Jump to content


This is a read only archive of the old forums
The new CBn forums are located at https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/

 
Photo

Do you think Jeffrey Deaver did Bond justice?


106 replies to this topic

#61 Santa

Santa

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 6445 posts
  • Location:Valencia

Posted 09 August 2011 - 07:04 PM

I don't like my Bond to be a bastard.

I don't think Bond usually is a bastard. More of a realist.

he still womanizes

Being a womaniser doesn't automatically make someone a bastard. Bond of old is a womaniser but he doesn't mislead these women, he's just doing what comes naturally.

You and I see Bond's treatment of women completely differently. I wouldn't say he's too nice to women in CB, that's not my issue so much as his lack of, well, perspicaciousness. He's led around by his hormones and is completely indiscriminating. If it's female, he'll sleep with it. He's like a teenage boy (sorry, Matt :cooltongue: ). I can almost see Bond's tongue hanging out every time Deaver introduces a female character. It's not attractive. And let's be honest, at least one of them was bound to be a villainess, that bit was all too predictable. Oh and I do realise Fleming's Bond did a fair amount of shagging but I at least got the impression of chemistry between the characters. Deaver's Bond has about as much chemistry with these women as I do with a used bin bag.

#62 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 09 August 2011 - 08:32 PM

I must - really must - return to this thread. Only right at the moment I happen to be occupied. I trust I will have more time for an adequate post tomorrow.

#63 Matt_13

Matt_13

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5969 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 10 August 2011 - 01:00 AM


I don't like my Bond to be a bastard.

I don't think Bond usually is a bastard. More of a realist.

he still womanizes

Being a womaniser doesn't automatically make someone a bastard. Bond of old is a womaniser but he doesn't mislead these women, he's just doing what comes naturally.

You and I see Bond's treatment of women completely differently. I wouldn't say he's too nice to women in CB, that's not my issue so much as his lack of, well, perspicaciousness. He's led around by his hormones and is completely indiscriminating. If it's female, he'll sleep with it. He's like a teenage boy (sorry, Matt :cooltongue: ). I can almost see Bond's tongue hanging out every time Deaver introduces a female character. It's not attractive. And let's be honest, at least one of them was bound to be a villainess, that bit was all too predictable. Oh and I do realise Fleming's Bond did a fair amount of shagging but I at least got the impression of chemistry between the characters. Deaver's Bond has about as much chemistry with these women as I do with a used bin bag.


:D No shots below the waist! And just so you know, I turn 21 next month. I expect a card. :P

Right, I'd argue that Deaver's handling of Maidenstone and Bond's relationship is the best characterization in the novel, and best demonstrates how the character's interaction with women has been modernized and (I argue) softened from the more...pragmatic tendencies of Fleming's Bond. It could just be the way I visualized the interaction, but I found the subtle longing between the two refreshing, in that yes, he wants to sleep with her, but there are hints that he sees her as more than just a piece of meat (similar tastes, a common attitude toward the opposite sex, etc). Not that Fleming crafted his female characters to be one dimensional, sedentary shag vessels; on the contrary, they were often times emotionally fragile, damaged individuals toward whom Bond felt genuine attraction and longing. The difference for me, though, is that Deaver infused Philly with the background of just having ended a relationship with another man, and was as such vulnerable. I'd argue that Fleming's Bond or just about any other continuation author's Bond would have taken advantage of her. This one doesn't. As I mentioned, he even experiences a pang of guilt, despite not actually committing an act of infidelity. Yes, he ogles Jordaan the first time he sees her, and (though I don't really remember) I'm sure he undresses Felicity with his eyes, too, before actually getting the opportunity to undress her himself. Perhaps it's the different language used by Fleming and Deaver that has given me this impression, but Bond isn't nearly as callous toward his female companions in Deaver's book as seen in Fleming. Perhaps I need to revisit Ian's work, but my reading always gave me the impression that Bond saw little value in women outside of what they could provide in the bedroom (I guess that's how I characterize "womanizing," though in retrospect I think it's called male chauvinism). The one thing I'm not clear on is what you mean by Fleming's character never misleading women. Oh, and I learned a new word (perspicacious), so thank you. :D

#64 Santa

Santa

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 6445 posts
  • Location:Valencia

Posted 10 August 2011 - 06:41 AM

And just so you know, I turn 21 next month

I can't believe it :o

Right, I'd argue that Deaver's handling of Maidenstone and Bond's relationship is the best characterization in the novel, and best demonstrates how the character's interaction with women has been modernized and (I argue) softened from the more...pragmatic tendencies of Fleming's Bond. It could just be the way I visualized the interaction, but I found the subtle longing between the two refreshing, in that yes, he wants to sleep with her, but there are hints that he sees her as more than just a piece of meat (similar tastes, a common attitude toward the opposite sex, etc). Not that Fleming crafted his female characters to be one dimensional, sedentary shag vessels; on the contrary, they were often times emotionally fragile, damaged individuals toward whom Bond felt genuine attraction and longing. The difference for me, though, is that Deaver infused Philly with the background of just having ended a relationship with another man, and was as such vulnerable. I'd argue that Fleming's Bond or just about any other continuation author's Bond would have taken advantage of her. This one doesn't. As I mentioned, he even experiences a pang of guilt, despite not actually committing an act of infidelity. Yes, he ogles Jordaan the first time he sees her, and (though I don't really remember) I'm sure he undresses Felicity with his eyes, too, before actually getting the opportunity to undress her himself. Perhaps it's the different language used by Fleming and Deaver that has given me this impression, but Bond isn't nearly as callous toward his female companions in Deaver's book as seen in Fleming. Perhaps I need to revisit Ian's work, but my reading always gave me the impression that Bond saw little value in women outside of what they could provide in the bedroom (I guess that's how I characterize "womanizing," though in retrospect I think it's called male chauvinism). The one thing I'm not clear on is what you mean by Fleming's character never misleading women. Oh, and I learned a new word (perspicacious), so thank you. :D

You're welcome :) . Problem is, I'm not sure I believe in Bond as written by Deaver. I can't take seriously any 'real' feelings towards Maidenstone. I find him one-dimensional, a bit shallow (and probably not that good in bed...). As far as Fleming goes, I find Bond often as vulnerable as the women, just in a different way. I'm sure he sees them as more than a bedroom toy, he just doesn't dare fall prey to his finer feelings most of the time. He might treat most of them as one-nighters but doesn't promise any more than that. Promising the world to get in their knickers and then dumping each one for the next, that's a bastard womaniser.

