155 replies to this topic

[Dustin]

Actually Gardner had Bond meet - briefly - with the US President (more than once), PM Thatcher and Gorbachev and save their lives. So real-life characters have a bit of a tradition in the continuations. I seem to remember WLOD's 'Landsea '89' also had a real counterpart NATO exercise.

Edited by Dustin, 17 April 2013 - 07:01 AM.

[archer1949]

"Solo"? Hmmmm......A Star Wars crossover fanfic? Heh.

 

But the title doesn't bother me as much as the prospect of yet another "Bond goes rogue to exact unauthorized revenge" story.

 

I don't know. I'm reserving judgement.

[FOX MULDER]

LOVE the title. And it's marketing genius - the two o's mimicking the two 0's in 007 (no doubt there'll be an almost imperceptible '7' at the end of the title on the final cover).

 

And he's going to the USA! Superb. Looking forward to some classic Leiter banter...

[seawolfnyy]

LOVE the title. And it's marketing genius - the two o's mimicking the two 0's in 007 (no doubt there'll be an almost imperceptible '7' at the end of the title on the final cover).

 

And he's going to the USA! Superb. Looking forward to some classic Leiter banter...

S0L07?

[quantumofsolace]

standard 14 may 2013

http://www.standard....er-8615619.html

Dame Margaret Drabble is on a mission to kill James Bond sequels. The next Bond novel, Solo, is due out in September penned by William Boyd. “I’ve never read an Ian Fleming novel,” she told me at last night’s Royal Society of Literature's £10,000 Ondaatje prize at the Travellers’ Club won by Philip Hensher, “so I wouldn’t want to read a sequel. Enough is enough.”

Booker Prize-winning author Howard Jacobson said he couldn’t see the appeal of mimicking another writer’s style.

“I can understand why William would think it was a lovely gig but I don’t get it. As a writer you have a voice and you work through that voice. That’s the point. And of course to write a Bond book you would have to really care about Ian Fleming.

“That’s the real mystery to me — why anyone gives a damn about him.”

[Dustin]

 

standard 14 may 2013

Booker Prize-winning author Howard Jacobson said he couldn’t see the appeal of mimicking another writer’s style.

“I can understand why William would think it was a lovely gig but I don’t get it. As a writer you have a voice and you work through that voice. That’s the point. And of course to write a Bond book you would have to really care about Ian Fleming...

 

 

 

For a moment there I was wondering if this Jacobson did have a point maybe, what with caring about Fleming. But then I don't think the best of continuations are written by people who care about Fleming. Caring about Bond is what matters in my view. 

[ACE]

Interestingly Jack Higgins wrote another SOLO that I always thought could have been handed in as Bond continuation. 

Yes, I remember that book. Higgins could have made a serviceable Bond author back in the day.

 

SOLO is a good title, if only because - unlike so many other continuation novel titles - it isn't trying painfully hard to be "Bondian".

Agree. A Bond title shouldn't try too hard - waidaminnit, "Shouldn't Try Too Hard"?

More literary Bond is always good and I have the oddest feeling this latest effort will be very readable. Someone was lucky enough to score an extract of William Boyd's S0L07 below where the famed author shows off his knowledge of African languages. Bond is confronted by an assassin in a booth in dive-y, Tunisian bar in 1969.
 

Blogreed: "Koona t'chuta Bondo?"? 

007: Yes, Blogreed. I was just going to see your boss. Tell Brocco I've got the information.
Blogreed: "Soong peetch alay. Ee mara tom tee tok maky cheesa.
Brocco won neechee kochba mu shanee wy tonny wya uska. Chosky nowy u chusu."
007: Yeah, but this time I've got the information. 
Blogreed: "El jaya kulpa intick kuny ku suwa." 
007 [stealthily going for his leg-holstered Walther PPK under the table]: I don't have it with me. Tell Brocco... 
Blogreed: "Semal hi teek teek. Sone guru ye buya nyah oo won spasteega koo shu coon bon duwa weeptee."
007: Even I get searched sometimes. Do you think I had a choice? 
Blogreed: "Talk Brocco. Boompa kom bok nee aht am bompah."
007: Over my dead body! 
Blogreed: "Nuklee numaa. Ches ko ba tuta creesta crenko ya kolska!"
007: Yeah, I'll bet you have. 
[007 shoots first. Blogreed slumps dead. 007 then heads out, tossing the bartender a coin] 
007: Sorry about the mess.

 

 

 

[Dustin]

In a few years Blogreed will shoot first. Mark my words...

[glidrose]

 

standard 14 may 2013

http://www.standard....er-8615619.html

Dame Margaret Drabble is on a mission to kill James Bond sequels. The next Bond novel, Solo, is due out in September penned by William Boyd. “I’ve never read an Ian Fleming novel,” she told me at last night’s Royal Society of Literature's £10,000 Ondaatje prize at the Travellers’ Club won by Philip Hensher, “so I wouldn’t want to read a sequel. Enough is enough.”

