164 replies to this topic

[zencat]

Ian Fleming Publications announced today via their website that James Bond will return in Spring 2005 in the first of a new series of novels by Charlie Higson. But the James Bond who will grace this novel will only be 13-years-old..

Main page story HERE.

[JimD]

Are we returning to the vein of the God Awfull 'James Bond Jr'?
If so, are Glidrose on the 'Trying to attract a younger audience' bandwagon?
All in all, not a good idea at all!

[ChandlerBing]

I am picturing Dana Carvey as George HW Bush, saying, "It's bad! It's bad!"

This is a horrible idea, exactly what many of us were fearing. Goddamnit, is this the best they can come up with?

[stromberg]

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...
Beware! The End is near!

[JimD]

This link takes you to a profile of Charlie Higson:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ie_higson.shtml

D'oh.

I've seen him and don't find him funny at all!

[ChandlerBing]

So, does this mean that MGM will hire Freddie Prinze, Jr, to play a young Bond? Will Sarah Michelle Gellar be the Bond girl? Will there be a role for Scooby-Doo, and Shaggy, too?

[JimD]

You're right - MGM will probably try and cash in on the youth market and well and truley knacker the Bond Franchise!

[zencat]

What's IFP thinking? Easy, they're thinking Harry Potter.

I do like that these books will be period, but I've never been crazy about a "Young James Bond." It's been tried twice before and didn't work twice before. But here's hoping this time they do something a little more serious.

From here on out it's a big wait and see.

[Tanger]

I take it this was 'the announcement' we were waiting for for weeks. Very bad idea imo. I can see them selling well amongst young children and they might have some curiousity value to us hardcores but I wanted more novels. Why not just launch something similar instead of a young Bond series? I only pray to God that they don't decide to do any movies from them.

[Icephoenix]

[quote]The first adventure takes James to a remote Scottish castle where a wealthy American has been conducting some very disturbing experiments...

So disturbing, in fact, that Miss Moneypenny stayed up all night reading about them, Mary Goodnight missed her stop on the train and M

[JimD]

It's safe to say that it's a big let down and wasted oppotunity. We could of had a new writer continuing the Novels where Benson left off , but alas, now we have this instead

[Blofeld's Cat]

As it stands at the moment it's a bad idea and I've voted accordingly.

What's IFP thinking? Easy, they're thinking Harry Potter.

I do like that these books will be period, but I've never been crazy about a "Young James Bond."

By making the stories period pieces there's another parallel too, with Young Sherlock Holmes.

[Lancaster]

Not to keen myself. I am very glad that they will be set in the 30's in keeping with the Fleming timeline and in the Fleming sprit. My only problem is - will 9-12 year old want to read books about Bond set in that time and different to the Bond on screen. I would think they would rather an action Bond of modern day. I see 2 books published, at the most, and then the series will die out.

[Grubozaboyschikov]

What's happening to Glidrose? I didn't realize they're THAT greedy and silly.

[Righty007]

Why couldn't they just give us a continuation novel instead of some lame series for children? Can there be a book about James Bond where he doesn't kill, drive, or have sex? This could turn out to be the worst thing to happen to James Bond since the CGI scene in Die Another Day.

[Mister Asterix]

I don

[Dunph]

Hmm, yet another link to Bond and British TV Comedy. Randall & Hopkirk writer, director and producer. SHould be interesting, haven#t read any of his work so i don't know if he's that good a choice to be honest.

I'm going to hold my opinion until I read a few. Interesting though, if VERY risky

[Tanger]

That J. K Rowling rumour seems like it could have some truth. Could she be in line to write one of the books?

[JimD]

I'm starting to wish they hadn't bothered at all - I'd rather have no books than this sham!

[JackChase007]

You know what, if they were also releasing REAL Bond novels simulatenously to be written by another author, I could MAYBE be fine with that. But the fact that they're ridding us of real Bond novels for this crud is terrible. I didn't think that Benson's novels were the greatest in the series, but they were definately enjoyable and worth reading - but now, they're alienating their key audience and fans.

[zencat]

I think the giant mistake IFP is making is in thinking that kids even want to read about a 13-year-old James Bond. I fell in love with Bond when I was a kid watching the old out-of-shape Sean Connery prowling Las Vegas in DAF. I wanted to BE Bond when I grew up. More importantly, Bond movies were a sneak peak into the adult world. I loved prowling the adult world via an adult James Bond. It was a way to see sexy girls in bikinis, a way to drive amazing cars, a way to see the world, learn how to dress, order wine, romance a woman; it was a way to learn to BE A MAN. With a young James Bond, you don't have any of this. A James Bond Jr. would have turned me off then, just as it does now. The essence of Bond is a MAN in charge. A veteran. A professional. How he got that way...who cares?

But, having said all that, I will of course give the books a chance and accept them in the spirt offered. But will they go on the shelf with my Fleming, Gardner, and Benson first editions...or in the closet with my James Bond Jr. paperbacks?

We'll see.

[Turn]

Well, they have talked about wanting their audience to be younger.

Here's my caveat with this -- if these novels are supposed to be set in the 1930s or whenever, it will mean a James Bond who is low-tech or uses the materials of the day and far removed from the element they will be used to. With something like young Indiana Jones, this can be excused.

With Bond, any kids this series is being targeted at are probably familiar with Bond through the movies, particularly the Brosnan ones. Won't they be in for a complete shock when they open up these stories and don't find any gadget-rigged Aston Martins dueling on ice or disappearing? No super-charged boats racing down the Thames?

I hope they read it and become fans, but will they accept a Bond who isn't sporting the latest hardware and doing outrageous things?

