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Comments
It's 1934. Young Bond is at Fettes. I am guessing he is a strong 15, as he has developed skills. Very good w judo and general hand-to-hand.
Young Bond is aware of the Nazi threat, as are his adult mentors. Based on the timeline, Cole is setting Bond up to be about 20 yrs old, when the war breaks out, and about 34 for his future adventures at Royale Les Eaux, which is about where Fleming had Bond, until he rolled back his age a bit in the later books.
British Intelligence has sworn Bond to secrecy under the official Secrets Act, based on some of his previous adventures. This was established with Higson in By Royal Command, but reminded of again here by Cole.
The intelligence services do have their eyes on YB.
Again Cole is giving us a good sense of the future agent, and YB himself does seem resigned to his inevitable destiny, emboldened even.
He is developing tradecraft, fight skills and smarts, easily putting bullies and other nuisance toughs in their place.
We have a great femme fatale - Miss Axmann, "but you may call me Herta, James". She is deadly and has her eye on Bond.
Lead villain with surname Blade, plus twisted Doctor Whittaker, aka Dr. Hook.
Bad guys are engaged in advanced weapons tech.
"The worst kind of enemy has a new kind of weapon"
What I like about these newer Young Bonds is that Bond is now very self aware. He is proactive, as opposed to the more reactive adolescent (13-14) Bond we met in the Higson YB's.
The future 00 embraces adventure and acts out of a developing sense of responsibility and duty, as opposed to his impetuous nature getting him caught up in things.
Good read this. About halfway thru after only one day.
I have no time to read. The IF novel audiobooks are a great alternative.
overall it wasn't horrible and it wasn't amazing. I can see why fans enjoyed it largely due to it being far better then Solo (at least bond does something in this book) but in terms of overall feel I don't feel it's as good as Fleming or Benson (who is still my personal favorite sorry) and I rank it either equal or just below Amis
I will pick up the next book likely as a hardcover and read it along with everyone else but I don't think Horowitz is amazing he isn't bad and I still dislike the period piece stuff (plus so what now like the films the novels are going to just plow through all the unused fleming stuff for new novels really we can't try something original and new)
Sin is an ok villain his end felt weak though (to action move clichéd in my opinion along with a Schwarzeneggar esque one liner) Jeopardy is slightly bland (Uhm why does she sleep with bond again?)
and I could of gone without the Fan service and home drama of Bond Pussy and the Race Car driver... but over all the novel was good and at least it didn't bore me as much as Solo did.
Easily my favourite Fleming novel. Best villain, best card game and a thoroughly fiendish plot!
Would love to see it adapted for Television as a period piece.
The audiobook narrated by Bill Nighy is worth a listen aswell.
??? Its one of the best. The underwater swim to Mr. Bigs private island is enthralling!
One of the best scenes in the book.
Yes the Pussy stuff was overplayed. Fleshing out Fleming character progression is dicey territory. It need be handled with extreme care.
Looking forward to his next book.
Meanwhile, almost done Strike Lightning.
Bond is battling some bad Nazis.
Herta, icey-hot blonde femme fatale, is a veritable Ilsa She Wolf of the SS.
I'm hoping that maybe she survives, so that future Young adult Bond might engage some war and/or post-war exploits with her.
She is bad bad, but sexy sexy , and she's got a thing for young James.
The femmes, fatale and otherwise, are taking real notice of the brave Young Bond.
Interesting perspective.
Ironically PussyNoMore was a huge Gardner fan before he took up the Bond mantle.
His Boysie Oakes books - particularly Amber Nine and Madrigal - were fantastic and with his Secret Generations trilogy he damn nearly joined the hallowed ranks of Deighton, Fleming and Le Carre.
Unfortunately his output was variable and some of his other work - the dreadful Tory books for example - were second rate.
That withstanding, the excitement was palpable when he was announced as Bond's new custodian but although he did a good job of the detail associated with an '80s re-boot, the books themselves never really scaled the heights and were certainly never in Fleming's league.
PussyNoMore was fortunate to dialogue with Gardner when he returned to the UK from the USA. He was a nice man who was always very generous with his time but he much preferred talking about his own creations and I think he regarded his Bond period as slumming it. Good for the money but fro an artistic perspective he felt that it had limited him.
Nevertheless, I'm enjoying this book more than I could've remembered from eight to nine years ago when I first got my hands on it.
However, one thing I feel is overdone with the literary Bond writing formula. He's using too many French phrases way more than Fleming did.
They are very nice photos, though.
Thanks for your review, @Birdleson. I've had a copy of The Diamond Smugglers since 2000 but have never read it for some reason. Your review has made me want to rectify that and I'll share my thoughts here when I get it read.
I am intrigued to read this!!! Have had a block regarding this book and Thrilling Cities for so long as they weren't Bond books.
Thanks for removing the fog. It's Fleming for crying out loud! The Fleming Bonds that we love so much, resonate Fleming as much as his literary creation.
Truly egregious to have set aside these books for so long, like mere curios.
This will be corrected forthwith.
One of the great oversights of my life. Terrible.
That would make for a very interesting read, and you'd have to imagine just such a collection will find its way to print one day.
With FRWL I read maybe 10-12 pages each night before going to bed. At first I though that reading so little would make it difficult to get into the plot each night, but it's so well written that you just jump straight into the story, as if you've just had a short break before picking the book up again.
I'm still reading part one, so Bond isn't introduced yet. At this point, I don't have any problems with that. Still, it will be good to have Bond introduced into the story, and follow our main character as usual. So far so good; really looking forward to read the rest of the book.