42 replies to this topic

[Jim]

I have just posted up a bit of the usual overwritten, overwrought piffle. Some more will follow in the week.

This was going to be my contribution to "Forever Yours, with Regret" but I decided not to, in the end; not good enough but I thought I'd subject you to it anyway.

http://debrief.comma...mp;#entry888215

[Loomis]

The vibe I'm getting is of Bond in the late sixties (and, in terms of world-weariness and the approach of a creaky late middle age, effectively in his late sixties, as well), reluctantly coming to terms with a world of plastic, "pop stars" and assorted other generally unpleasant new things.

So, basically, Jim is just ripping off DEVIL MAY CARE, albeit that this is considerably better written and more interesting.

Incredibly, it even manages to be vastly more Faulksian - I refer to Sebastian Faulks the brilliant author of masterpieces like A FOOL'S ALPHABET and ENGLEBY, and not to the other guy with the same name who did DMC.

This summer, I was looking forward to reading something that was like Fleming's Bond meeting ENGLEBY. Foolishly, I thought that was something Faulks could and would deliver (silly me, eh?), but fortunately Jim has answered my prayers.

[MkB]

He knew little about her, but suspected cats.

Jim, Jim, Jim... * sighs * How can we write fan fiction after you?

[vavu007]

Pardon my denseness, but how does one find this particular piece of writing?

[marktmurphy]

Any chance of linking to it? I know it won't be hard to find, but y'know- makes it a bit easier for us lazy types.

[Jim]

The vibe I'm getting is of Bond in the late sixties (and, in terms of world-weariness and the approach of a creaky late middle age, effectively in his late sixties, as well), reluctantly coming to terms with a world of plastic, "pop stars" and assorted other generally unpleasant new things.

So, basically, Jim is just ripping off DEVIL MAY CARE, albeit that this is considerably better written and more interesting.

Incredibly, it even manages to be vastly more Faulksian - I refer to Sebastian Faulks the brilliant author of masterpieces like A FOOL'S ALPHABET and ENGLEBY, and not to the other guy with the same name who did DMC.

This summer, I was looking forward to reading something that was like Fleming's Bond meeting ENGLEBY. Foolishly, I thought that was something Faulks could and would deliver (silly me, eh?), but fortunately Jim has answered my prayers.

Oh, you silly sausage.

Link added to intial post in this thread.

[ImTheMoneypenny]

Really great work Jim! Your work has such great mood. The canteen reminded me of '1984' if you don't mind me saying. It evoked the atmosphere, the foil ashtrays, food, the wooden chairs and so on. Brilliant.

[Trident]

The lunch hour only ten minutes dead, the canteen still harboured the smells of hurried meals, consumed in the fastest hour of the day amidst rushed office gossip, that curious but amusing mess of truths that are and truths that should be.

Loved that one! Also the factory of deception and death. Great sense of depression, morbid thoughts, cynismn, even generous helpings of scorn (and traces of male menopause?). All very past-'The Living Daylights', all very Lion's-den-with-Ministry-of-Works-interior. Simply great!


Hate you for keeping it from us so long.



In fact, hate you for writing so good.




Most of all, hate you for not writing for IFP. Why did you refuse? Greedy bastard!

Just kidding.

[Harry Fawkes]

Bond contemplated the room and sniffed. This was what it came to. All that pain, all those scars inflicted, suffered, meant another Tuesday could safely pass in this place and thousands of similar others across the country. Was it, he asked himself, worth all the blood? His? Theirs?

Hers?

Like the tears, long dried.

He had taken to wondering whether it would amuse him to bring them to this place, the men he was sent to destroy, to see why their deaths had been ordered; to protect the egg and cress of England. Would they, in seeing the curling cheese rolls and listening attentively to each semiquaver of the tea urn’s symphony, laugh and realise the futility of it, and walk away, good-naturedly, ashamed at themselves?

Probably not.

My God those are the best lines I have ever read in a Bond novel, story, fan fic posting!

I've said this before and I'm going to say it again I wish I could write like you JIM and another thing your novel JUST ANOTHER KILL is bloody ten times better than Devil May Care!

Roger

[Jim]

Second bit now up, if people want to read it.

[MkB]

* sighs again *

Jim, you're really good. And I mean it! You must have the best descriptions of people I have ever read in a Bond story (whatever the status).

I like the idea of the plot: starting from a very common everyday product to get to an Evil plan is very flemingesque (bird dung, anyone?)!
Makes me doubt my wine choices, though

[ImTheMoneypenny]

Very nice again, Jim! Like MkB said, you've got a way with it!

[Loomis]

I really wonder what Sebastian Faulks would think if he read SKELETONS OF YESTERDAY.

[MkB]

I really wonder what Sebastian Faulks would think if he read SKELETONS OF YESTERDAY.

I guess he'd think he is a skeleton of yesterday!