#65 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 10 August 2011 - 01:05 PM

I must credit myself with starting at least one of the many discussions on the motivations of the 'New Age' cinematic Bond, and so I completely understand this need to understand the 'New Age' literary Bond's motivation. And, in a sense, I do feel Deaver's Bond comes across, in a professional sense, as being pretty much the same as Fleming's Bond, albeit updated to the modern day...in that, Bond is portrayed as being the consummate professional first and foremost.


Can't entirely agree with the 'professional' label there. The amount of Bond's professionalism in the books for a large part depends on the amount of Fleming's professionalism in a respective field (or the expertise he could recruit during writing). Which frankly wasn't all that pronounced. As a journalist Fleming used to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. He noted with great interest the oddest detail about something that interested him but could remain perfectly ignorant of those details that didn't. Bond often seems to mirror this. He's the best shot in the Secret Service, both with handguns and rifles. Yet there is seldom a mention of projectile trajectory or the influence of windage and ammunition on that trajectory. That's not to say Fleming necessarily wasn't aware of such things, he may have just not been interested in them or have decided that his readers wouldn't be and so just omitted them. But that Bond sets out to kill a man and his armed and dangerous bodyguards with a rifle he didn't test himself is completely out of the question for any professional sniper, a thing simply beyond belief but fitting into the picture nontheless. Fleming just wasn't a sniper, how would he have known?

But that's not exactly what I meant to point out, even though it is part of it to some extent. Bond is also an odd customer within his own service. By the time of MR Fleming had decided to give his background some detail and uses Bond's office routine to achieve this goal. We read that between the odd shooting exercise and close quarters combat lesson in the basement Bond has to work his way through a pile of files and memos, an unlikely mixture of 'Philopon - A Japanese murder-drug', 'Vladivostock - A photographic Reconnaissance by US Thunderjet' and 'Route five to Pekin'. All that reads remarkably authentic and convincing - until the question comes up if it's really a good idea to stuff all kinds of confidential and secret material inside the head of an agent whose very job it is to face the opposition. The details of route five to Pekin or the Vladivostok material must be terribly interesting for the Russian agents capturing Bond, and much more so for Moscow Centre.

What Fleming here did was simply to make up a version of the stuff he himself saw across his desk as DNI's assistant during WWII. In that function he came across many different and obscure details of the war effort and the intelligence side of things. But Fleming never was supposed to fight the enemy himself, he was much too valuable for that and knew too many secrets to risk him falling into the hands of the Nazi Gestapo. Fleming was a desk soldier and even if he was issued a Beretta or a Webley or a Colt, nobody expected him to shoot the thing. Fleming knew many men and women whose duty was exactly that, he was involved in their training and in plotting some of the operations of these men and women. But he wasn't an agent himself and knew little of their routines and what he knew he decided didn't fit his hero.

Consequently Bond is not supposed to act on his office reading. His entire job routine between assignments consists of shooting matches with the arms instructor, wrestling and punching with a retired Commando and shoving the files he's read from his desk to his colleague's. Seen this way Bond is not really related to the Service's daily routines and tasks, much less would he be interested in them. Bond in effect really is a relic, not from the Cold War but from WWII, from his SOE and Commando forebears, and his job isn't intelligence gathering as such but counter-intelligence in the crudest possible sense.

Bond's remarkable innocence in intelligence affairs is illustrated in FRWL - Bond's adventure that comes closest to spying and a traditional SIS operation. The way he worries about whether he will be able to 'perform' with Tanja betrays a basic unfamiliarity with a fundamental technique of intelligence gathering. In the end Bond was lucky that SMERSH didn't drop Tanja from the picture and send Klebb herself, she would have been a much more tempting bait for M.

But that's not all that indicates a strangely withdrawn and amateurish mindset on Bond's side. He also is nearly completely unconcerned about using his own name, shows neither an awareness of active and passive surveillance methods nor a concept to work under such conditions and avoid them. Even his method to tell if his room has been searched is somewhat amateurish, for it betrays him as laying these traps, thus confirming his dubious status and breaking his cover (even if the gun in the bible and the knife in the attaché case are not found). And the three times he's searching enemy rooms he's not even looking for the very traps he's routinely laying himself. Bond really has little use for the concept of covert operations and hardly ever works undercover for a longer period.


I agree, there's the issue about Bond's motivation to go to Afghanistan in the first place...one which has to go beyond the 'patriotism' of the 1940's. But then again, there are countless young men who enter military service voluntarily without having some strong ideological motive to do so (apart from a feeling of duty or a conviction that one can do some good in the world)...why can't Bond simply be one of those countless soldiers, albeit one who was qualified and professional to the extent that he was able to 'break into' the intelligence field and enter as exclusive an agency as the ODG?



The thing is that Bond doesn't have any military air to him in the Fleming books. He saw action during WWII as thousands others did too. But nothing to me indicates he'd ever have picked up that profession if it hand't been for the war. Carte Blanche now assumes that Bond did exactly that and I think this should have been explained to some extent. A military career today is a very specific thing, not much use for it outside, well, the military. Bond to me never came across military-centric.

#66 Santa

Santa

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 6445 posts
  • Location:Valencia

Posted 10 August 2011 - 01:14 PM

One thing that bothered me - if it was so obvious to Bond/Theron that he was firing blanks in his ´test´, surely Dunne would know it´s obvious too, and would know that Bond/Theron would realise he´s firing blanks? Dunne´s not exactly an amateur, surely he´d recognise that another experienced shooter would realise he´s firing blanks, no?

#67 Major Tallon

Major Tallon

    Lt. Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPip
  • 2107 posts
  • Location:Mid-USA

Posted 10 August 2011 - 02:50 PM



I must credit myself with starting at least one of the many discussions on the motivations of the 'New Age' cinematic Bond, and so I completely understand this need to understand the 'New Age' literary Bond's motivation. And, in a sense, I do feel Deaver's Bond comes across, in a professional sense, as being pretty much the same as Fleming's Bond, albeit updated to the modern day...in that, Bond is portrayed as being the consummate professional first and foremost.


