13 replies to this topic

[ChickenStu]

Sorry if there was already a thread on this but I couldn't find one so here is a new one!

 

Some of the names who've done Bond novels since Fleming died have been quite impressive. Faulks, Deaver and Boyd are big names in the literary world - so I was wondering who could do one? Who's a good candidate?

 

Authors I'd like to see do one are Lee Child (although I heard once he turned down an offer from the Fleming people), Michael Marshall, but most of all BEN ELTON. I think Elton is a stunning author who writes cracking whodunnits and can do any genre.

 

Any suggestions?

[Jim]

PD James

Christopher Brookmyre

Salman Rushdie

Martin Amis

Stephen Fry

[Dustin]

Kazuo Ishiguro
Ian Rankin
Alan Furst
Charles Cumming - those last two perhaps too obvious.

Stephen Fry is still my favourite. Mark Gatiss effectively already did his own 'Bond'. And Hugh Laurie has shown a remarkable talent for a good tight thriller with his The Gun Seller.

[Syndicate]

How about any one of them.

 

Jeffery Archer

 

Martin Cruz Smith

 

Robert Harris

 

Kent Follett(maybe)

 

Joseph Kanon

 

 

May favorite authors Tom Clancy(passed away last year) and John Le Carre would not fit writing James Bond novels. Because they write the close to the spy world type novels. They have never written their own kind of super spy novels(in other words super hero spy) novels. Also the authors that have worked with Clancy on his last five novels would not fit.

Edited by Syndicate, 20 June 2014 - 10:32 PM.

[saint mark]

Phillip Kerr based upon his Bernie Gunther novels

 

Anthoney Horrowitz based upon his young spy series / Sherlock Holmes continuation

 

Charlie Higson based upon his Young James Bond series

 

Robert Harris with a WO2 James Bond book 

[tdalton]

I wouldn't have minded Lee Child taking a crack at Bond.  It doesn't sound as though he wants to, so it'll probably never happen, but he's consistently able to come up with entertaining novels, which would be a welcome change after the last three lackluster continuation novels.

 

Samantha Weinberg would be a good choice as well.  I've liked very much what I've read of The Moneypenny Diaries, and I think it would be interesting to see what her take on a regular Bond novel might be. 

[Guy Haines]

I agree with tdalton about a female author tackling a Bond novel. There's no reason why not and it would be interesting to read a Bond novel in which 007's world is guided by a female writer.

 

(In passing, it would be interesting to have a female Bond movie director, and I'm surprised Kathryn Bigelow hasn't been mentioned on the "next Bond director" thread.)

 

Ian Fleming tried a Bond adventure from a woman's point of view in The Spy Who Loved Me, but frankly it didn't really work - even the author himself stipulated that only the book's title could be used for a future Bond film.

 

Samantha Weinberg would be a pretty good choice given her Moneypenny Diaries, but I daresay the publishers would want a "name" who could guarantee big sales. So in jest (I think) may I suggest a very famous female author, currently writing as "Robert Galbraith".

 

I repeat, for all you fans out there who would be horrified, "in jest"!

 

(Then again maybe some of you are fans of her past works and wouldn't be horrified?)

[tdalton]

Samantha Weinberg would be a pretty good choice given her Moneypenny Diaries, but I daresay the publishers would want a "name" who could guarantee big sales. So in jest (I think) may I suggest a very famous female author, currently writing as "Robert Galbraith

I think, were they to go in that direction, that Weinberg would be exactly what the franchise needs. This whole "big name" author thing that the publishers have gone for the last three times out has not produced the kind of novel that all of that time and money should have produced. We've had 3 novels from name authors since Benson's tenure ended in 2002, and all of them have been bad. It's been 12 years and 3 novels of mediocrity (or worse). I think that someone who isn't a name, yet has connections to the franchise and has proven to be a quality writer, is exactly what the literary franchise needs at this point. Weinberg could most likely put out a couple of quality Bond novels over a quicker timespan than what the trio of Faulks, Deaver, and Boyd have.

[SecretAgentFan]

I would actually welcome... I´m bracing myself here... Neal Purvis & Robert Wade.  

 

They have written Bond scripts for quite some time, are fans of the novels and know the territory.  I would be interested to see what they could come up with without the pressure of a production process that needs to aim for the biggest market share.

[Dustin]

However our disappointment with the last three efforts may be, it seems a given now that these projects are in effect not done for fans, at least not primarily. The continuations since Faulks sold for a large part because of more or less massive promotional campaigns in combination with the bestseller appeal of a couple of celebrity writers. I daresay we'd all wish for a Bond book that just sells because it's a fine novel. Sadly that's probably not going to happen without an established name in the business. I've read literally countless Bond stories now, with quality ranging all over the place. But the core of the matter is, even the very best among them - and there have been some awesome works that would deserve a greater audience on any given day - probably would not sell if they aren't published under a name the public and media already know has bestseller potential. I know IFP follows a slightly different route for their sidelines Young Bond/Moneypenny, but I don't see them going with a - relatively - unknown author for the regular thing.

Under these circumstances I'd think perhaps the name we're most likely to get in the future would be Ken Follett as he already talked about his general willingness.

With Lee Child it's said he already turned down the job, twice even. This obviously is a disappointment for his fans, but there is also the fact 'Lee Child' is actually a pseudonym, and I'm not sure if it even belongs to him. It's possible he's not allowed to publish under this name anything else than the Reacher series. And he's almost certainly a contract to deliver a number of books in a given period, tying him to the task for some time.

