Anthony Horowitz's James Bond novel - Trigger Mortis

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Comments

  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Just putting it out there... Is Trigger Mortis available to buy at Bond In Motion?

    If not, there are several shops within walking distance where you can pick up a copy.
  • RC7 wrote: »
    Just putting it out there... Is Trigger Mortis available to buy at Bond In Motion?

    If not, there are several shops within walking distance where you can pick up a copy.

    Great, thank you!
  • eddychaputeddychaput Montreal, Canada
    Posts: 364
    If not, the Bond in Motion needs to fix its multi-platform Bond marketing!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Not read the book, but Fleming says that Bond contemplated becoming a racing driver at one point, so the environment seems appropriate enough for Bond.
  • DoctorNoDoctorNo USA-Maryland
    Posts: 755
    Anthony Horowitz deserves, more than any other continuation writer, to get another book deal. No one else has come this close to IF. Some chapters feel truly inspired, a couple are generic and maybe a couple cliche, but overall a really good edition to JB. I would gladly recommend and include in a series read.

    If he got the opportunity, there's the possibility of Horowitz delivering an even better book and that would be awesome for all JB fans. Flood the Ian Fleming website with email praise!
  • I haven't read all the comments re the new Bond novel, but am I the only one who thinks TRIGGER MORTIS is the worst title in Bond history, films included? Probably appropriate for a Shell Scott paperback or an Austin Powers movie, but Bond? (And there is no shortage of bad titles in the post-Fleming OO7 canon.) How can Ian Fleming Publications, let alone Horowitz, have allowed this to pass? If you didn't know this was Bond would a title like that induce you to read the book or to skip it? For me, the latter.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Shamelady wrote: »
    I haven't read all the comments re the new Bond novel, but am I the only one who thinks TRIGGER MORTIS is the worst title in Bond history, films included? Probably appropriate for a Shell Scott paperback or an Austin Powers movie, but Bond? (And there is no shortage of bad titles in the post-Fleming OO7 canon.) How can Ian Fleming Publications, let alone Horowitz, have allowed this to pass? If you didn't know this was Bond would a title like that induce you to read the book or to skip it? For me, the latter.

    The novel gives it context. I thought it was awful before, but the novel sells it as a title.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    Not read the book, but Fleming says that Bond contemplated becoming a racing driver at one point, so the environment seems appropriate enough for Bond.

    Yes, I believe that that was mentioned by Fleming in Moonraker (1955) and of course Trigger Mortis was partially based on the unused Fleming Bond screen treatment 'Murder on Wheels'. John Gardner also used a racetrack for action scene in his second Bond continuation novel For Special Services (1982). Gardner also develops the car racing connection by mentioning real-life racers in his third Bond novel Icebreaker (1983).
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Not quote done yet, but boy do I hate this Jeopardy Lane.

    Ha ha.
  • Posts: 4,622
    RC7 wrote: »
    Not quote done yet, but boy do I hate this Jeopardy Lane.

    Ha ha.
    Hmmmm.....I'm only at part where they get to NYC. She becomes annoying does she.

    And BTW I do hope Horowitz gets contract for more books. He's as good as we are going to get and I do like having new Bond books to read, except for the Deaver book.
  • Posts: 3,327
    Nearly done with the book now, and I have to say it easily the best novel outside of Fleming. It reads and flows like Fleming, and there are chapters when I am literally gripped, wondering how Bond will escape. I haven't experienced that since Fleming.

    My only gripe is the style and prose isn't as detailed as Fleming in parts, and some of it feels a little sketchy, jumping too quickly, but that at least was very similar to Fleming's short stories. The closest style to one of the Fleming novels is DAF (as someone mentioned earlier).
  • DrShatterhandDrShatterhand Garden of Death, near Belfast
    edited October 2015 Posts: 805
    Delete
  • DrShatterhandDrShatterhand Garden of Death, near Belfast
    edited October 2015 Posts: 805
    My Goldsboro signed first edition finally turned up today. Very nice...now to read it!

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  • BondJasonBond006BondJasonBond006 on fb and ajb
    Posts: 9,020
    What a fabulous orange bookmark and that tablecloth! Marvelous!
  • DrShatterhandDrShatterhand Garden of Death, near Belfast
    Posts: 805
    The orange ribbon and spine backing is part of the Special Edition. I can't take credit (or blame) for the 'table cloth' though :O (it's actually a pouf stool!)
  • Does anyone know if the Black cover Waterstones editions are all sold out yet? I've tried to order an extra copy on-line but no luck. There's people selling them on ebay but they start at £30. Crikey!
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    That orange special edition is a thing of beauty.
  • edited October 2015 Posts: 2,599
    shamanimal wrote: »
    Does anyone know if the Black cover Waterstones editions are all sold out yet? I've tried to order an extra copy on-line but no luck. There's people selling them on ebay but they start at £30. Crikey!