Can't entirely agree with the 'professional' label there. The amount of Bond's professionalism in the books for a large part depends on the amount of Fleming's professionalism in a respective field (or the expertise he could recruit during writing). Which frankly wasn't all that pronounced. As a journalist Fleming used to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. He noted with great interest the oddest detail about something that interested him but could remain perfectly ignorant of those details that didn't. Bond often seems to mirror this. He's the best shot in the Secret Service, both with handguns and rifles. Yet there is seldom a mention of projectile trajectory or the influence of windage and ammunition on that trajectory. That's not to say Fleming necessarily wasn't aware of such things, he may have just not been interested in them or have decided that his readers wouldn't be and so just omitted them. But that Bond sets out to kill a man and his armed and dangerous bodyguards with a rifle he didn't test himself is completely out of the question for any professional sniper, a thing simply beyond belief but fitting into the picture nontheless. Fleming just wasn't a sniper, how would he have known?

But that's not exactly what I meant to point out, even though it is part of it to some extent. Bond is also an odd customer within his own service. By the time of MR Fleming had decided to give his background some detail and uses Bond's office routine to achieve this goal. We read that between the odd shooting exercise and close quarters combat lesson in the basement Bond has to work his way through a pile of files and memos, an unlikely mixture of 'Philopon - A Japanese murder-drug', 'Vladivostock - A photographic Reconnaissance by US Thunderjet' and 'Route five to Pekin'. All that reads remarkably authentic and convincing - until the question comes up if it's really a good idea to stuff all kinds of confidential and secret material inside the head of an agent whose very job it is to face the opposition. The details of route five to Pekin or the Vladivostok material must be terribly interesting for the Russian agents capturing Bond, and much more so for Moscow Centre.

What Fleming here did was simply to make up a version of the stuff he himself saw across his desk as DNI's assistant during WWII. In that function he came across many different and obscure details of the war effort and the intelligence side of things. But Fleming never was supposed to fight the enemy himself, he was much too valuable for that and knew too many secrets to risk him falling into the hands of the Nazi Gestapo. Fleming was a desk soldier and even if he was issued a Beretta or a Webley or a Colt, nobody expected him to shoot the thing. Fleming knew many men and women whose duty was exactly that, he was involved in their training and in plotting some of the operations of these men and women. But he wasn't an agent himself and knew little of their routines and what he knew he decided didn't fit his hero.

Consequently Bond is not supposed to act on his office reading. His entire job routine between assignments consists of shooting matches with the arms instructor, wrestling and punching with a retired Commando and shoving the files he's read from his desk to his colleague's. Seen this way Bond is not really related to the Service's daily routines and tasks, much less would he be interested in them. Bond in effect really is a relic, not from the Cold War but from WWII, from his SOE and Commando forebears, and his job isn't intelligence gathering as such but counter-intelligence in the crudest possible sense.

Bond's remarkable innocence in intelligence affairs is illustrated in FRWL - Bond's adventure that comes closest to spying and a traditional SIS operation. The way he worries about whether he will be able to 'perform' with Tanja betrays a basic unfamiliarity with a fundamental technique of intelligence gathering. In the end Bond was lucky that SMERSH didn't drop Tanja from the picture and send Klebb herself, she would have been a much more tempting bait for M.

But that's not all that indicates a strangely withdrawn and amateurish mindset on Bond's side. He also is nearly completely unconcerned about using his own name, shows neither an awareness of active and passive surveillance methods nor a concept to work under such conditions and avoid them. Even his method to tell if his room has been searched is somewhat amateurish, for it betrays him as laying these traps, thus confirming his dubious status and breaking his cover (even if the gun in the bible and the knife in the attaché case are not found). And the three times he's searching enemy rooms he's not even looking for the very traps he's routinely laying himself. Bond really has little use for the concept of covert operations and hardly ever works undercover for a longer period.


I agree, there's the issue about Bond's motivation to go to Afghanistan in the first place...one which has to go beyond the 'patriotism' of the 1940's. But then again, there are countless young men who enter military service voluntarily without having some strong ideological motive to do so (apart from a feeling of duty or a conviction that one can do some good in the world)...why can't Bond simply be one of those countless soldiers, albeit one who was qualified and professional to the extent that he was able to 'break into' the intelligence field and enter as exclusive an agency as the ODG?



The thing is that Bond doesn't have any military air to him in the Fleming books. He saw action during WWII as thousands others did too. But nothing to me indicates he'd ever have picked up that profession if it hand't been for the war. Carte Blanche now assumes that Bond did exactly that and I think this should have been explained to some extent. A military career today is a very specific thing, not much use for it outside, well, the military. Bond to me never came across military-centric.

A very interesting and provocative post, Dustin. I'm a big defender of Fleming's Bond, but I'm constrained to say that I agree with much of what you've written.

#68 David Schofield

David Schofield

    Commander

  • Discharged
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 3026 posts

Posted 10 August 2011 - 02:59 PM




I must credit myself with starting at least one of the many discussions on the motivations of the 'New Age' cinematic Bond, and so I completely understand this need to understand the 'New Age' literary Bond's motivation. And, in a sense, I do feel Deaver's Bond comes across, in a professional sense, as being pretty much the same as Fleming's Bond, albeit updated to the modern day...in that, Bond is portrayed as being the consummate professional first and foremost.


Can't entirely agree with the 'professional' label there. The amount of Bond's professionalism in the books for a large part depends on the amount of Fleming's professionalism in a respective field (or the expertise he could recruit during writing). Which frankly wasn't all that pronounced. As a journalist Fleming used to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. He noted with great interest the oddest detail about something that interested him but could remain perfectly ignorant of those details that didn't. Bond often seems to mirror this. He's the best shot in the Secret Service, both with handguns and rifles. Yet there is seldom a mention of projectile trajectory or the influence of windage and ammunition on that trajectory. That's not to say Fleming necessarily wasn't aware of such things, he may have just not been interested in them or have decided that his readers wouldn't be and so just omitted them. But that Bond sets out to kill a man and his armed and dangerous bodyguards with a rifle he didn't test himself is completely out of the question for any professional sniper, a thing simply beyond belief but fitting into the picture nontheless. Fleming just wasn't a sniper, how would he have known?

