155 replies to this topic

[FOX MULDER]

By the way, for a book that is released in two days there curiously don´t seem to be any reviews yet.

 

Is there an embargo on it? Hasn´t the publisher made it available to the critics?

 

I'm fairly certain that it's embargoed.

I work in a bookshop and we usually get a new title on the shelves a few days before the official release date - so far, no sign of SOLO. That tells me it's under lock and key until Thursday, even to critics.

[Walecs]

The bookshop where I have preordered it won't have it before next tuesday.

Edited by Walecs, 25 September 2013 - 12:13 PM.

[saint mark]

I pre-ordered both Doctor Sleep & Solo, and was tempted by the new Donna Tartt as well. For now I keep busy with the new Jo Nesbo (released 12 September).

 

A busy time for good books.

[Dustin]

CBner's reviewing SOLO please head this way: http://debrief.comma...spoilers-ahead/

[tdalton]

I don't know if anyone has already posted this (did a quick look around and didn't see it here), but William Boyd did an interview in which he discusses Solo, Bond, Ian Fleming, and so forth:

 

William Boyd talks Ian Fleming, James Bond, and Solo

[Dustin]

Kudos to tdalton. Now on the main page: http://commanderbond...-way-round.html

[quantumofsolace]

theguardian review http://www.theguardi...es-bond-mission

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_t4QoOYY7o

[007jamesbond]

It seem like the Guardian like Solo and give it a review without giving anything away! 

[zencat]

So much for the modest promotional campaign.

 

http://www.thebookbo...s-revealed.html

[glidrose]

Before agreeing to write the book, Boyd asked Daniel Craig if he should write it. Craig said "yes".

 

http://www.express.c...el-Craig-as-007

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-24227999

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-24282651

 

http://www.edinburgh...royal-1-3112969

[doubler83]

Pre-ordered from Amazon and totally forgot about it until I received an email from them to say it had been dispatched and I'd only paid £3.85 for it. Bargain!

[Major Tallon]

Amazing!  The release of Solo was a page two story in this morning's Indianapolis Star, a newspaper that typically gives short shrift to anything that doesn't happen in Indiana.  You could have knocked me down with a feather.  It seems that Bond is still big news everywhere.

[Guy Haines]

Bought Solo today at the same time as my morning newspaper, over the counter at W H Smith's - just 'round the corner from where I work. I am looking forward to starting it this evening.

[zencat]

So much for the modest promotional campaign.

 

http://www.thebookbo...s-revealed.html

And now photos and details of the 7 signed copies of SOLO arriving at their 7 thrilling cities.

 

http://www.thebookbo...ound-world.html

[sharpshooter]

Bought Solo today at the same time as my morning newspaper, over the counter at W H Smith's - just 'round the corner from where I work. I am looking forward to starting it this evening.

Well done. I'm going on a flight tonight and hope to see a copy of Solo in a bookstore - and have a read on board. Fingers crossed.

[saint mark]

Have a nice and save flight and much reading pleasure.

[quantumofsolace]

James Bond is really just a gent and a romantic standard 27 September 2013

Should Bond girls be referred to as Bond women? The issue was raised by William Boyd at this week’s launch at the Dorchester of his novel, Solo, the latest “continuation” product commissioned by Ian Fleming’s estate to zap yet more lucrative life into 007. “It seems to me that he wants a relationship, not just casual sex,” Boyd opined, although he inexplicably fails to include a scene in Solo where Bond gives a woman a foot massage, listens to her talk about her dreams, or helps her decide which dress to wear to a party.

The author makes a fair point, though. The Bond of Fleming’s books falls sincerely in love at least three times by my reckoning, with Vesper Lynd, Tiffany Case and Tracy Vincenzo. You could make a plausible argument to include a fourth girl — sorry, woman — in that line-up: Kissy Suzuki, with whom Bond settles into a life of happy domesticity and who he eventually impregnates, albeit thanks in large part to a severe head trauma.