    Don't know, sorry. I almost ordered this when it first hit the Waterstones online store but together with postage it would have cost around 35 pounds to have it shipped to Shanghai where I am currently living so I decided against it. It would be nice to read that Fleming material though. Pity no one wants to take a photo of it and post it in this thread. :)
  • SirHilaryBraySirHilaryBray Scotland
    edited October 2015 Posts: 2,138
    My wife got me a signed 1st run for my birthday, delighted with the addition to my collection. :D
  • Posts: 2,599
    My wife got me a signed 1st run for my birthday, delighted with the addition to my collection. :D

    What a great wife ! You're doing the cooking tonight ! ;)

  • Posts: 632
    Still waiting on my copy from Waterstones. Apparently, they've had issues with the international sorting center, so it'll be another 2-3 weeks before I get a chance to finally read it! Guess I'll press on with Thunderball in the meantime.
  • edited October 2015 Posts: 4,622
    timmer wrote: »
    Another quibble. About two thirds thru. Not finding this a real page turner. I set it down for a while. Got distracted with other stuff.

    Quibble in spoilers for now, as book is still newish
    ......He's missed a key element of the character, I do believe. One that Fleming took effort to portray. ie that Bond does not kill unless he really needs to. This was Fleming's way of humanizing Bond, and making a major distinction between Bond and the thoroughly corrupted-by-evil killers that Bond must deal with.
    At Castle Sin, Horowitz feels need to explain why Bond did not kill the smoking guard, explaining that there were tactical reasons for keeping the guard alive.
    He needn't have bothered. Fleming's Bond would not have killed the guard either, simply because Bond does not kill indiscriminately.
    Sin had not been established as evil yet. Bond was only investigating him at the time. Bond was not even in danger. He was simply trying to find his way upstairs to snoop.
    Killing the guard, just for mission convenience, would not be what Fleming's Bond would do. It's this element which separates Bond from the hardened killers, he has to deal with.
    Bond kills when he needs to. He has a moral compass.
    Bond might have yes, killed the guard during an escape, which is always life and death, or whilst infiltrating the villain lair, in pursuit of deadly mission that needed finishing, with consequences for the world or innocents at stake.
    Fleming's Bond would not have even considered killing the guard, until there was a danger element in play that justified the killing, in which caseBond can be as lethal as any of his enemies.
    I have to take this quibble back. Made sense at the time, however Horowitz takes pains later in the book (Chapter 20) to expand on Bond's killing morality. Turns out he is very much in sync with the Fleming character in this respect.

    Birdleson wrote: »
    She showing up when and how she does makes me not want to finish the last 40 pages of the damned book. It just pulled me right out of it. I am so sick of the movies, and the continuation novels, feeling the need to show us Bond girl's that can "hold their own" with Bond. Get her out of the f@&king way. It feels forced and I do not buy these damn stories to read the adventures of Jeopardy Lane.
    I am not finding her interesting at all. Just kind of meh at this point.
    Still got about 70 pages to go. Pages are turning fine. Will finish today.
    Horowitz has made effort here to work with a Bond formula to some extent. There are familiar elements. Maybe a good tact for a first effort, but going forward I think the trick really is just get the character right. That is most important thing. If that can be done, and he is pretty close, then you have creative license to go off in any direction really.
    He can make these books, Fleming inspired ,Horowitz Bond books.
    That's all we need is the spirit of Fleming infusing the author's own creative vision.
    I would keep references to Fleming's work to a minimum. Yes, a touch here and there, but too much and it gets a little cute.
    No need really to follow formula. Familiar movie elements seem to have crept into the book a bit. The movies are best ignored when penning Bond.
    I think he should take the Gardner approach and really put his own stamp on things, but maybe with more of a Fleming vibe than Gardner had.
    But what worked well with the Gardner books, is that he really did make them his own.

  • Posts: 3,327
    Finished the book yesterday, and definitely the best Bond book I've read outside of Fleming - yes, better than Colonel Sun.

