15 replies to this topic

[glidrose]

Self-explanatory thread title.

List the publication, reviewer and tells us if it the review is positive, mixed or negative.

The Independent review by Barry Forshaw is positive. "And it's quickly apparent that Horowitz is doing something both clever and audacious– more so than he did with his continuation of Conan Doyle's great detective. This is nevertheless a clever and enjoyable pastiche, which manages to press many of the buttons that were the purview of 007's creator. While Deaver's Bond outing did not have aficionados eager for him to chronicle further adventures, there will surely be an appetite for more outings à la Horowitz." Forshaw also claims "this is the first book to deal with what happens to all those Bond girls after the final clinch." Er, um, "From Russia, With Love" says a lot about Tiffany Case. http://www.independe...e-10463837.html

[coco1997]

Financial Times review. Very positive.

[Harmsway]

Financial Times review. Very positive.

Great review.

I'm getting very excited for Trigger Mortis.

[sharpshooter]

I've only read positive things about the book. I don't want to jinx things, but it would be good if they managed to secure Horowitz for another Bond novel. Get some momentum with one author instead of switching them up like Faulks, Deaver and Boyd. It would be intersting if he continued working in between Fleming's timeline, too. Say his next one could be before Thunderball.

[Guy Haines]

Or the events after Thunderball but before The Spy Who Loved Me - or after that novel but before OHMSS, The missing months in the hunt for Blofeld and SPECTRE.

Or, as suggested above, before TB. The five secret occasions that make up For Your Eyes Only - one of them predates Thunderball, namely Quantum Of Solace with its mentions of Fidel Castro before taking over Cuba. The other stories? Were they all part of the same timeline?

I think sharpshooter might be on to something here. How about after Trigger Mortis, before Thunderball, with Bond taking on a villain who works at one or more removes for SPECTRE - thus taking in the reference at the start of chapter eight to an "independent outfit" operating in Europe using endless cut outs to keep anonymous. Even Bond's opponent might not realise who he's dealing with.

[glidrose]

On a side note, I am thrilled to see a genuine high-brow intellectual show enthusiasm for Bond and the book. Google Simon Schama in case you don't know who he is. (And shame on you if you don't!)


The Financial Times review by Simon Schama is very positive. "Anthony Horowitz has written a humdinger of a Bond story, so cunningly crafted and thrillingly paced that 007’s creator would have been happy to have owned it. But from his brilliant first chapter on, Horowitz is a pitch-perfect mimic of the Fleming one-line punch. Trigger Mortis is what you would call a Loving Tribute." " http://www.ft.com/cm...l#axzz3kAzWcKyg

The Independent review by Barry Forshaw is positive. "And it's quickly apparent that Horowitz is doing something both clever and audacious– more so than he did with his continuation of Conan Doyle's great detective. This is nevertheless a clever and enjoyable pastiche, which manages to press many of the buttons that were the purview of 007's creator. While Deaver's Bond outing did not have aficionados eager for him to chronicle further adventures, there will surely be an appetite for more outings à la Horowitz." Forshaw also claims "this is the first book to deal with what happens to all those Bond girls after the final clinch." Er, um, "From Russia, With Love" says a lot about Tiffany Case. http://www.independe...e-10463837.html
[/quote]

[Vauxhall]

Was about to remark the same. Simon Schama is a divisive taste, but still excellent to see his name on the review - and a nicely pitched style for it too.

As has been said before, Horowitz aped Arthur Conan Doyle nicely. It certainly seems he's done a fairly solid job of Fleming too. Looking forward to it.

[quantumofsolace]

hoping for this. sort of expecting after the great holmes

[billy007]

As I've stated in previous posts the average 007 fan is a movie fan not a literary fan. It sounds/feels that Mr. Horowitz is hitting all the right notes. Any Sherlock Holmes fan should read "House of Silk"  I haven't gotten around to reading "Moriarty" yet.  We have Trigger Mortis, a new comic series by Warren Ellis, and of course the release of SPECTRE coming soon.  It is a good time to be a 007 fan.