But that's not exactly what I meant to point out, even though it is part of it to some extent. Bond is also an odd customer within his own service. By the time of MR Fleming had decided to give his background some detail and uses Bond's office routine to achieve this goal. We read that between the odd shooting exercise and close quarters combat lesson in the basement Bond has to work his way through a pile of files and memos, an unlikely mixture of 'Philopon - A Japanese murder-drug', 'Vladivostock - A photographic Reconnaissance by US Thunderjet' and 'Route five to Pekin'. All that reads remarkably authentic and convincing - until the question comes up if it's really a good idea to stuff all kinds of confidential and secret material inside the head of an agent whose very job it is to face the opposition. The details of route five to Pekin or the Vladivostok material must be terribly interesting for the Russian agents capturing Bond, and much more so for Moscow Centre.

What Fleming here did was simply to make up a version of the stuff he himself saw across his desk as DNI's assistant during WWII. In that function he came across many different and obscure details of the war effort and the intelligence side of things. But Fleming never was supposed to fight the enemy himself, he was much too valuable for that and knew too many secrets to risk him falling into the hands of the Nazi Gestapo. Fleming was a desk soldier and even if he was issued a Beretta or a Webley or a Colt, nobody expected him to shoot the thing. Fleming knew many men and women whose duty was exactly that, he was involved in their training and in plotting some of the operations of these men and women. But he wasn't an agent himself and knew little of their routines and what he knew he decided didn't fit his hero.

Consequently Bond is not supposed to act on his office reading. His entire job routine between assignments consists of shooting matches with the arms instructor, wrestling and punching with a retired Commando and shoving the files he's read from his desk to his colleague's. Seen this way Bond is not really related to the Service's daily routines and tasks, much less would he be interested in them. Bond in effect really is a relic, not from the Cold War but from WWII, from his SOE and Commando forebears, and his job isn't intelligence gathering as such but counter-intelligence in the crudest possible sense.

Bond's remarkable innocence in intelligence affairs is illustrated in FRWL - Bond's adventure that comes closest to spying and a traditional SIS operation. The way he worries about whether he will be able to 'perform' with Tanja betrays a basic unfamiliarity with a fundamental technique of intelligence gathering. In the end Bond was lucky that SMERSH didn't drop Tanja from the picture and send Klebb herself, she would have been a much more tempting bait for M.

But that's not all that indicates a strangely withdrawn and amateurish mindset on Bond's side. He also is nearly completely unconcerned about using his own name, shows neither an awareness of active and passive surveillance methods nor a concept to work under such conditions and avoid them. Even his method to tell if his room has been searched is somewhat amateurish, for it betrays him as laying these traps, thus confirming his dubious status and breaking his cover (even if the gun in the bible and the knife in the attaché case are not found). And the three times he's searching enemy rooms he's not even looking for the very traps he's routinely laying himself. Bond really has little use for the concept of covert operations and hardly ever works undercover for a longer period.


I agree, there's the issue about Bond's motivation to go to Afghanistan in the first place...one which has to go beyond the 'patriotism' of the 1940's. But then again, there are countless young men who enter military service voluntarily without having some strong ideological motive to do so (apart from a feeling of duty or a conviction that one can do some good in the world)...why can't Bond simply be one of those countless soldiers, albeit one who was qualified and professional to the extent that he was able to 'break into' the intelligence field and enter as exclusive an agency as the ODG?



The thing is that Bond doesn't have any military air to him in the Fleming books. He saw action during WWII as thousands others did too. But nothing to me indicates he'd ever have picked up that profession if it hand't been for the war. Carte Blanche now assumes that Bond did exactly that and I think this should have been explained to some extent. A military career today is a very specific thing, not much use for it outside, well, the military. Bond to me never came across military-centric.

A very interesting and provocative post, Dustin. I'm a big defender of Fleming's Bond, but I'm constrained to say that I agree with much of what you've written.


Of course, Fleming's Bond is a spy, not a super-duper "secret agent" that Deaver made him.

Fleming-Bond is not the ultra-agent, fully conversant in tradecraft, etc, that Gardner and now Deaver have made him.

Indeed, Fleming-Bond is closer to the drab, Ministry of Works, electric fire, suburb-dwelling-with-miserable-wives agent of Le Carre and Deighton (perhaps that's why they hated him so much?), for all his 'glamorous' compensation lifestyle.

Fleming described Bond as essentially a desk jockey who from tim-to time gets sent on operations which get him out of the office. As Kingsley Amis observed, Fleming-Bond is little more than the "Medium Grade Civil Servant" (who love me).

Therefore, agree with Dustin on his points.

#69 Matt_13

Matt_13

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5969 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 10 August 2011 - 05:05 PM


And just so you know, I turn 21 next month

I can't believe it :o

----

Promising the world to get in their knickers and then dumping each one for the next, that's a bastard womaniser.



Time flies doesn't it? I'm graduating from college in May(!) Hoping for Grad school afterwards, not much I can really do with a history degree right now, especially considering I don't want to teach (yet). Pray for me :D

---

Really good description. Like that quite a lot.

#70 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 10 August 2011 - 05:11 PM

One thing that bothered me - if it was so obvious to Bond/Theron that he was firing blanks in his ´test´, surely Dunne would know it´s obvious too, and would know that Bond/Theron would realise he´s firing blanks? Dunne´s not exactly an amateur, surely he´d recognise that another experienced shooter would realise he´s firing blanks, no?


The annoying thing about that twist is that it is so terribly trite that I can see it being used on the telly at least three times on every ordinary evening of the week. I would not dare use such a 'surprise' in a fanfic, much less a serious thriller. At the same time it could have been a terrible display of the villain's monstrosity and inhumanity if Hydt had just grabbed some poor devil from the streets for his test, perhaps with first shooting the poor sod in the stomach first and then handing Bond a gun to finish him or even her.


