9 replies to this topic

[DavidJones]

Why no novelisations between 1979-89

I would have liked there to have been a novelisation of For Your Eyes Only, especially.

Also, Chrisopher Wood states in an interview that he was never asked to write an original Bond novel, so maybe he wasn't asked to adapt a screenplay either.

[Double-Oh Agent]

It would appear that since 1979 EON does not do novelizations of films that have titles from Ian Fleming short stories, only for original screenplays.

So the films For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, and Quantum Of Solace are not turned into a novelization because, it would seem, that EON does not want to confuse/mix up anyone with a novelization and a Fleming story with the same title. That, of course, is not a problem for Licence To Kill, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day since Fleming didn't create them. Casino Royale didn't have a novelization because it's based on Fleming's novel much like the Bond films prior to 1977.

As for why there were novelizations of The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me) and Moonraker (James Bond And Moonraker), all I can say is that they are both wildly different than the sources their namesakes come from, particularly Spy whose contents the filmmakers couldn't use anyway per Fleming's orders.

[Trident]

Apart from the reasons Double-Oh Agent already gave I also suspect the general market for novelizations post-DAD hasn't justified to stay active in this (relatively speaking) small sideline of the merchandise. There is considerable trouble involved in producing a film tie-in and with the tight schedules of current productions it's become progressively difficult to tailor the novel to the frequently reworked scripts. I suppose EON from some point onwards just decided it wasn't worth the effort any more.

Personally, while I enjoyed Wood's two books I cannot say I'd particularly miss the Gardner's or Benson's works very much. They had to be done with two eyes firmly on the deadline and this just shows. There certainly are a number of seasoned veterans of the tie-in frontline who can and do succeed in their particular niché. But as a rule I wouldn't expect too much from a novelization and would rather have a decent behind-the-scenes documentary on each film.

[David Schofield]

I think general rule is that if the film has taken anything that is identiable from a Fleming novel or short story, EON won't have it novelised.

(Okay, this doesn't exactly explain Wood's Moonraker but apart from the name Hugo Drax (not "Sir" Hugo Drax, note) and Moonraker for the project title, there's not much Fleming there).

Personally, however, I am amazed how much TLC was put into the first novelisation, Wood's Spy. Not only was this published as a Jonathan Cape UK hardback first edition at a time when literary Bond was pretty much a thing of the past, Wood wrote in a Flemingesque style, dropped the sillier bits of the plot (the train fight, M's pyramid HQ, Q's lab beneath, etc), dropped Roger Moore's Bond and relaced him with a man who was identifiably Fleming's and achieved a perfect contiinuation from Colonel Sun.

Indeed, I'd venture, what Wood achieved with Spy - for a Fleming Bond fan - hasn't been achieved since...

[Dr.Fell]

I think general rule is that if the film has taken anything that is identiable from a Fleming novel or short story, EON won't have it novelised.

(Okay, this doesn't exactly explain Wood's Moonraker but apart from the name Hugo Drax (not "Sir" Hugo Drax, note) and Moonraker for the project title, there's not much Fleming there).

Personally, however, I am amazed how much TLC was put into the first novelisation, Wood's Spy. Not only was this published as a Jonathan Cape UK hardback first edition at a time when literary Bond was pretty much a thing of the past, Wood wrote in a Flemingesque style, dropped the sillier bits of the plot (the train fight, M's pyramid HQ, Q's lab beneath, etc), dropped Roger Moore's Bond and relaced him with a man who was identifiably Fleming's and achieved a perfect contiinuation from Colonel Sun.

Indeed, I'd venture, what Wood achieved with Spy - for a Fleming Bond fan - hasn't been achieved since...

I couldn't agree more. Wood's novelization of SPY is a very good thriller and a worthy entry into the novel cannon. A shame Mr. Wood was never asked to write an original James Bond book because no one since has achieved the heights of that novelization.

Edited by Dr.Fell, 09 January 2010 - 11:31 PM.

[AMC Hornet]

Although I agree that JB,TSWLM was a far better novelization than JMAMR, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Wood 'achieved heights' never since attained. Upon rereading it I found it packed with way more shortcut similes than Fleming would have ever used.

It seems to be a common occurance for a writer to pour a lot of work into his first novelization, then pay little more than lip service to the rest. Am I the only one who noticed that John Gardner's LTK was better that GE, and Benson's TND was much more fleshed out than TWINE or DAD?

There was too much of Risico in FYEO to novelize it, although there's no reason why OP couldn't have been done (unless there was a conflict over whether to assign the job to Gardner or George MacDonald Fraser). Could AVTAK have been improved in a novelization? Probably not. I too would have liked to see a novelization of TLD, but maybe Gardner couldn't sqeeze it in.

With any luck we'll see a novelization of Bond 23. We can only hope.

[Dr.Fell]

Although I agree that JB,TSWLM was a far better novelization than JMAMR, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Wood 'achieved heights' never since attained. Upon rereading it I found it packed with way more shortcut similes than Fleming would have ever used.

It's not perfect but alot of it is brilliant and I found Bond very much characterized in the vein of Fleming's spy. I very happily put Wood's Spy over any Gardner or Bensons, who's works were either boring,stupid, or both.

Edited by Dr.Fell, 10 January 2010 - 09:56 PM.

[David Schofield]

Although I agree that JB,TSWLM was a far better novelization than JMAMR, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Wood 'achieved heights' never since attained. Upon rereading it I found it packed with way more shortcut similes than Fleming would have ever used.

It's not perfect but alot of it is brilliant and I found Bond very much characterized in the vein of Fleming's spy. I very happily put Wood's Spy over any Gardner or Bensons, who's works were either boring,stupid, or both.

Indeed.

It is a great shame Glidrose didn't appreciated Wood's book and give him the continuation gig in 1981 rather than Gardner.

Okay, his obvious attempts at trying to write like Fleming may had grated eventually, but it would have felt a lot better than trying to simply shoe-horn the name "James Bond" into the writing style of Gardner and the semi-professional fan-fic of Benson.

[DavidJones]

I've just got my copy of the novelisation from eBay.

[Donovan Mayne-Nicholls]

Why no novelisations between 1979-89

I would have liked there to have been a novelisation of For Your Eyes Only, especially.

Also, Chrisopher Wood states in an interview that he was never asked to write an original Bond novel, so maybe he wasn't asked to adapt a screenplay either.

I've also given this a lot of thought. Take for instance the TMWTGG movie. It hardly resembles Fleming's novel but got a tie-in edition published. With TSWLM they were legally forbidden from putting the poster artwork on Fleming's paperback and that's the only real reason Wood's book saw the light of day. I guess the only reason to do the same with MR was that wood wrote that as well. I see no reason why AVTAK especially couldn't be novelised (FAVTAK is not the title of a Fleming volume and the movie doesn`t resemble anything in the Fleming canon).
TSWLM was most certainly done at Eon's request but maybe CW or Glidrose lobbied for a followup novelisation.
I get the feeling that IFP's current back-to-Fleming policy might be against new novelisations as these are set in the present. It'd have been really odd to have read a novelisation of QoS, as this would have made reference to the film version of CR.