Booker Prize-winning author Howard Jacobson said he couldn’t see the appeal of mimicking another writer’s style.

“I can understand why William would think it was a lovely gig but I don’t get it. As a writer you have a voice and you work through that voice. That’s the point. And of course to write a Bond book you would have to really care about Ian Fleming.

“That’s the real mystery to me — why anyone gives a damn about him.”

 

 

 

This deserves a thread of its own. The whole point of writing a Bond sequel is for the author to put his own spin on it. Helps if the author's own approach, mindset and author's voice have a Flemingish vibe. Let's see... Amis, Pearson, Wood, Faulks, Boyd. Yep, they have it.

 

I think the two who could be said to be the most lacking in these areas were Gardner and Deaver. I've never been able to get through Weinberg's books so I can't comment about her.

 

On the other hand one must remember that Amis wrote CS when he himself was becoming a conservative. I have seen it said elsewhere that CS is one of the shrewdest "political coming-out" novels ever penned. Amis could point to Fleming and Bond and say, "Not really me, chaps. I'm just writing to order." When in fact Amis was writing what he politically believed.

[ACE]

In a few years Blogreed will shoot first. Mark my words...

[Agent 76]

It's a cool title. sometimes less is better.

[zencat]

Launch day event announced:

 

http://www.thebookbo...-in-london.html

[007jamesbond]

when do we get some kind of plot summary of Solo? We only know location and that Bond go "solo" 
" 

[zencat]

when do we get some kind of plot summary of Solo? We only know location and that Bond go "solo" 
" 

Today.

 

http://www.thebookbo...escription.html

[SecretAgentFan]

What a relief!  Somehow I feared that this is another Bond going rogue story.  Instead he is sent on a mission (and maybe making tough decisions on his own, but that kind of rogue-ish behaviour has always been his thing).

 

I have high hopes for this one, after my disappointment with the previous two.  Deaver, IMO, was just as wrong for Bond as Faulks was, and they both did not get things right.  But Boyd could do the trick!

Edited by SecretAgentFan, 27 August 2013 - 02:44 PM.

[Dustin]

Thanks a million, zencat! Much appreciated: http://commanderbond...t-for-solo.html

[Dustin]

On a sidenote: what would really make my day would be an announcement that Boyd will do a second one. It would somehow give these continuations a kind of perspective and 'future'.

[glidrose]

Gotta pat myself on the back. I predicted it would have something to do with the Biafran Civil War. Boyd's created an imaginary African nation in lieu of that. Another theory I had that I think I kept to myself is that this may be an allegory for the U.S. and Iraq/Afghanistan.

[Dustin]

Another theory I had that I think I kept to myself is that this may be an allegory for the U.S. and Iraq/Afghanistan.

From these few lines I can't say I get an Iraq vibe, no. But it's really too little detail to tell either way.*

I'm a bit surprised Boyd makes use of a fictitious country for I seem to remember his AN ICE-CREAM WAR was considered to be highly authentic - as far as that is possible, writing about events 70 years after the fact - and accurate in its historical parts. I suppose Boyd went for this tool in order to make it easier to shape places, people and events to the needs of his tale.


*Off topic but perhaps interesting for some nonetheless: MacDonald Fraser's last volume of the Flashman Papers, FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (published 2005), came with a scathing explanatory note that made the book a kind of counterdraft to the recent Iraq 'adventure' - even though it concerns itself with the Abyssinian War of 1868.

[Guy Haines]

Given the location and the year, my money was on either Nigeria - Biafran civil war - or Libya - Gaddhafi takes power. Instead we have a fictional state, but it reads a lot like Nigeria to me. Fictional name for legal protection? I wonder.

 

Interesting that we have two Bond continuation novels - Jeffrey Deaver's, and now William Boyd's - venturing into the so-called "dark continent." Wonder if the film makers will follow, and have a Bond film on location in sub- Saharan Africa?

[marktmurphy]

 

Another theory I had that I think I kept to myself is that this may be an allegory for the U.S. and Iraq/Afghanistan.

From these few lines I can't say I get an Iraq vibe, no. But it's really too little detail to tell either way.*

I'm a bit surprised Boyd makes use of a fictitious country for I seem to remember his AN ICE-CREAM WAR was considered to be highly authentic - as far as that is possible, writing about events 70 years after the fact - and accurate in its historical parts. I suppose Boyd went for this tool in order to make it easier to shape places, people and events to the needs of his tale.

 

 

That and James Bond is a bit, y'know -silly- and to plonk such a celebrated slightly daft and fun hero into a real, slightly disturbing conflict may appear to devalue that conflict's seriousness slightly. In the same way Daniel Craig has said that his films shouldn't go near Al Qaeda or anything like that.

