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I am going to complete the collection and then read them all, I am currently reading Roger Moore: My Word Is My Bond, it is a great read and very funny. once I finish that I will be starting Col Sun.
The only one that interests me and sounds half legitimate, would be CS.
Have you read it yet? It's a great book!
You must. It really is very good - by Kingsley Amis writing under the pseudonym Robert Markham. I'm writing something about it called 'The Strange Death of Colonel Sun'.
Enjoy! You've got a lot of good reading ahead of you!
Live And Let Die
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
The Spy Who Loved Me
Octopussy & The Living Daylights
A little light, I'll admit. Casino Royale is one of the best novels I've ever read though - I continued through Fleming's 2nd and 3rd follow up to it a few years back (I remember reading Live and Let Die in the hospital when my first was born; got impatient for the short stories (The Living Daylights was especially fun to read) and I don't remember why The Spy Who Loved Me made it in before any of the other ones, I think I found a cheap copy and pounced. I know a lot of people don't like that one very much but I thought it was very well written.
I recieved Thunderball and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as gifts once upon a time but I kind of want to read the rest in chronological order... We'll see. Haven't gotten back to Fleming in a while because... Well, that first child kept me busy but the second keeps me booked; it's hard to find time to read these days.
If I read the 3 post TMWTGG it gives me time to purchase the others I need to complete the collection and there is a little bit of continuity too.
Kingsley Amis COLONEL SUN
Christopher Wood s JAMES BOND, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
John Gardner s first three, LICENCE RENEWED, FOR SPECIAL SERVICES and ICEBREAKER
Sebastian Faulks DEVIL MAY CARE
Anthony Horowitz TRIGGER MORTIS
Adds up to 19 so far. Only non-Fleming I can recommend of those is Wood s contribution.
Diamonds Are Forever
Casino Royale
Live And Let Die
Octopussy & The Living Daylights
I'm kinda too lazy to read the rest on English, but I might soon.
Here's the breakdown
14 Fleming
14 John Gardner originals
6 Raymond Benson originals
2 Anthony Horowitz
1 Kingsley Amis
1 John Pearson
1 Sebastian Faulks
1 Jeffrey Deaver
1 William Boyd
7 screenplay novelizations (2 Christopher Wood, 2 Gardner, 3 Benson)
9 Young Bond ( 5 Charlie Higson, 4 Steve Cole)
3 Moneypenny Diaries by Samantha Weinberg
60 books: 14 Fleming originals + 46 combined continuation efforts contributed by 12 others.
Of the continuation writers, the most prolific being Gardner with 16 titles followed by
Benson 9
Higson 5
Cole 4
Weinberg 3
Wood 2
Horowitz 2
Amis 1
Pearson 1
Faulks 1
Deaver 1
Boyd 1
Impressive. I will never reach that number.
So at this point well over 40 books. And I want more:-)
Any fan fiction you recommend?
what was the Canadian book like?
The thing is, I am not interested in reading any more Gardner or Horowitz books.
I think you make great points re the comics. I've read exactly one Bond comic Permission To Die, which I must have stumbled across in some store and compulsively bought it, being a Bond fan.
A few posts back, I simply itemized the officially sanctioned Bond novels that have been issued post-Fleming.
The comics though are a different medium. Personally I did enjoy Permission To Die.
The comics are actually on my List of Bond Things To Do, ie buy a whole load of them and go on a big Bond comic reading binge.
I love reading Bond, so I know it will be time well spent.
The Cdn short stories; they're something I've also been thinking about checking out.
Are these worth reading?
Passable fan fiction, that managed to get published?
I don't blame you. All of the continuation stuff requires a level of adaptability, if that word makes sense.
ie none of it comes close to Fleming.
Amis and Pearson IMO come closest, but they had the advantage of being Fleming contemporaries, and both had authored respected published works concerning Fleming and his creation.
Are the other authors worth my time?
I like Horowitz myself, but then again, I've always liked his writing. Him writing Bond is double the joy for me!
I'd say that the first one, Kingsley Amis' Colonel Sun (1968), is an absolute must-read. It's the original one, and also the best of the lot. It probably helps that Amis knew Fleming briefly and was a serious scholar of his Bond work (The James Bond Dossier and The Book of Bond or Every Man His Own 007 both having been published by Jonathan Cape in 1965).
It's also the only other Bond novel beside those of Fleming to have been written and published in the 1960s so that certainly adds to its feel of authenticity. Unlike the modern Bond novels of Faulks, Boyd and Horowitz, Colonel Sun is period set as it was written in the actual period! For me, that makes all the difference.
Colonel Sun has also been used extensively in the Bond films, culminating in the use of its infamous torture scene in the last Bond film Spectre (2015), and it even received a credit to the Amis Literary Estate. That and its authentic 1960s flavour, a great villain and an interesting location and plot mean that Colonel Sun is as near to an honorary Fleming Bond novel as we are ever likely to get! It's therefore very much "the Leader of the Pack" when it comes to the literary Bond continuation novels.