Do you prefer the 50's or the 60's Fleming novels?

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  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,244
    For me those 'missing bits' (like between his attack and his mission, make the book all the more intreguing. It's like a good friend you've known for years has had an accident, has changed but you really don't know in what way. Still he's setting off on this adventure. It has a desperation to it you seldomly find in literature. Somehow it makes the other scenes, especially the one at the airport, more intense.
  • Posts: 15,106
    Still, I would have love to read Fleming going Orwell on Bond. He could have done this when he had his health.
  • edited July 2017 Posts: 2,914
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Well put, and hard to argue with. But I still find TMWTGG an exciting read. It's sad that those two novels were never faithfully adapted.

    Not so! The Daily Express strip versions of both are faithful to Fleming and superb. In some ways the Express version of TMWTGG even improves on the original.

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,244
    And how do I get my hands on those?
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,244
    ok, thanks!!
  • Samuel001Samuel001 Moderator
    Posts: 13,355
    Has to be the 50's. The genesis of the character and the original world building from Fleming. Each novel as you go further on is an extension, some of which is great, some less so. You've also got seven books versus five.

    I like most of them though. Read them all earlier in the year in two months flat.
  • Posts: 520
    Revelator wrote: »
    Birdleson wrote: »
    Well put, and hard to argue with. But I still find TMWTGG an exciting read. It's sad that those two novels were never faithfully adapted.

    Not so! The Daily Express strip versions of both are faithful to Fleming and superb. In some ways the Express version of TMWTGG even improves on the original.

    Too true, PussyNoMore remembers reading them back in those halcyon days and thinks the
    late great Peter O'Donnell had a hand in at least one. DR. NO peut - etre?
    It's a damn shame that eon didn't use them as storyboards for their movies. Then we'd have had something truly worthwhile on the screen.
    In fact they probably remain the only faithfull visualisation of Fleming's Bond!
  • Posts: 2,914
    Too true, PussyNoMore remembers reading them back in those halcyon days and thinks the late great Peter O'Donnell had a hand in at least one. DR. NO peut - etre?

    That's correct. And Jim Lawrence, who took over with his impressive adaptation of TMWTGG, did an even more impressive job of adapting The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy, neither of which easily lent themselves to the adventure-strip format, into action stories that nevertheless preserved much of Fleming's spirit. EON could have certainly learned something from his example. His adaptation of Colonel Sun is also excellent.
    In fact they probably remain the only faithfull visualisation of Fleming's Bond!

    Exactly. And they will probably remain unrivaled, unless the upcoming graphic novel of CR leads to 13 follow-ups.
  • ChiefTannerChiefTanner Wilmington, DE, USA
    Posts: 34
    I was reading the Risico one last night and I was thinking that while that story I don't think is definitely right to adapt, Mclusky's visuals in those strip totally lend themselves to a cinematic intimate Bond Story. I want so bad to see a 50s or 60s Bond movie in the style of those strips. A real spy story.
  • brinkeguthriebrinkeguthrie Piz Gloria
    Posts: 1,400
    I love 'em all. I first got into 007 with the movies...and I had never read the original novels. Once I did, that was it- far prefer the old novels to most of the films.
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