A very interesting and provocative post, Dustin. I'm a big defender of Fleming's Bond, but I'm constrained to say that I agree with much of what you've written.



Of course, Fleming's Bond is a spy, not a super-duper "secret agent" that Deaver made him.Fleming-Bond is not the ultra-agent, fully conversant in tradecraft, etc, that Gardner and now Deaver have made him.Indeed, Fleming-Bond is closer to the drab, Ministry of Works, electric fire, suburb-dwelling-with-miserable-wives agent of Le Carre and Deighton (perhaps that's why they hated him so much?), for all his 'glamorous' compensation lifestyle.Fleming described Bond as essentially a desk jockey who from tim-to time gets sent on operations which get him out of the office. As Kingsley Amis observed, Fleming-Bond is little more than the "Medium Grade Civil Servant" (who love me).Therefore, agree with Dustin on his points.


I think for the most part Gardner found a reasonable balance for a modernised version of Bond. Gardner too had the odd incredible event, mainly for reasons of thriller-lore. So it's not a terribly good idea to use a secret agent as sky marshal; the entire first and executive class of BA Flight 12 know now that the dashingly attractive buccaneer with the dark hair and the greying temples happens to wear a revolver and a knife and is probably not Jimmy Boldman from Guildford, Surrey but something more sinister. Likewise no thinking secret agent in the 80's would turn up at an international airport brandishing a large revolver, not even if he's after Hitler himself. The outcome would undoubtedly have been a dead secret agent and a Hitler walking free.

But the degree of expertise and tradecraft in these first few efforts of Gardner remained largely restrained enough to keep Bond still within the wider circle of the Fleming-thriller field. Bond comes across as more professional, but not yet as the uber-intelligence-monster. It is a quantum leap from the primarily adventurous tough young man who happened to be forgotten when the MoD disbanded the SOE and most of his colleagues got ordinary civilian jobs. But in the context it's given it is digestible (until we reach the recreation of the 00 section and the Microsoft stuff).


Deaver now was tasked with the reinvention of the whole Bond-verse and that needs some adjusting. But suddenly Bond is a career soldier - at a time when you don't pick such a career lightly. And an intelligence analyst - without ever before showing plausible potential in that regard beyond penning a brief report about the situation on the Seychelles for the Admiralty, a thinly veiled occupational therapy for the man of war Bond in times of prolonged peace. And last not least a trained 150 per cent effective field agent with all kinds of superior expertise in the ways of the intelligence business. It's really too much of a change for the central character and leaves the feeling of reading about a different person altogether. Pick any Fleming and the original comes across as something of a hobbyist in comparison. I believe this could and should have been done differently and closer to the original's mindset.

#71 David Schofield

David Schofield

    Commander

  • Discharged
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 3026 posts

Posted 11 August 2011 - 11:14 AM

IMO, the best way for Deaver to channel Fleming's Eton drop out/Fettes rich boy would have simply been for Deaver-Bond to join the army BECAUSE HE WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH AT ANYTHING ELSE AT SCHOOL/WAS NOT SUFFICIENTLY BRIGHT ENOUGH OR CONNECTED TO GET A JOB IN THE CITY. I am sure there are plenty of army officers who fit that description. James Hewitt anyone??? Deaver would then have avoided the accussations Dustin makes in his posts.

Deaver-Bond could then have been poached by the new 00 section as a man simply for wet jobs, a man who like Fleming-Bond spends much of his time in his office, reading the latest reports and updates, practising small arms drills, unarmed combat, etc, until on the odd occassion his skill for wet-jobs was required.

And wasn't Deaver's new 00 Section trailered as just that, a bunch of trained killers used only for specıalıst jobs? Of course, one assumes such would be few and far between, much like the adventures of the Fleming original. And with that career, Deaver-Bond could have been just as dark and brooding and prone to morbid introspection as the original.

Instead, Deaver-Bond becomes one all-round detective smartarse with his super IQphone . Add in his New Man morality, clean living, and winemanship rather than boozing and you have someone who really has nothing to do with Ian Fleming at all. :(

#72 doublenoughtspy

doublenoughtspy

    Commander RNVR

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4122 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 11 August 2011 - 11:56 AM


One thing that bothered me - if it was so obvious to Bond/Theron that he was firing blanks in his ´test´, surely Dunne would know it´s obvious too, and would know that Bond/Theron would realise he´s firing blanks? Dunne´s not exactly an amateur, surely he´d recognise that another experienced shooter would realise he´s firing blanks, no?


The annoying thing about that twist is that it is so terribly trite that I can see it being used on the telly at least three times on every ordinary evening of the week. I would not dare use such a 'surprise' in a fanfic, much less a serious thriller. At the same time it could have been a terrible display of the villain's monstrosity and inhumanity if Hydt had just grabbed some poor devil from the streets for his test, perhaps with first shooting the poor sod in the stomach first and then handing Bond a gun to finish him or even her.


FYI, Bond having to "kill" a man to maintain his undercover status within a criminal group, comes straight from Ian Fleming's notebook under "Plots."

I don't have a problem with the blanks scenario. The bad guys could have made the weapon heaver in different ways to compensate for the blanks and/or they could have had just a blank chambered, or the first few in the magazine and rest real bullets, and then I would think even Bond would have had a hard time figuring out the weapon was a sham.

#73 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 11 August 2011 - 12:37 PM



One thing that bothered me - if it was so obvious to Bond/Theron that he was firing blanks in his ´test´, surely Dunne would know it´s obvious too, and would know that Bond/Theron would realise he´s firing blanks? Dunne´s not exactly an amateur, surely he´d recognise that another experienced shooter would realise he´s firing blanks, no?


The annoying thing about that twist is that it is so terribly trite that I can see it being used on the telly at least three times on every ordinary evening of the week. I would not dare use such a 'surprise' in a fanfic, much less a serious thriller. At the same time it could have been a terrible display of the villain's monstrosity and inhumanity if Hydt had just grabbed some poor devil from the streets for his test, perhaps with first shooting the poor sod in the stomach first and then handing Bond a gun to finish him or even her.


FYI, Bond having to "kill" a man to maintain his undercover status within a criminal group, comes straight from Ian Fleming's notebook under "Plots."



