76 replies to this topic

[clinkeroo]

A discussion thread for stories by clinkeroo.

Sad and sleepy, I finished her.

She is rough around the edges, but I'm going to throw her out there anyway.

My apologies if my Spanish is rusty.

My apologies if my English is rusty.

I am so going to hit the pillow now .


To Hell with Her

[Hitch]

Rest easy, Clinkers, she was worth it. As I've said at MI6, I'll never look at furniture in quite the same way ever again.

This must have used up a lot of your brain cells - it slots so neatly into a hitherto unknown period of Bond's life. To Hell With Her is as bleak as they come, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[clinkeroo]

Thanks, Hitch. This one was for you and your challenge, so I'm happy you enjoyed it

I think it may have been rather too bleak, however, for some. There are a lot of reads on the story, but very few comments. For the first time on a Bond fan fiction, this one was more Clink and less Fleming, although I was very careful to tuck it neatly into the events leading up to Fleming's YOLT.

My sentence structure wasn't as strong, nor was my editing, but I think the story in one setting approach did give me the consistent tone and theme I was looking for. You've heard of Method Acting, well, this was Method Writing. I was depressed, I was working with a depressing part of Bond's history, and it came out angst ridden and very pitch . :`(

Which was exactly the way it should have been.

[Joyce Carrington]

Maybe people are so overhwelmed by it they have no words to say about it.

That's pretty much how I felt. Let me assure you once again, Clink, how excellent this was. I think I might just print it out and put it on my bookshelf next to the The Heart Bleeds Ice.

[clinkeroo]

I think I might just print it out and put it on my bookshelf next to the The Heart Bleeds Ice.

Thanks, JC, that is high praise indeed. I just hope that Jim is building up steam for another go at JAK. Thankfully, there are quite a few talented, new voices to fill the void in the FF department.

[Hitch]

Deservedly high praise, Clinkeroo. As for the author of The Heart Bleeds Ice:

JIM - JAK - ASAP (Please)

[clinkeroo]

Damn you again, Hitch.

Driving to work tonight, thinking if I would come up with something to feed Hitch for his Saturday challenge, and this thing jumped into my head.

Now, it's 5 am, and my son's 8th birthday party is in the morning (my son's name is Ian, by the way). Sleepless with a house full of cavorting eight year olds...I'm so screwed .

Hope folks enjoy.

Blood Makes the Grass Grow

[Hitch]

LOL! The Deadline: Midnight Saturday thing (at another site ) is ensuring that Hitch Flu is spreading around the globe, but I think this will be the last one I run. Sorry for ruining your day, Clinkers. Your son's called Ian?

I'm going to use a word to describe Blood Makes The Grass Grow. Can you guess what it is yet? That's right: bleak. Is there something in the water at Clinkeroo Castle that makes you go for the gritty, the raw, the chilly?

I love the line about someone being worth a thousand beach-houses. As for the other character (I'm trying to avoid spoilers); it's so cold of Bond to do the dirty like that. The shot was shocking. And I love the whole concept of blood on the grass.

Don't forget to show Ian how to tie a bow-tie. Black with blue spots should do it.

[Joyce Carrington]

I love the line about someone being worth a thousand beach-houses.

I paused at this sentence as well and read it a couple of times. Wonderful.

Don't ever stop writing these cold things.

[Qwerty]

I loved it, Clink. As like Hitch said, I don't want to give anything away that happens in the stories, but the way you create the story around one such event and then turn it into exactly what Hitch and Joyce said: cold, chilly, gritty, and raw; works wonderfully.

The last few paragraphs are terrific. It's the literary Bond, quite simply.

[spynovelfan]

Oooh, that is cold, Clinkster, as cold as ice.

Lovely stuff, as ever.

[Lazenby880]

'Maybe someday there

[clinkeroo]

You illuminate why some of us are the Transformers to your Thundercats.

Now, wait, Transformers has its merits. I've always been more partial to Thundarr the Barbarian and Gatchaman, however .

There are so many talented voices right now in Bond FF, and we also have the advent of real continuation novels now that lean on a more faithful interpretation of Fleming's man and his time; it is a great moment to be a fan of the literary Bond. When you look back pre-Benson, there was a time where people were frightened to even mention Bond in a story, thinking, rightfully so, that Glidrose would come and thump on them in court.

