose between the two, I would probably take the UK version over the US.. the US cover looks like someone raided a stock photo website and just crammed it all together into a messy generic collage - hence, if you removed the title of the book, there is nothing there that would tell you anything of what the story is about - it's just generic Bondian looking images thrown together in something i would best describe as looking very "fan art"... you could interchange that cover with any other previous Bond novel and it wouldn't matter...... while the UK cover is kind of bland as well, it still uses images of rockets, or schematics of rockets, which harkens to the book's plot about the US and Soviet space race..
all things considered though, both covers are still better than the US covers for Carte Blanche and Solo..... *shudders* eww, both were hideous.
Sure it's clichéd, but I don't mind.
Girls, martinis etc I find more appealing than rocket schematics.
Can't go wrong with girls and guns IMO, or maybe for this book, girls posing about on rockets and race cars.
Maybe for the paperback.
That's the only reason I would buy the pb later...if I liked the cover.
In that case though it's a clear gap.
The quality dropped quickly, The same with J Gardner's books fine
Up until No Deals ..... , then got a bit rubbish.
Didn't mind DMC or Carte Blanche but I hated Solo. Although my hopes
Are high for Trigger Mortis, Horowitz is a good solid writer.
The first Gardner book, like Amis, Pearson, Higgins,Weinberg, Faulks, and Boyd, did start off with Bond in real time ie Fleming timeline circa 1981, with Bond still in his '50s hence first book title License Renewed, but as he went along, realizing he had a series, he gave up on the real-timeline idea very quick ( by book 2 I think) and Bond quietly morphed back to 00 agent of indeterminate age.
In fact it seems he got younger, and settled back to proper 00 age. :)
Good set of books. I am planning on ploughing through them again soon, followed by the 6 Bensons.
Most of what's come out since, has been meh.
Gardner and Benson at least got a flow going with the character doing his thing, in the now context.
DMC and Solo, I found readable at least
Adequate efforts, even if Faulks effort seemed a little lazy.
Deaver's book though was an abomination.
No one will ever write Bond like Fleming, because they'd have to bring all his quirky and provocative attitudes along too, and most writers would be too chickenshit (eg. deaver=the anti-fleming)
Fleming was unique. Great writer! Entertaining as hell.
But Gardner and Benson did do decent enough Bond adventures I thought.
Maybe Horowitz can end the dry spell.