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Amis' prequel story


36 replies to this topic

#31 Loomis

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Posted 02 December 2003 - 09:13 PM

Originally posted by zencat

I'm surprised as well, DLib. The only "prequel" story I've ever heard was a movie treatment by Wilson and co in '86 (Cubby nixed the idea and they did TLD instead).

Where exactly did people read this?  


Personally, I read it here. I remember a discussion on this very topic on this site a few months ago.

#32 Cesari

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Posted 08 December 2003 - 08:48 PM

I never read that but the contrary!
I remember an interview (I don't know where?) of Kingsley Amis saying he proposed to Glidrose a book where James Bond would have been in his old ages!!
And Glidrose told him: Never do this again!!!!
Isn't it that story rather than the young James Bond book?

#33 Wilbs

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Posted 11 December 2003 - 08:37 AM

Hard to say.... as I see it, Amis was writing in the mid-sixties. If we take Fleming's obituary for the M.I.A. Bond in "You Only Live Twice" as gospel (always a dangerous thing, of course... the movies never did!), Bond would have been about forty when Amis wrote Colonel Sun. Writing a story about an older Bond then would have required setting it in the future. So I'd say a younger Bond story was more likely.

#34 DLibrasnow

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Posted 11 December 2003 - 01:54 PM

The story I heard was about Amis writing about a younger James Bond.

#35 KHergerscheimer

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Posted 16 December 2003 - 11:00 AM

I've never heard the prequel story. I do remember reading an interview with Amis where he stated that he had an idea for a second Bond novel that concerned Honduras. Unfortunately he didn't provide any other details and Ann Fleming nixed any future Amis books due to their political differences and mutual hatred of each other.

While Colonel Sun is hands down the best post-Fleming Bond, people do get a little too excited about it. It reads a little too much like a convential crime thriller sometimes (too many gun fights and chases). Another myth is that Colonel Sun was actually started by Fleming and finished by Amis. In reality CS is entirely Amis...in fact Amis actually had to finish The Man with the Golden Gun after Fleming's death.

I also recollect some ideas extracted from Fleming's notebook that were considered potential ideas for future Fleming Bond novels, including the title "My Enemy's Enemy" and a villain called Zagros (he actually wrote a paragraph with Zagros and Bond gambling). It would be great to see his notebook published so we can all take a look at his thoughts, nascent ideas, etc. He had already written Golden Gun the previous year and typically he was already plotting his next book so surely there must be some inkling of what the next Bond adventure would have been??

#36 jwheels

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Posted 16 December 2003 - 08:08 PM

I've heard about his prequel story, about Bond in the Navy. I would have loved to read that, I am always interested of what Bond did before he became a double-0.

#37 Hawkeye

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Posted 17 December 2003 - 06:51 PM

I just wish someone out there would show up with a copy of Jenkin's manuscript. Surely some member of his family or circle of friends must be jealously gaurding a dog-eared copy of PFO in some musty basement or Fort Knox filing cabinet somewhere. If we knew who they were at least we could approach them with bribes.

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