Oh, I'm aware of that. Only Fleming chose to tone it down to merely have Bond wishing Campbell had a death capsule in OHMSS. And back in Fleming's day it would have been quite a shocking plot device. Unfortunately fifty years have passed since and society has become a brain-dead brutalised mob of entertainment junkies willing to absolve even the most debased behaviour in the name of the greater picture and for a good laugh in front of the telly. We've simply seen it before, in numerous varieties.

The idea is used in practically every season of 24 and a good many shows of lesser fame. Seeing it rehashed in CB isn't exactly original, much less so with the blanks. If it absolutely has to be used it would at least add some emotional depth and suspense if it wasn't all a charade for Bond's benefit but a real execution.

Edited by Dustin, 11 August 2011 - 02:26 PM.


#74 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 11 August 2011 - 05:31 PM

IMO, the best way for Deaver to channel Fleming's Eton drop out/Fettes rich boy would have simply been for Deaver-Bond to join the army BECAUSE HE WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH AT ANYTHING ELSE AT SCHOOL/WAS NOT SUFFICIENTLY BRIGHT ENOUGH OR CONNECTED TO GET A JOB IN THE CITY. I am sure there are plenty of army officers who fit that description. James Hewitt anyone??? Deaver would then have avoided the accussations Dustin makes in his posts.

Deaver-Bond could then have been poached by the new 00 section as a man simply for wet jobs, a man who like Fleming-Bond spends much of his time in his office, reading the latest reports and updates, practising small arms drills, unarmed combat, etc, until on the odd occassion his skill for wet-jobs was required.


For some reason I would prefer if Bond was simply spotted by the talent searchers the traditional way. I could imagine a young and most horribly spoilt-brat-ish Bond idling away his days at Oxbridge (or wherever the 1980's born generation preferred to idle away their studies when they were not occupied with planning their perfect, shining white, even and ceramic capped careers in the business world.) Bond would stick out for some reason, some hard to define quality beyond the veneer of careless indulgence and excess. While the other snivelling public school boys prepare their papers and some already aim for the open competition test with a mind on ending up with the SIS Bond is approached by them. He's curious, amused, thinks it's a joke, but in the end he agrees to play ball. He disappears from his pointless and mostly unsuccessful studies, with nobody missing him much or being surprised about the fact, most of his fellow students suspecting he's on the run from a cheated husband or a girl with marriage in her eyes and lifetime in her voice.

Bond spends some time with various courses across the country, forwarded from one sinister installation to the next and joining various services without ever becoming part of them. It's SIS who send him to the battlefield and SIS he returns to, having finished all the training and education he ever is likely going to need for what SIS plans for him. His routine at headquarters - apart from keeping in shape and his skills in use - contains of planning various attacks on a variety of sensitive targets and then conceiving countermeasures against these fictional assaults. This routine is further complicated by two other members of the SIS with the same expertise countering his attacks and attacking targets he's expected to defend. This version of Battleships is enhanced by numerous drills on site. Their findings become part of security concepts throughout Britain and overseas. And they help justify the cost of the 00 section against the natural greed and envy of the other departments.

#75 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 12 August 2011 - 06:33 AM

I even think you could find a reasonable explanation for Bond's exceptional status in SIS within the character himself. Bond is a man who prefers to be active himself instead of let others become active for him. He doesn't envy M, even feels relief that it's not him who has to send another into danger and possible death; he rather faces the danger himself.

Looking closer at traditional intelligence gathering this is exactly what the work consists of: spotting others who have access to secrets, recruit them, make them steal and share their goods and look out for yet others who do the same. Spying is an activity that for a large part depends on others and their willingness to confide in you, or their vulnerability so you can force them to. Bond in Fleming's books seems curiously reluctant to concern himself with this side of the business and a modern version could use this aspect of the original's character.

Edited by Dustin, 12 August 2011 - 06:42 PM.


#76 Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4755 posts
  • Location::noitacoL

Posted 14 August 2011 - 06:31 AM

After finishing CARTE BLANCH, I went and found as many Deaver novels as I could. I started with THE SLEEPING DOLL, which I really enjoyed, and I finished off THE EMPTY CHAIR recently. I've since gone back and rea-read CARTE BLANCHE, and while my opinion of it remains largely unchanged, I'm beginning to see that it is very Deaver-ish and one of his better novels. Here's a few observations I've picked up from his back catalogue:

First of all, Deaver is at his best when he's freely writing. A few of the books I read were "themed"; they revolved around a particular subject. I found these stories to be noticeably weaker. In particular, I'm referring to ROADSIDE CROSSES (the theme being cyber-bullying and online gaming) and THE BROKEN WINDOW (data mining). They were full of Exposition Dumps (I had to skip a few pages of ROADSIDE CROSSES that recounted the history of the internet), and they often felt like Deaver was trying to make a point by painting the themes as bad things simply because the villains used them to fulfil their ends.

Secondly, some of the big twists in the stories were only really big because there was no foreshadowing. I commented on this in my first review of CARTE BLANCHE - Felicity Willing is revealed as the villain halfway through the third act, but it felt like a lot of her more-villainous activities were happening "off-camera". There were a few references to what was really going on, but no genuine clues that the reader could a) recognise and B) use to try and solve the mystery themselves, or at least in line with the characters. This was particularly noticeable in ROADSIDE CROSSES and THE EMPTY CHAIR.
Spoiler


Finally, I've also noticed that Deaver has the unusual habit of cutting a scene short, skipping ahead a few moments and then doubling back to explain it. As an example in THE EMPTY CHAIR:
Spoiler


Don't get me wrong - I still like Deaver. He does write a good story, and I like the twists he throws out, even if I would like a little bit of foreshadowing that I can pick out. He's a much better writer than, say, James Patterson, who just mass-produces formulaic stories that usually end with the "twist" that the chracter we believe to be the villain isn't actually the villain at all (which just feels like a lazy way of justifying another story), like in THE BIG BAD WOLF.