Mark my words, the literary Bond community is (finally) growing again, and we are all part of it, as readers, as writers, and as Fleming fans. IFP has done a great job of late, both in developing its Bond franchise, and in ignoring the FF that only increases the demand and fan base for their product.

[Icephoenix]

Wonderful stuff as always Clink it's weird to hear Perth mentioned in a Bond story, very surreal. As for the story, I love how he prevented her escape and the eeriness of the last line.

[Harmsway]

Terrific stuff, Clinkeroo, as always. Some of the best Bond fiction around since Fleming. Period.

[terminus]

Very very good - seems like part of a bigger story though, even like the pre-titles of a movie about Bond tracking down the Triad dude who was responsible for ordering Dikko assasinated. And was Dikko assasinated because he had found some secret volcano base filled with buxom women ?

[clinkeroo]

Very very good - seems like part of a bigger story though, even like the pre-titles of a movie about Bond tracking down the Triad dude who was responsible for ordering Dikko assasinated. And was Dikko assasinated because he had found some secret volcano base filled with buxom women ?

Always wondered why they killed him off in the movie. Dramatic effect, I guess. He was too much of a throw-away, sort of like a red shirted crew member on the original Star Trek.

[spynovelfan]

Wasn't it so he could go undercover and re-emerge a few years later as Blofeld?

Did you know that James Bond is justy a codename, and that if you look closely, you can see Timothy Dalton in the background in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN?

[clinkeroo]

Wasn't it so he could go undercover and re-emerge a few years later as Blofeld?

Did you know that James Bond is justy a codename, and that if you look closely, you can see Timothy Dalton in the background in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN?

Not to mention that Ian Fleming is hiding in the background of the train station scene in From Russia With Love , and that Maud Adams has been in every one of the films and most likely ghost wrote John Gardner's Bond novels.

[spynovelfan]

I started reading TO HELL WITH HER last night, but I need to put a bit of time aside for it. Enjoying it immensely so far. Are you on a YOLT kick, by any chance? And, more to the point, I wonder if this wasn't inspired by the episode of SPOOKS where Adam visits the shrink after the death of his wife. I can just see you thinking 'Hmmm. How did Bond react to Tracy's death? Couldn't that be drawn out a little more? There was a head doctor, of sorts, in Fleming...' Some of the language in the scene in the club reminded me of Carter bumping into a burnt out agent. Am I close?

Incidentally, I've had HELL TO PAY in my mind as a Bondish title for years.

[clinkeroo]

I love the semi-trilogy of OHMSS, YOLT, and the first few chapters of TMWTGG. Every time I re-read the Fleming novels, it's always YOLT that gets me going. A few weeks ago I was enjoying the exchange at the beginning of the book between M and Dr. M and it seemed that Fleming had left a huge, interesting gap in Bond's life. I'm sure that Adam's plight spurred things on a bit. I'm a bit behind on my Spooks, though, I have episode nine downloaded but haven't found the time to watch it yet .

[Hawkeye]

Really enjoyed this cold little nugget Clink. Be nice to get a clnkeroo volume of all your shorts put together at some point in the future for the archives.
Hawk

[Quartermaster007]

Excellent....


Nothing much more to say.

[clinkeroo]

Really enjoyed this cold little nugget Clink. Be nice to get a clnkeroo volume of all your shorts put together at some point in the future for the archives.
Hawk

Still planning to, Hawkeye. As long as the mods are game, I'd like to put the five early-80's stories into a set, and maybe an apocrypha with some of these little tidbits in there (stuff like Slow Day for Intelligence, Blood Makes the Grass Grow, and To Hell with Her). The next thing I'd like to do is revise Woman Under Glass, working in some more of Loomis' and spynovelfan's excellent suggestions and corrections, and post it here at CBn. I was never happy with the way it was presented at MI6 .

BTW, did you ever get around to reading any of Richard Hooker's MASH novels?

[Hawkeye]

I have woman under glass from MI6. What was it you disliked about the presentation of it?
Fingers crossed for the Clinkeroo shorts collection. How comes 'The Art of (Cold) War'?