In the novel Dr No he is a model of decorum with Honeychile Ryder — who would become the prototype for the cinematic Bond girl — until she bosses him into bed on the last page. In From Russia with Love he is deeply troubled to find himself effectively cast as a gigolo with Tatiana Romanova. Bond would probably regard himself as an old-fashioned romantic and a gentleman, even though he muses — repellently, for contemporary readers — that sex with Vesper would always have “the sweet tang of rape”, effectively buys his bleak first night with Tracy by paying off her gambling debts, and views a lesbian as a challenge.

By contrast to the films, the women in the Bond books tend to be resourceful, independent and strong, often having overcome some sort of sexual trauma — a reflection of the formidable females Fleming knew in both war and peace, with a measure of his dodgy sadomasochistic fantasies stirred in. Fleming’s Bond may be a hyper-heterosexual ogre but his relationships are more complicated and nuanced than mere rutting. Female characters in the films include an astronaut and a nuclear physicist but they’re afforded less respect and personality than the dippy Solitaire in the novel of Live and Let Die.

So Boyd hit the nail on the head. James Bond’s women were always women until the films infantilised them. It’s slightly ironic that the females in Solo are so lame. But as the journalist Giles Coren pointed out, Bond’s love interests in Skyfall — the most successful British film ever — are a former teenage prostitute who is killed immediately after Bond shags her, and a fellow-agent who can’t shoot straight and decides that she’s better off as his secretary. Sorry, girls.

[quantumofsolace]

William Boyd Q&A with James Bond http://www.theguardi...-q-a-james-bond

[quantumofsolace]

William Boyd on writing his first James Bond novel http://www.scotsman....novel-1-3115998

[hcmv007]

I like the title, and the story seems like a good one, but here is why Im passing on this one: I don't want to read a story set in the Cold War. While I don't plan on buying it I would check it out from a library.

[quantumofsolace]

Aah, Mr Bond... we've been expositioning you! http://www.independe...ou-8846462.html

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.classicca...test-adventure/

[glidrose]

Boyd interview. While discussing the novel and the films he mentions that his favorite Bond novels are FRWL, LALD and TMWTGG(!).

 

http://www.livemint....lliam-Boyd.html

 

Another Boyd interview. Discusses what spies and novelists have in common.

 

http://www.npr.org/2...new-bond-author

[S K Y F A L L]

William Boyd is much older then I was expecting. 

[glidrose]

Barry Norman interviews Boyd.

 

http://www.radiotime...or-william-boyd

 

Interesting observation... Bond will be 100 next year.

[glidrose]

Boyd on CBS morning television.

 

http://www.cbsnews.c...osen-by-estate/

[Matt_13]

I'm about 50 pages in and what's striking is how refreshingly simple and clear Boyd's writing is. So far he's sweeping the floor with Devil May Care. He seems to have genuine control of Bond's voice. Plotwise, I'm not quite sure why Bond would be dispatched on such a vague mission that seems to pose no immediate threat to his country, but maybe that will be made clearer as things progress. All in all, so far so good.

[sharpshooter]

I'm about 50 pages in and what's striking is how refreshingly simple and clear Boyd's writing is. So far he's sweeping the floor with Devil May Care. He seems to have genuine control of Bond's voice. Plotwise, I'm not quite sure why Bond would be dispatched on such a vague mission that seems to pose no immediate threat to his country, but maybe that will be made clearer as things progress. All in all, so far so good.

It sounds like we're at the same part of the reading process. As it turns out I only got my hands on a copy yesterday. In the first little segment leading up to Bond's briefing from M - Boyd has done marvellously. Really enjoyed his opening stanza with Bond's birthday, testing out a new car and his interest in this woman who keeps popping up. I think that would work very well in a movie. Not sure how I'm feeling about Zanzarim and reading about its long history and such. Could become a bit dull, and it's hardly an exotic location. Anyway, I'll keep reading. Much better than DMC and Carte Blanche so far.

Edited by sharpshooter, 12 October 2013 - 01:11 AM.