[Jim]

Very nice again, Jim! Like MkB said, you've got a way with it!

... or got away with it.

[Loomis]

It's crossed my mind that perhaps Jim is Sebastian Faulks.

The DEVIL MAY CARE that's known to the world at large isn't actually the real DEVIL MAY CARE. It's DEVIL MAY CARE LITE. With his usual fiendish brilliance and naughty sense of humour, "Jim" has put in bookshops only his watered-down, populist version of DMC (which, talking very quickly, he dictated off the top of his head to a nearby cassette recorder over the space of about half an hour to relieve the boredom of a particularly uninteresting shave during which he posed to himself the question "What might a Benson novel set in the sixties have been like?" and then decided to immediately answer it), as undemanding and highly lucrative fare for the masses (and also as a means of stirring up "the fanboys" into a right old tizz and forcing the great and the good to inadvertently reveal on things like Newsnight just how little Flemmmmmmmming they've actually read/understood).

However, as the shedloads of cash roll in from his astute job of fleecing the dumb public, he now reveals that he has held back the proper version of DMC intended only for true Bond fans.

I've rumbled you, Sebastian!

Sylvester Stallone

[Jim]

Third bit up; final part shortly.

[marktmurphy]

Wonderful plot you've put together here- and the wine leading to the big story from the war is very Fleming, indeed. Excellent, excellent stuff.

If I had to criticise I'd say that you could do with an editor occasionally: all of the relentless symbolism in the first part leads to a crescendo when even a typewriter ribbon has to represent something else! Can't it just be a ribbon?
A tiny nitpick though- this really makes me remember what I liked about the Bond of the written page and which the couple of chapters of DMC I got through before I ditched it made me forget. Top draw stuff.

[Jim]

Wonderful plot you've put together here- and the wine leading to the big story from the war is very Fleming, indeed. Excellent, excellent stuff.

If I had to criticise I'd say that you could do with an editor occasionally: all of the relentless symbolism in the first part leads to a crescendo when even a typewriter ribbon has to represent something else! Can't it just be a ribbon?
A tiny nitpick though- this really makes me remember what I liked about the Bond of the written page and which the couple of chapters of DMC I got through before I ditched it made me forget. Top draw stuff.

Thanks!

On the ribbon, the scarlet & black ribbon... and a character named Stendahl... OK, it wasn't very subtle. Indulge me. Hee hee hee.

[Jim]

The final part is now up.

Please don't be angry if I waste your time with it.

[marktmurphy]

Wonderful to hear that- I think I'll have a good read of the whole thing this evening.

[Simon]

Superb, as ever.

[Jim]

Thank you.

[MkB]

Jim, I was walking down a street this morning in Paris, and I must blame you for shattering my veneer of literacy, because when I saw this panel, Skeletons of Yesterday crossed my mind before Scarlet and Black!
 IMG_382.jpg   37.89KB   16 downloads

[Harry Fawkes]

Well done Jim. A splendid read!
One thing is for sure, the Board of Directors of Glidrose Publications Ltd don't have to go to the trouble of publishing another Bond book, ever again. I mean who needs them with Fan Fiction like yours and the other CBn members to keep our literary thirst for Bond quenched.

Please keep writing!

I'm binding the printed versions of the fan fic novels I print and adding them to my Bond collection and yours are on the top of the list!

Harry Fawkes

[MHazard]

Just started this during a lull at work. Very nicely written and certainly would have fit in well with FYWR. But why does everyone keep comparing Jim to Faulks? The portions I've read already show much more thought and understanding of Bond than anything in Devil May Plod.

[Jim]

Well done Jim. A splendid read!
One thing is for sure, the Board of Directors of Glidrose Publications Ltd don't have to go to the trouble of publishing another Bond book, ever again. I mean who needs them with Fan Fiction like yours and the other CBn members to keep our literary thirst for Bond quenched.

Please keep writing!

I'm binding the printed versions of the fan fic novels I print and adding them to my Bond collection and yours are on the top of the list!

Harry Fawkes

That's very kind, thank you.

[Jim]

I have tinkered with it a bit; not radically but a lickle bick of tweaking.

[Trident]

I have tinkered with it a bit; not radically but a lickle bick of tweaking.

Why the hell did you do that? To annoy me? Make my day a visit to the dentist? With root-canal treatment? You ought to know that I was about to review it (*wads all his previous 296 pages of notes, quotes, comparisons, gives them a Mathis-treatment in the wastpaper bin and sets again to work on a daunting task*).

[Jim]

I have tinkered with it a bit; not radically but a lickle bick of tweaking.

Why the hell did you do that? To annoy me? Make my day a visit to the dentist? With root-canal treatment? You ought to know that I was about to review it (*wads all his previous 296 pages of notes, quotes, comparisons, gives them a Mathis-treatment in the wastpaper bin and sets again to work on a daunting task*).

Grammatical errors only. Something was irritating me.