Re: Richard Hooker.
Yep, i bought the first MASH novel following our posts over a year back and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was writing a paper for uni on the film at the time. I love the series most of all, but the movie is great and did a not too bad job with adapting the novel. I've been waiting in vain for the rest of the MASH novels to be reprinted, last word i heard was "under consideration". I'm loath to buy used copies because i'm living in hope for a uniform set of reprints. But yeah, a quality read i'd recommend - it made me laugh out load so that's always a good sign. You've got me all nostalgic for MASH again, think i'll break the dvds out tonight.

[clinkeroo]

I have woman under glass from MI6. What was it you disliked about the presentation of it?
Fingers crossed for the Clinkeroo shorts collection. How comes 'The Art of (Cold) War'?

I shouldn't complain that much because Woman Under Glass was at least published on their site, something that never happened with the rest of the stories from their second anthology...and their third...and soon to be their fourth. They did not publish the revised text of the story which I sent them months before the story actually appeared, instead they published what amounted to a first draft that I submitted to meet deadline. To blurb the story they chose a quote about clip boards and pencils, instead of the action scene that I had submitted for such purposes, and then they never linked to the story. If it hadn't been for Hitch starting up a thread, I don't think anyone would have even noticed that it had gone up. I received three times the feedback here at CBn just linking to the story on Fanfiction.net (BTW, if you read the story, read it there, at least they have the most recent revision posted). CBn has been great to me, and I will not officially submit anything at MI6 again. I still contribute in their FF forums, but that is more about talking with friends and encouraging young authors.

The Art of (Cold) War is a tricky bugger. It is very political, not very complementary of the People's Republic, or of politicians who are willing to sell out their own country for under the table campaign contributions. Fleming and I are of very like minds when it came to politics. The most recent continuation authors have changed Bond into something of a worldview hero, leaving the Cold War killing machine behind; I won't. Fleming didn't see so much in shades of grey, it was more like shades of black . The first chapter will go up relatively soon (I really have to get with Loomis on it to make sure I don't F things up).

Re: Richard Hooker.
Yep, i bought the first MASH novel following our posts over a year back and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was writing a paper for uni on the film at the time. I love the series most of all, but the movie is great and did a not too bad job with adapting the novel. I've been waiting in vain for the rest of the MASH novels to be reprinted, last word i heard was "under consideration". I'm loath to buy used copies because i'm living in hope for a uniform set of reprints. But yeah, a quality read i'd recommend - it made me laugh out load so that's always a good sign. You've got me all nostalgic for MASH again, think i'll break the dvds out tonight.

Hooker was one zany SOB, and the other books are much like very raunchy versions of the old Crosby/Hope "Road" movies. Don't wait, grab those used book store editions before they disappear altogether (I had a hard time doing this back in the 70's when they were still being published, it may be nearly impossible now). Start with MASH Goes to Maine and roll with it. Makes me want to go reread them just thinking about it .

Edited by clinkeroo, 10 November 2005 - 03:47 AM.

[Qwerty]

As long as the mods are game, I'd like to put the five early-80's stories into a set, and maybe an apocrypha with some of these little tidbits in there

I've got about 100 ideas in my head about future fanfiction projects to organize for the mainpage in the future, and your Woman Under Glass is high on the list. Just send me a PM anytime to discuss.

[spynovelfan]

Fleming didn't see so much in shades of grey, it was more like shades of black  .

Great line. I think SHADES OF BLACK would be a better -and much more Flemingesque - title than THE ART OF (COLD) WAR, which sounds a little contrived and unwieldy to my ears.

But don't listen to me, I'm an idiot.

[clinkeroo]

There's this great angle in The Last Temptation of Christ where Satan (at least one can assume it's him, it may have even been God) shows Jesus, while he's on the cross, what his life would have been had he chosen to live the life of a common man. He has an entire, full life with wives, children, a career following in his parent's and people's traditions, growning old, but then, WHAM, he's right back there on that cross in the end, dying.

That concept of a life being lived in a few seconds, made me think of Bond, and how he might have spent that life with Tracy, if he could only hold the moment long enough.

Broken

[Killmaster]

concise, yet draws a vivid picture of "what might have been"... very moving... an excellent job!