#77 Matt_13

Matt_13

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5969 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 14 August 2011 - 09:52 PM

After finishing CARTE BLANCH, I went and found as many Deaver novels as I could. I started with THE SLEEPING DOLL, which I really enjoyed, and I finished off THE EMPTY CHAIR recently. I've since gone back and rea-read CARTE BLANCHE, and while my opinion of it remains largely unchanged, I'm beginning to see that it is very Deaver-ish and one of his better novels. Here's a few observations I've picked up from his back catalogue:

First of all, Deaver is at his best when he's freely writing. A few of the books I read were "themed"; they revolved around a particular subject. I found these stories to be noticeably weaker. In particular, I'm referring to ROADSIDE CROSSES (the theme being cyber-bullying and online gaming) and THE BROKEN WINDOW (data mining). They were full of Exposition Dumps (I had to skip a few pages of ROADSIDE CROSSES that recounted the history of the internet), and they often felt like Deaver was trying to make a point by painting the themes as bad things simply because the villains used them to fulfil their ends.

Secondly, some of the big twists in the stories were only really big because there was no foreshadowing. I commented on this in my first review of CARTE BLANCHE - Felicity Willing is revealed as the villain halfway through the third act, but it felt like a lot of her more-villainous activities were happening "off-camera". There were a few references to what was really going on, but no genuine clues that the reader could a) recognise and B) use to try and solve the mystery themselves, or at least in line with the characters. This was particularly noticeable in ROADSIDE CROSSES and THE EMPTY CHAIR.

Spoiler


Finally, I've also noticed that Deaver has the unusual habit of cutting a scene short, skipping ahead a few moments and then doubling back to explain it. As an example in THE EMPTY CHAIR:
Spoiler


Don't get me wrong - I still like Deaver. He does write a good story, and I like the twists he throws out, even if I would like a little bit of foreshadowing that I can pick out. He's a much better writer than, say, James Patterson, who just mass-produces formulaic stories that usually end with the "twist" that the chracter we believe to be the villain isn't actually the villain at all (which just feels like a lazy way of justifying another story), like in THE BIG BAD WOLF.


Good stuff. :tup: Provides good insight into where the work falls when compared to the rest of Deaver's catalogue, thanks for this.

#78 Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4755 posts
  • Location::noitacoL

Posted 15 August 2011 - 01:07 AM

I'd say CARTE BLACNHE is probably one of his stronger novels. It's up there with THE SLEEPING DOLL and THE TWELFTH CARD, and just ahead of THE GARDEN OF BEASTS.

#79 Matt_13

Matt_13

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5969 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 15 August 2011 - 01:47 AM

I definitely think it trumps Garden of Beasts. I really wouldn't mind seeing him take another crack at it.

#80 Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4755 posts
  • Location::noitacoL

Posted 16 August 2011 - 11:46 PM

GARDEN OF BEASTS wasn't that bad. It just piqued a little too soon, and then ended when it got interesting again.

#81 Von Hammerstein

Von Hammerstein

    Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • PipPip
  • 570 posts
  • Location:Newark, De

Posted 20 August 2011 - 09:51 PM

" Deaver has turned James Bond into James Bland, and doesn't even seem to have noticed. "


I have to agree, unfortunately. Though there were some interesting twists on the James Bond model but all in all it was unimpressive. It's taken me three weeks to get close to the end of this book, For as bad as Devl May Care was Faulks at least made it a page-turner and brought back the original James Bond feel, The villain, Severan Hydt, is grostesque enough but he really isn't doing anything villainous. Even tropes like killing a disloyal employee in a egregious manner show more villainous flair than what Deaver has Hydt doing, Hydt comes off as merely an oddball character, not a James Bond villain. And when you have a Bond story the villain has to be a standout. I embarressly admit that I enjoyed Deaver delving into the Ian Fleming vault of rediculous female names with the return of Mary Goodnight and new Bond girl Felicity Willing. He's close to Pussy Galore territory with Ophelia Maidenstone, it woud have been too easy to make her last name Maidenhead. Other than that, the book is disinteresting. I finished DMC in a day and half. Still slogging through CB. Sorry, Jeff, no cigar here.

Any chance our buddy Jeremy Duns (spynovelfan) could get a crack at 007 next? I'm loving his Free Agent series.

Edited by Von Hammerstein, 20 August 2011 - 10:03 PM.


#82 Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4755 posts
  • Location::noitacoL

Posted 21 August 2011 - 04:21 AM

Going back to CARTE BLANCHE, I've found that parts of it remind me of another author I used to read a lot of (before I knew what good writing was) - Colin Forbes.

CARTE BLANCHE has a few highlights: the train derailment, the initial meeting with M, the hospital scenes, the museum sequence in Dubai, Bond's meeting with Hydt (where his suggestion is far more villainous than Hydt's plans), his ingenuity in breaking into the laboratory, and the shootout with Dunne.

But on the other hand, it had a few lowlights as well: the inter-agency political rivalries, pretty much anything to do with Percy Osborne-Smith, the contrived excuse to get to Dubai in the first place, everything with Felix Leiter in it (seriously, these scenes could be cut), a lot of the stuff where Bond tries to sway Bheka Jordaan, and the final confrontation with Felicity Willing.

These lowlights remind me a lot of Colin Forbes, who I admit did have some good early stuff (like a plan to make England a new state of America by destroying the value of the pound and making the American dollar legal tender), but by the end of his career, his books were very formulaic. Most of the time, they involved a plot to flood Western Europe with immigrants, usually with trained guerilla fighters in the midst. The books were deeply xenophobic and almost brazenly racist (in THE CELL, al'Qaeda was implied to be too stupid to plan September 11 without help from an Englishman). Turks, Muslims, and - for some reason - Slovaks were generally depicted as lazy, stupid, bloodthirsty and greedy.

But I digress. One of Forbes' favourite plot elements was a sinister village somewhere in England. The stories usually involved the main characters walking around and talking a lot, not unlike most of the South African scenes in CARTE BLANCHE. But not as well-written.

#83 smudge76

smudge76

    Sub-Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • Pip
  • 153 posts
  • Location:Where i get paid to be.

