Maybe you all don't understand my basic point.
Any Bond author should be free to write the story he wants--but still stay within Bond's world.
Look at Charlie Higson. To be honest, when I first read about the plans for a Young James Bond series, I was a bit surprised, and, perhaps illogically, dismayed that they would be set so far in the past. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if stories were to be told about Bond as a teenager, there was no choice but to set it in the original timeline that Fleming established. Now, as I am reading By Royal Command, after meeting Charlie at Books of Wonder in New York on Wednesday (what a nice guy! I am surprised that there were only about three "Bond nerds", as Charlie described us--and making sure to elaborate that he also counted himself as one--in the audience), it is once again clear that there was no other way to do it. The fact that the books sell so well is proof that there was no need for a retooling of continuity, putting Young Bond in a world of I-Pods and video games to show that the world that Fleming established can truly stand the test of time.
The adult Bond should still be in that world. Given that Raymond Benson's Bond was left in 2002 the last we saw him, Jeffrey Deaver's Bond should pick up right where he left off, if the book is indeed to be contemporary. That also means that the basic continuity elements I mentioned in my initial post in this thread should still be kept.
Bond interacts with the others in the series on a constant basis, and we get a better view of his character in witnessing that interaction.
Perhaps the most recent and overt example of this is in the Moneypenny Diaries. I have read only the first book so far, but Ms. Weinberg does a spectacular job of really fleshing out Fleming's Bond and the other characters he created. Her depiction of the MI6 structure would do Fleming proud. The fact that Bond himself is not the central protagonist does not make the book any less worthy as an excellent Bond adventure, despite the "reality" of the book.
Once again, Jeffrey Deaver should be allowed to do what he wants to do with Bond. But Bond should be Bond--keeping the physical description that Fleming had (and why anybody would think that is shoehorned in by non Fleming authors is beyond me--that is who Bond is!) along with the characters who inhabit his world.
I do understand the argument that the one constant in the series is Bond. However, what does that mean?
There is a certain structure of the books and films, with the films more strict in the adherence to it. Not all the boxes need be checked, but to throw out just the few elements--namely the characters I mentioned--for the sake of being bold and different and fresh make me wonder that those who advocate doing so would be happier reading adventures of a totally different character.
Edited by Bill, 30 May 2010 - 05:20 PM.