    Still felt it a little sketchy in parts, and some of the words used didn't feel like the kind words Fleming would choose. The last sentence at the end of each chapter didn't really have the flair that Fleming brought, to entice the reader on to the next chapter.

    I also found some of the descriptions during action sequences a little confusing too, not being able to place exactly where Bond is or what is happening.

    Other than that though, the best of the continuation novels so far, and I wouldn't mind if he wrote another one.
  • SirHilaryBraySirHilaryBray Scotland
    Posts: 2,138
    Guys, I also go the Bond By Design Book for my birthday. Have to say it amazing an a must have for any fan. Its RRP is £35.00 however Amazon have it on a discount for £22.75. Wait till you feel the weight of this book!
  • suavejmfsuavejmf Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 5,131
    Yes I have that, it's a good book. One I don't have is 'The Bond Archive' which is on order for Christmas. I'm expecting great things.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,266
    @Birdleson thanks for that thoughtfull review. I still haven't got a copy but I will try this one soon, as I will try Colonel Sun. Due to TDMC and CB I really wasn't willing to risk reading another continuation novel.
  • edited October 2015 Posts: 4,622
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I
    The biggest treat is that this comes out of an original Ian Fleming treatment entitled MURDER ON WHEELS. That was something that I never thought I'd see! Thanks to @Mrcoggins I have the Waterstone Special Edition which reprints photocopies of Fleming's five page treatment. I will be reviewing that short teleplay in the near future on the Originals thread to wind up my Fleming literary retrospective. Those bits were the best in the book, and I really wish the germ of the story (auto racing assassins) had remained the main focus of the novel. And to think, there are four more of those unused treatments being held onto. Someday we may get to read them all.
    Yes this part was very well done. It had an authentic Fleming feel -insinuating Bond briefly into the world of F1 racing. Horowitz ups the ante and pushes boundaries similar to the way Fleming might of, in describing the dangers and intrigue of the world. Fleming liked to sex things up, without going too far off reservation.
    Fleming took us to worlds we didn't have access to, would bring us right in. He'd jazz things up for dramatic, sensationalized effect, whilst seeming to keep things real.
    He had a deft touch that way. Much the way @birdleson describes Fleming's exaggeration of Americanisms.
    I grew up in Toronto, yet when Bond came to Toronto in TSWLM, Fleming made the city more exotic and dangerous that it really is, at least I think so. Maybe Fleming caught a vibe that I never sensed, just being a reglar chump growing up in the suburbs and venturing downtown when need be, but I think the reader appreciates Flemings attempts at making Bond's travels as exotic and stimulating as can be.

  • So after Waterstone's botched my initial order of the black cover one, they offered me free shipping for a normal edition as they were sold out of the black one. They never sent me a tracking number or which courier it was shipped with. After more than month my book finally arrived.

    In closing I'm excited to finally start reading this, but Waterstones is the damn worst bookstore I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. Awful customer service.
  • Posts: 4,622
    @bondboy007 Well least you got a nice collectable which will have lasting value.
    Better than regular HC most of us will pick-up
  • edited October 2015 Posts: 1,661
    Finished reading it a day or so ago.

    Enjoyed it. I thought the third act was a little hard to follow:

    MAJOR SPOILERS - do not look if you've not read the novel!
    Bond's battle on the train and how he destroyed it - a little hard to follow on first reading. Also, and this is a minor thing, I didn't understand how Bond can survive the exploding train, land on the track but it's non-electrified but, conveniently, the track right next to him is electrified so he can dispatch the villain. Wouldn't all the tracks be electrified?

    Page 289:

    "... he had landed awkwardly, his ribs resting on one of the rails."

    I know nothing about trains and how the lines are powered but it was a tad convenient how Bond's rail wasn't electrified but the third rail was!

    The final encounter with the SPECTRE driver seemed a little far fetched. I sort of got the impression the guy was hideously burned - looked like a mummy, covered in bandages :D but somehow he can leave hospital (I assume in a German hospital) and travel all the way to London and find Bond!


    But overall I liked it a lot. The action scenes were done very well - the
    buried alive chapter was one of the most chilling chapters I've ever read in a fiction novel!
    and Horowitz created a detailed James Bond world. All the fine details - clothing, weapons, drink etc - all added to the Ian Fleming type vibe. James Bond's world is very dangerous and Bond is someone you don't want to mess with (!) and Horowitz captured that very well. There were many moments when you saw how Bond had to react, split second decisions which could mean life or death! Loved all of that! You really get the sense James Bond lives his life on borrowed time.

    8 out of 10.
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