[Vauxhall]

The use of fictitious locations is always an irrational pet peeve of mine - but that's not a real concern.

Will be interested to see how this turns out.

[Dustin]

A fictitious setting doesn't have to be a drawback. Just think of Ed McBain's Sinola in his 87th Precinct series, a place every bit as real as New York. Perhaps even more so...

Edited by Dustin, 28 August 2013 - 03:47 AM.

[Guy Haines]

A fictitious setting doesn't have to be a drawback. Just think of Ed McBain's Sinola in his 87th Precinct series, a place every bit as real as New York. Perhaps even more so...

And a fictional backdrop is not unprecedented for Bond, in the films at least. Think "San Monique" in LALD - probably based on Haiti during the "Papa Doc" Duvalier era. Or "Isthmus City" in LTK.

[Dustin]

A fictitious setting doesn't have to be a drawback. Just think of Ed McBain's Sinola in his 87th Precinct series, a place every bit as real as New York. Perhaps even more so...

And a fictional backdrop is not unprecedented for Bond, in the films at least. Think "San Monique" in LALD - probably based on Haiti during the "Papa Doc" Duvalier era. Or "Isthmus City" in LTK.

And Royale-les-Eaux itself in the books.

Edited by Dustin, 28 August 2013 - 06:50 AM.

[glidrose]

*Off topic but perhaps interesting for some nonetheless: MacDonald Fraser's last volume of the Flashman Papers, FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (published 2005), came with a scathing explanatory note that made the book a kind of counterdraft to the recent Iraq 'adventure' - even though it concerns itself with the Abyssinian War of 1868.

 
Yep, I remember GMF's note. Really quite anti-Blair and anti-Iraq intervention. Rather odd so many British conservatives (GMF, Frederick Forsyth) took what in the U.S. is considered to be the liberal stance on this particular issue.

[Dustin]

*Off topic but perhaps interesting for some nonetheless: MacDonald Fraser's last volume of the Flashman Papers, FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (published 2005), came with a scathing explanatory note that made the book a kind of counterdraft to the recent Iraq 'adventure' - even though it concerns itself with the Abyssinian War of 1868.

Yep, I remember GMF's note. Really quite anti-Blair and anti-Iraq intervention. Rather odd so many British conservatives (GMF, Frederick Forsyth) took what in the U.S. is considered to be the liberal stance on this particular issue.

'America. A faraway place of which we know nothing...'

By the by, interesting piece in The Telegraph today: http://www.telegraph...all-at-sea.html

Note how the author omits the fact Bond's first mission was also to an invented place.

[Jim]

 

 

*Off topic but perhaps interesting for some nonetheless: MacDonald Fraser's last volume of the Flashman Papers, FLASHMAN ON THE MARCH (published 2005), came with a scathing explanatory note that made the book a kind of counterdraft to the recent Iraq 'adventure' - even though it concerns itself with the Abyssinian War of 1868.

Yep, I remember GMF's note. Really quite anti-Blair and anti-Iraq intervention. Rather odd so many British conservatives (GMF, Frederick Forsyth) took what in the U.S. is considered to be the liberal stance on this particular issue.

'America. A faraway place of which we know nothing...'

By the by, interesting piece in The Telegraph today: http://www.telegraph...all-at-sea.html

Note how the author omits the fact Bond's first mission was also to an invented place.

 

Perhaps someone who wasn't himself asked...

 

Bond locations are commonly fictionalised parallels or exaggerated reals - not sure why this is worthy of this piece's (mild) ire. At least Mr Boyd didn't call it Bongo Bongo Land.

[Dustin]

At least Mr Boyd didn't call it Bongo Bongo Land.

Another faraway place...

Edited by Dustin, 29 August 2013 - 02:06 PM.

[chrisno1]

 Well it's almost September and I guess I ought to be getting excited about the new Bond novel 'Solo' - but I'm not.

Truth be told the title and the accompanying minimalist artwork fills me with dread. I can't bear enigmatic, 'say nothing', titles and artwork. I wan't to be drawn into a book, both by its title and its cover and this does even less for me than the functional 'Carte Blanche'.  At least Deaver's effort sounded as if he'd given it some thought; Boyd's turn is under whelming IMO. It could just as easily be a Jackie Collin's novel or a Pinter play (mind you, the last might have been worth a look...)

Regards the plot outline; I rather like it. I think Wilbur Smith wrote a couple of novels in the seventies which covered similar territory (Dark of the Sun, Cry Wolf, maybe?) and I liked them a lot. I'm not over struck on creating nation states with imagined cities and infrasrtucture; it's as if Boyd's afraid to intertwine his fiction with fact. Given what I'd read about him, I thought he'd be better than that, and as the piece is historical, setting it in context would be easier, showing both sides of any actual African conflict.

Still looking forward, but with less excitement than the last two times. Maybe my senses have dulled by Faulks' and Deaver's less than satisfactory effrts !