[glidrose]

Scorecard:

4 positive: The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
1 mixed: The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)

The Evening Standard review by Nicholas Lezard is extremely positive. "Reborn Bond is back at his best. You will have been caught up in the bonkers but hugely enjoyable story, which has everything in it we want from Bond, and more." http://www.standard....w-a2926741.html

The Guardian review by Sarah Ditum is mixed-positive. "Written with terse precision and touches of cruel poetry, this 007 revival makes seamless use of a previously unpublished story by Fleming, but problems arise when Horowitz deviates from the model. When it comes, the Fleming chapter slips in almost seamlessly, a testament to how attentive Horowitz has been to his master’s style. He delivers the tersely precise prose that makes Bond so compelling, but more than that, he also supplies touches of Fleming’s cruel poetry. As long as Trigger Mortis follows the contours established by Fleming, it’s a brisk and effective ride. The problems arise when Horowitz deviates from the model: [the Pussy Galore sub-plot] takes up fully the first quarter of the book, which feels like a long time to defer the thrills of a thriller in order to make a joke at the hero’s expense, however gratifying the punchline." http://www.theguardi...itz-review-bond

The New York Times review by Felix Salmon is somewhere between mixed and positive. "Setting a new Bond novel in the past has other problems too. While it’s easy for thriller writers to get excited about today’s state-of-the-art gadgets, it’s much harder to realistically convey how a spy would have felt about the toys of 55 years ago. Still, the heart of any thriller is the plot, and here Horowitz doesn’t disappoint. The action moves with high velocity. And while Horowitz’s loving pastiche lacks Fleming’s flashes of brilliance, it should be more than good enough for the fans. The only real question is why anybody felt the need for this book to be written in the first place. Much of the excitement of Bond comes from his contemporaneity. Instead of trying to rehabilitate the bigoted Bond of the 1950s, we should keep our dapper spy in the movies of the present, where he belongs." http://www.nytimes.c...owitz.html?_r=0

The New Zealand Herald review by Linda Herrick is positive. "So Trigger Mortis feels grounded and Horowitz's crisp prose is relentless in its pace. Best of all, you can tell he enjoyed writing the book. It's a thrill, an entertainment, pure amusement. Ian Fleming couldn't have done better himself." Of William Boyd's "Solo", she writes, " It's a risky business. William Boyd's Solo, released in 2013, was a huge, unintentionally hilarious botch-up: he portrayed Bond as a near-alcoholic, randy old perv obsessed by eggs for breakfast and, unforgivably, a man who enjoyed campily whisking up his own salad dressing in a steak restaurant. It committed the cardinal sin of making the reader laugh at James Bond. That's not on." http://www.nzherald....jectid=11508036

[sharpshooter]

It's looking really good for Horowitz and Ian Fleming Publications. I've skim-read some of the reviews, and I love some of the ideas he's using here. The Independent review concludes Trigger Mortis is energetic and satisfying. So it should be a fun read. I think that's something the last few adult Bond novels have lacked. I never felt compelled to read on with Solo and Carte Blanche. This time, I imagine I'll feel differently. Hopefully I have a copy of the book on Tuesday. 

[glidrose]

Scorecard:

5 positive: The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick), The Telegraph (Jake Kerridge)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
1 mixed review: The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)

The BBC also has a round-up: http://www.bbc.com/n...t-arts-34184887

The Telegraph review by Jake Kerridge gives the book four stars out of five. "Still, such experiments preserve the book from the lifelessness that comes with excessive reverence. Ultimately, Horowitz seems to me to have captured the spirit of Fleming more successfully than his recent illustrious predecessors in the Bond-sequel game, Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd. But one can hardly be surprised to find that Trigger Mortis doesn’t quite have the compulsive quality of Fleming’s best work." The author also inexplicably claims "But in the Fleming canon, Pussy goes the way of such predecessors as Tiffany Case, Solitaire and Honeychile Rider, and has disappeared without explanation, despite Bond’s avowed passion for her, by the start of the next novel." http://www.telegraph...fleming-review/

[Orion]