Posted 31 August 2011 - 12:32 AM

I feel he definatly did not do it justice. My biggest observation was the poor research into 007 background especially military background.
Here was a Bond who he states would be realistic and brought upto date yet i am meant to belive that a man with no sf or regular forces back ground was carrying out ops behind the lines in Afghanistan. For the reader that is not in loop on such things you could easily belive that in todays world a member of the Royal Navy Reserve intelligence cell would be doing that sort of stuff but it is just not true. Fact is only memebrs of SF and other highly trained units and agencies would do that because you need the skill sets. What it did show was very poor research and every soldier i know who has read it ir tried reading felt it was ruined by such poor and maybe even lazy research. It would of come across better if we did not have the whole promotion based on bringing the charcter up to date and based in reality then you could sit down and treat as poor fantasy as you would a Robert e howard Conan novel. Also the whole side story ref his father reminded me of the film Superman returns when he suddenly has a child, point been why did such a side story need to be brought into the novel.
The RN reserve thing worked in 60s because it could but in todays world no it would'nt thats a fact.
The side story ref his parents was (my thoughts0 a poor decision it should have been left alone.
The novel felt heavy and was no where near the style and class of the fleming titles. I would not buy another continuation novel written by deaver.

#84 Grahm Blond

Grahm Blond

    Recruit

  • Crew
  • 2 posts

Posted 16 January 2012 - 07:17 PM

No, but then, you can't really expect too much character development from a so-called "popular writer" anyway. There were only a few things that bugged me. The general place of Percy Osborne-Smith(he would have said something if he wanted to get over on Bond, I think), the fact that Deaver sucks at painting a picture(I'm the type who tends to forget layout if it isn't stated) and most of all, the way Deaver projected his own societal values onto Bond. Remember that bit where Bond reacts negatively to Lamb calling the mixed race people "colored"? I practically groaned aloud at such PC.

Still, I think Deaver's readable enough so long as his dialogue doesn't get too dumb(read the Bodies Left Behind to get some examples).

Edited by Grahm Blond, 16 January 2012 - 07:19 PM.


#85 Dustin

Dustin

    Commander

  • Commanding Officers
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 5786 posts

Posted 16 January 2012 - 07:54 PM

Incidentally I've just finished Michael Connelly's 'The Poet', a mainstream mystery of 1996. Connelly would seem to be working much the same field Deaver does in his usual oeuvre. 'The Poet' is a truly captivating, suspense-filled tome that grasps you right by the colllar, screams at you to listen and doesn't let go until the tale is told. It's not so much about originality than execution, and the execution of 'The Poet' is most remarkable and in the best sense entertaining. If scary, haunting and unnerving is what entertains you. If you happen to be a friend of this particular brand of mysteries that would most likely be the case.

I won't compare 'The Poet' here to CB; it would not be a fair comparison as CB purports to be not a mystery but a modern spy thiller. But it crossed my mind that this is perhaps exactly what makes CB so disappointing, it tries to be something it lacks the potential for, while the potential it could have had - as a mystery - it doesn't really use.

#86 Captain Tightpants

Captain Tightpants

    Commander

  • Veterans
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 4755 posts
  • Location::noitacoL

Posted 17 January 2012 - 02:23 AM

No, but then, you can't really expect too much character development from a so-called "popular writer" anyway.

So, because Deaver is a popular author, that means he cannot develop characters at all? Have you even read anything by Deaver before? Try anything in the Lincoln Rhyme series, particularly the later ones, where Rhyme gradually begins to regain some movement - the whole thing is a metaphor for his rejoining the world.

I would hardly expect Deaver to open the floodgates of cahracter development for Bond, anyway. He tends to play the long game, with character development coming over a dozen novels rather than a dozen chapters.

#87 smudge76

smudge76

    Sub-Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • Pip
  • 153 posts
  • Location:Where i get paid to be.

Posted 21 May 2012 - 11:17 PM

Just struggled to read this novel again and on the second time through i think the book is poor, for the reasons i stated above mainly. For such a top writer who supposedly researched a lot of stuff i for one know that is false. Bonds miliatry background does not add up for one, for someone with no idea of military then great but for us poor sods who do i struggle to belive that 007 (a reserve with todays RNR) is conducting Tier 1 ops (that only SAS,SBS,DEVGRU etc) is a joke, even if he was attached it is very unlikely he would be even looked at with the lack of experience. The book is a joke

#88 perdogg

perdogg

    Sub-Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • Pip
  • 116 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 01 June 2012 - 03:12 AM

I tried reading it until I got the part about the iphone app and had to put it down. I am sorry Bond and iphone app don't mix in my Bond World.

#89 AgenttiNollaNollaSeitsemän

AgenttiNollaNollaSeitsemän

    Sub-Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • Pip
  • 493 posts
  • Location:Oulu, Finland

Posted 29 June 2012 - 12:32 AM

For me, getting through Carte Bland was a laborous task. In my opinion it was simply a terrible Bond novel due the fact James Bond wasn't James Bond in it! So to answer the question at hand - no, Deaver did not do Bond justice.
Hopefully the holders of literary franchise have came to the same conclusion as I have, that "rebooted" literary Bond franchise is dead in the water and only way to continue with Adult Bond is put out "period pieces" like Devil May Care and William Boyds upcoming novel.

#90 perdogg

perdogg

    Sub-Lieutenant

  • Crew
  • Pip
  • 116 posts
  • Location:USA

Posted 05 July 2012 - 08:02 PM

For me, getting through Carte Bland was a laborous task. In my opinion it was simply a terrible Bond novel due the fact James Bond wasn't James Bond in it! So to answer the question at hand - no, Deaver did not do Bond justice.
Hopefully the holders of literary franchise have came to the same conclusion as I have, that "rebooted" literary Bond franchise is dead in the water and only way to continue with Adult Bond is put out "period pieces" like Devil May Care and William Boyds upcoming novel.


I think the problem is that many people tend to forget that it is the 'Bond genre' and not the 'spy genre'. Even Amis understood it. Unfortunately, there are people who continue to perpetrate this mythopoeia. The Fleming Bonds were successful, even when the novel fell apart like in Goldfinger, because of, well, Fleming. In the post-Dalton era, the genre has been exploited and almost rewritten at the expense of the original novels. It is really sad. Raymond Benson fell into this trap, even after an extensive analysis of the Fleming Bond. And despite his extensive research, Griswald makes claims that are not sourced from the Fleming Bond novels , which some continue to promote without fact or source on this board and on Wikipedia.