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Forever and a Day reviews - Spoilers!

octofingeroctofinger
in Literary 007 Posts: 787
Hello everyone -

Well, now that Horowitz's latest Bond novel, Forever and a Day, is out, it's time for a review thread.

What did you think?

Comments

  • SaintMarkSaintMark
    edited June 2018 Posts: 7,653
    Great read.
  • octofingeroctofinger
    Posts: 787
    I quite liked it, and thought he nailed Fleming's voice well. I had a few minor quibbles, I suppose:

    -I didn't like the stream of consciousness during his heroin high. It felt un-Bondian, to me; I cringed a bit.
    -The book flew by rather quickly, so at the end we're left wondering how to fill some things out. If he'd let the plot breathe just a little bit, I think you could have added some more colour and background without sacrificing too much pace. For instance, why is Scipio such a powerful and feared operator? What's his reach?
    -I thought a few of the plot points were telegraphed a bit. The fire extinguishers, for instance, were just mentioned too many times so that I saw them coming a mile away. Similarly , Reade seemed obviously destined to return at the end and be bent.
    -You could argue that it's a bit by-the-numbers, particularly the visit the casino at Monte Carlo, the femme fatale, and so on. Admittedly, there was a bit of box-ticking. But saying a Bond is somewhat formulaic is hardly a criticism - Bond novels are sort of supposed to be formulaic.

    On the other hand, I really like the way the atmosphere was established early on - this felt like a Bond story. Sixtine was good fun, as was Scipio. The locations were well drawn, and M felt spot-on.

    I've said it before, after Trigger Mortis I think they should've just given him a multi-book deal. Maybe a trilogy? The 'author of the month' approach wasn't working out, and Horowitz clearly gets Bond. Give him some time and space to settle into the role and I think we'd have some great fun.
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I certainly found this more enjoyable than TRIGGER MORTIS, but the things I dislike really bother me a lot. The bits where we get the origin of what have become iconic aspects of the character, "shaken, not stirred" and the Morlands (I know that I'm forgetting at least one other example) feel shoehorned in and awkward. Even worse is the notion that Bond was so impressed and influenced in such prominent and permanent ways by this cliched character that he's only known for a few hours galls me.

    I also thought Bond's first answer to M as too why he wanted to continue with the code name 007 was the most out of character (in relation to Fleming's Bond) thing that I have read the character utter in any continuation novel.

    100% agree with all of this. There was some great stuff in there, but all of this was hackneyed BS.
  • shamanimalshamanimal
    Posts: 623
    I think we're in danger of spoiling things on a technicality. It's a well spun yarn, and I got completely engrossed. I wonder if a new Fleming novel came along, we'd be similarly picky about aspects of the character that didn't fit into our ideal notion of Bond.

    I thought the heroin bit was great, especially when 16 applied the tourniquet, and bled the arm out. Eugh! He really went through it!
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