[Jim]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

(Which is a stutterer exclaiming fitfully, maniacally, the first syllable of Harry Potter and the Shameless Rip-Off)

Oh dear God.

Well, it might make them a lot of money. But not a lot of credibility. Maybe they aren't too worried about that.

I do hope they examine how little Jamie Bond frae Glencoe became:-

A bigot
A racist
A sixty a day smoker
A misogynist
A murderer
A SM fantasist
A borderline alcoholic
A programmable killing machine corrupted by the demands of a changeable political artifice

because they might be slightly unusual as children's books. I do hope they do that. I do.

Bet they won't.

And wasn't James Bond thrown out of Eton for (basically) shagging a maid? Is that going to be in there?

Bet it'll be son of Q making super-duper things in "the lab" and good-hearted girls from Carshalton Beeches and whizzo prangs and ginger beer, shaken not stirred. "The scent and smoke and sweat of a wendy house become nauseating past your bedtime". Yeech.

Last line of Casino Royale rewritten as "Nurr. Never liked her anyway. Never. She touched my front bottom and she smelled. You smell too. Bum. Wee."

Face it, gang: were this the product of an internetty fanfictioner, you'd all be on here flaming it. This is a very bad idea. I may look back in a couple of years' time and see how wrong I was, when these books are hugely financially successful. I may...

...but in the meantime

KILL THIS NOW

(cough)

[Loomis]

I will of course give the books a chance and accept them in the spirt offered.

I won't. Horrible, horrible, horrible idea.

Still, with Higson's name on the cover there's bound to be a lot of publicity and at least respectable sales, at least in the UK. Which begs the question: can the "Young James Bond" film series be far away?

*Shudder*

Higson's an awesomely talented guy (here in Britain he's perhaps best known as one of the creators and stars of the BBC comedy series "The Fast Show, which I personally find hilarious, although I believe he's published quite a bit of fiction - I remember reading a short story of his a few years back and thinking it was pretty good), although I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I'd ever viewed him as a potential Bond novelist.

Anyhow, on to this nonsensical press release:

"....with meticulous research, he has created an authentic 1930s world for Young James Bond that fits seamlessly with Fleming

[B007GLE]

Wow. I wonder if Glidrose had any idea of the cotnroversy they'd be causing?

(BTW, what the hell is a "Glidrose" anyway?)

I'll state my minority opinion: it isn't abad idea. From a commercial aspect the market is ripe. If it does 5% of the Harry Potter business, Glid..excuse me IFP will make out like bandits.

I think from a promotional stand point it works as well, grooming the fans of tomorrow so to speak.

I'm 40. I was exposed to Bond as a kid beacuse inthe mid-60s he was everywhere: the films, the tv shows, the toys. And I was enthralled with Bond before I ever saw a single film. I had the small Gilbert (or should that be Glibert?) plastic figures and the Corgi cars and they were my favorite toys. That excitement and passion has stayed with me my whole life.

I have an 8 year old son. I've given him my old Bond toys, and shown him some of the films: the one that most appeal to a kid, YOLT, MR, TSWLM, OP, DAD, DAF, he enjoys them but they do not give him the excitement that Harry Potter does.

For IFP to bring along the next generation this series may work.

I'm happy that its a period piece and also that its Bond not a "nephew" who for some reason is called "Jr."

I'll give it a try and let you know if this makes my son into more of a Bond fan.

[Roebuck]

IFP have probably seen the success of Anthony (Foyle

[Brix Bond]

Series? No.

One novel? Yes.

The idea is to all intents and purposes, a good one. Readers of Fleming's novels have only ever had rare glimpses into James Bond's childhood so would a book explaining how he grew up be of any interest? Of course it would! We'll get to read about Bond's parents dying, the incident with the maid and his naval career. These are all things that we've been craving to know. But could these years really be stretched out into a series? Yes, but at what cost to the quality of writing? One novel would surely be enough to cover Bond's early years, else we start to go down Rowling's path where practically nothing happens over 5 books and the previous novels are summarised in the opening paragraphs of their sequels.

I sense that I'm not going to feel at ease with Higson writing about a young James Bond. It's not that he's mainly renowned for comedy, or he's a little known writer, it's just that I want to read what Ian Fleming, James Bond's father, has to say about his "son's" childhood. I'm not comfortable with knowing that another author is making up the origin's of somebody else's character to suit the requirements of an audience Fleming was not catering for. James Bond is not a nice man, Pierce. He's a dirty, womanising killer so I do not feel that these books should be written for a young audience, I would like them to be written for an adult audience, Fleming's target audience. Would the novels have sparked the sexual revolution of the 60s had they been censored to a large degree? Would the novels have even taken off in the first place?

This all boils down to money. Higson is writing so that Glidrose can make money and continue in the lifestyle to which they have become accoustomed, regardless of quality of literature. Fleming set out also to make money but by using his talent as an excellent writer to do so.

But I'm not concerned about the money and corporate greed. I'm saddened by the fact I can't hear about James Bond's roots from the very man who planted them in literary history.

[Genrewriter]

I'm willing to give the first book a shot but I'm with zencat in thinking this is an absolutely wrongheaded idea. Still, it will be interesting to see how they get around the points Jim made.

[TGO]

Wow. How is James Bond going to be any fun without sex or violence. And why would IFP think children would be interested in Bond when he was a kid. I mean, part of his appeal is that this is a man who gets all the girls, kills the villians, saves the world, and is witty. Really, what IFP should do, is promote the Bond books, which no one, besides hardcore fans seems to know exists. I mean, we have these newly published Fleming reprints, with beautiful covers, and know one knows they exists besides us. Exploit the movie angle...Sean Connery pictures...what ever works, just get the books out there.