Edited by Dustin, 22 June 2014 - 10:06 AM.

[Guy Haines]

tdalton, again I think you are right. Samantha Weinberg has experience of writing about Bond, albeit from a different perspective. Why not let her write a Bond novel - and, by the way, why not promote it properly? (I had to search amongst the "W"  fiction section of my local bookshop to find one copy of the last one she wrote.)

 

As for the recent continuation novels - I enjoyed them but still felt underwhelmed, and I think it was because they seemed to be an exercise in writing a Bond novel in the style of an established author, rather than a Bond novel written by an established author. There is a difference, imho. The Sebastian Faulks novel seemed to me to be a bit of a pastiche - a villain with a hand that belonged to a gorilla, a Korean sidekick with a "flip top" head, that sort of thing. The Jeffrey Deaver book, as I've mentioned, I liked best, but it still read like a crime thriller with a villain - who it turned out wasn't really the villain - who was into sick weird stuff. I had hopes for the William Boyd novel. It was well written, had a good "henchman" (Kobus Breed) but lacked a decent villain, and seemed too much to be a "Good Man In Africa" named James Bond.

 

And one thing I wasn't keen on in the continuation books - not just these three - was the use of the denoument. Tying together all the loose threads in the final chapter. I might be wrong, but Ian Fleming rarely used it - the reader was aware from well into the book as to what was happening, and it didn't spoil the enjoyment. Why some of the continuation authors thought it would be better leaving us guessing until the very end, I don't know.

[ChickenStu]

I would actually welcome... I´m bracing myself here... Neal Purvis & Robert Wade.  

 

They have written Bond scripts for quite some time, are fans of the novels and know the territory.  I would be interested to see what they could come up with without the pressure of a production process that needs to aim for the biggest market share.

 

Yeah... that actually could be rather interesting! 

[glidrose]

But the core of the matter is, even the very best among them - and there have been some awesome works that would deserve a greater audience on any given day - probably would not sell if they aren't published under a name the public and media already know has bestseller potential. I know IFP follows a slightly different route for their sidelines Young Bond/Moneypenny, but I don't see them going with a - relatively - unknown author for the regular thing.

Under these circumstances I'd think perhaps the name we're most likely to get in the future would be Ken Follett as he already talked about his general willingness.

With Lee Child it's said he already turned down the job, twice even. This obviously is a disappointment for his fans, but there is also the fact 'Lee Child' is actually a pseudonym, and I'm not sure if it even belongs to him. It's possible he's not allowed to publish under this name anything else than the Reacher series. And he's almost certainly a contract to deliver a number of books in a given period, tying him to the task for some time.

1. Ken Follett has sent out mixed signals. He publicly told a fan who emailed him "I haven’t been asked to write a James Bond book, but I’d probably say yes. I think I would set it in the fifties." HOWEVER, in private he told someone that he would say no and regarded the gig as a "poisoned chalice."

http://debrief.comma...re/#entry891022

2. Dunno where you get your Lee Child theory from. So far as I know the pseudonym is his. He can writes whatever he pleases. He's also told interviewers several times why he twice turned down the Bond gig. Apparently Bond was a product of his times who wouldn't work in today's world and apparently Grant/Child has no interest writing fiction set even in a recent historical era. "Twice over the period of five years they’ve asked me to write the series, no regrets really because I think it is a thankless task in terms of first financial remuneration, as the terms were more favourable to the Ian Fleming estate than to me, and secondly there is the technical and cultural aspect. I see this as an impossible job as it’s now 2007, around 50 years on from the world that James Bond first appeared in. The world has changed, and one of the reasons the world has changed is because of James Bond, this country has altered its cultural frame of reference because of things like James Bond, so any follow-up fifty years later would be somewhat self-referential, and reading the book would be like watching an ABBA tribute band—i.e. what’s the point?"

3. I agree with you that IFP only wants big names for the Bond books.

 

Ian Fleming tried a Bond adventure from a woman's point of view in The Spy Who Loved Me, but frankly it didn't really work - even the author himself stipulated that only the book's title could be used for a future Bond film.

Gotta say I can't agree with you. I still think TSWLM is one of Fleming's best novels.

[Dustin]

Ah yes, I faintly remember that thread/discussion you mention. I wasn't quite sure of the pseudonym [Lee Child, pen name of Jim Grant], I've probably mixed that with an article about a 'house'-pseudonym I read recently. But I'm fairly sure Child/Grant does have a per-annum contract running over a couple of years, most likely not leaving lots of time for other extravaganzas, and Bond would be an extravaganza.

Funnily I'd agree with his reasoning regarding a modern Bond insofar as I've argued this point myself repeatedly and would have thought this was what would make a modern Sherlock Holmes pretty much impossible.

Hum, hum...for what it's worth.

Actually Child repeatedly did go back into time, 70s and 90s IIRC. Granted, that's not far, and his stories are hardly the stuff that depends on historical precision. I'd suppose if he did write a story set in the 1950s he'd likely not overuse the period setting.

The big names, well, that's of course always relative. Perhaps 'solid and established' are better cathegories to describe what IFP is looking for. They evidently contact experienced writers, they look for authors who already made a name for themselves, and they seem to keep a certain distance from 'genre' since the days of Gardner. It's strange that after him no versed espionage writer seems to have been approached, which leads me to suspect they don't go for the obvious choices.

Edited by Dustin, 23 June 2014 - 06:36 PM.