Raymond Benson recently spoke to FelixLeiter.com. Here's a link to the interview.
Interview: Raymond Benson on Felix Leiter
Started by
Righty007
, Jul 16 2008 04:42 AM
4 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 16 July 2008 - 04:42 AM
#2
Posted 16 July 2008 - 05:12 AM
Nice work, Chris. Some very insightful questions there.
#3
Posted 16 July 2008 - 06:54 AM
A second anthology is possible?
Nice interview, Chris.
Nice interview, Chris.
#4
Posted 16 July 2008 - 07:08 AM
Excellent, and informative, interview.
#5
Posted 16 July 2008 - 07:45 AM
Very good interview, most intriguing.
CW: John Gardner created Cedar Leiter, Felix’s daughter, for For Special Services. Did you ever consider bringing her back as a CIA contact in any of your Bond novels?
RB: No. My directive from IFP (they were called Glidrose when I began working for them) was that I could use or ignore anything from the other continuation authors, as long as I was faithful to anything Fleming wrote. I wasn’t against Cedar—I quite like For Special Services—but I didn’t see a reason to bring her back. I can’t remember if Bond asks about her. Maybe I had it in and Glidrose cut it. I really can’t remember and haven’t looked at the book in a while.
That decision I never understood. Bond's mission from FSS is mentioned but Cedar Leiter is entirely omitted in TFOD. This didn't make sense at all. While I for one can easily live without Cedar (liked the idea of a Leiter daughter; hated the actual Dale-Arden-stand-in that Cedar turned out to be; all screaming, crying rescue-me-James!, brrr), there is just no logic in mentioning that mission without mentioning Leiter's daughter. Would have been better to cut the whole FSS episode from TFOD.
CW: John Gardner created Cedar Leiter, Felix’s daughter, for For Special Services. Did you ever consider bringing her back as a CIA contact in any of your Bond novels?
RB: No. My directive from IFP (they were called Glidrose when I began working for them) was that I could use or ignore anything from the other continuation authors, as long as I was faithful to anything Fleming wrote. I wasn’t against Cedar—I quite like For Special Services—but I didn’t see a reason to bring her back. I can’t remember if Bond asks about her. Maybe I had it in and Glidrose cut it. I really can’t remember and haven’t looked at the book in a while.
That decision I never understood. Bond's mission from FSS is mentioned but Cedar Leiter is entirely omitted in TFOD. This didn't make sense at all. While I for one can easily live without Cedar (liked the idea of a Leiter daughter; hated the actual Dale-Arden-stand-in that Cedar turned out to be; all screaming, crying rescue-me-James!, brrr), there is just no logic in mentioning that mission without mentioning Leiter's daughter. Would have been better to cut the whole FSS episode from TFOD.