Scorecard:

5 positive: The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick), The Telegraph (Jake Kerridge)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
1 mixed review: The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)

The BBC also has a round-up: http://www.bbc.com/n...t-arts-34184887

The Telegraph review by Jake Kerridge gives the book four stars out of five. "Still, such experiments preserve the book from the lifelessness that comes with excessive reverence. Ultimately, Horowitz seems to me to have captured the spirit of Fleming more successfully than his recent illustrious predecessors in the Bond-sequel game, Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd. But one can hardly be surprised to find that Trigger Mortis doesn’t quite have the compulsive quality of Fleming’s best work." The author also inexplicably claims "But in the Fleming canon, Pussy goes the way of such predecessors as Tiffany Case, Solitaire and Honeychile Rider, and has disappeared without explanation, despite Bond’s avowed passion for her, by the start of the next novel." http://www.telegraph...fleming-review/

Im mostly annoyed that Jake clearly hasn't read From Russia With Love then - FLEMING'S BEST NOVEL - As that does tell you what happened to Tiffany (as does Trigger Mortis for that matter)

[glidrose]

Scorecard:

8 positive: The Sydney Morning Herald (Scott Murray), The Wall Street Journal (Christopher Bray), The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick), The Telegraph (Jake Kerridge), Stuff (Ian Earle)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
1 mixed review: The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)
1 mixed negative: The Australian (Adrian McKinty)

The Wall Street Journal review by Christopher Bray is mostly positive. "The book barely puts a foot wrong. Fun though “Trigger Mortis” is, there’s no denying its episodic structure. The book is almost a third over before its narrative gears properly engage. [Despite this], there are more than enough pleasures for even the strictest Bond aficionado." http://www.wsj.com/a...seat-1441396880 FWIW, he admires Boyd's "Solo" and loathes the Gardner and Benson Bond books.

The Sydney Morning Herald review by Scott Murray is positive. "Horowitz would have done well if he had managed even the occasional passage that evoked the great stylist, but he has done far better than that. Mostly, he writes as if he were Fleming. This is the Bond novel we have always wanted since Fleming was forced to put down his pen. Trigger Mortis is a Bond novel no one else could have conceived and written except for Fleming in his prime. Bond and his creator have been under siege from the second-rate and politically censorious for decades. It has taken 50 years for one author, Anthony Horowitz, to finally deliver the respectful and tender homage both have long deserved. It is a cause for celebration." http://www.smh.com.a...905-gjf3c2.html You know this guy is a true fan - he name-drops Mascott's 1967 003 1/2 book and says there have been post-Fleming 17 Bond authors.

The Australian review by Adrian McKinty is mixed-negative and regards this as the weakest of the four recent "celebrity author" Bond novels: "Horowitz’s prose style is workmanlike and steady, which is fine if all you want is to turn the pages, and do so quickly. Trigger Mortis is the least challenging of the four James Bond novels the estate has published since 2008. Sebastian Faulks brought an intellectual panache and a more introspective approach to Devil May Care, Jeffery Deaver delivered a certain muscularity to Carte Blanche and William Boyd’s Solo had political nous and a sharp satirical edge. [The villain] Sin is too much of a chilly, one-dimensional sadist to be interesting. Bond too isn’t as charismatic as he could be. There is nonetheless a lot to like in Trigger Mortis and it is a serviceable addition to the revamped Bond canon. Fervent fans and completists will likely not be disappointed, but I found myself wanting more. Horowitz is an intelligent and thoughtful man, and if he had taken a longer time to think about his subject matter and stretched the boundaries of his commission, he could have turned in something a bit more interesting and adventurous." http://www.theaustra...h-1227519588265

The Stuff (New Zealand) review by Ian Earle is positive. "Old Bond fans will love it - this one did." http://www.stuff.co....dschool-delight

[glidrose]

Scorecard:

9 positive: Publishers Weekly (anonymous), The Sydney Morning Herald (Scott Murray), The Wall Street Journal (Christopher Bray), The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick), The Telegraph (Jake Kerridge), Stuff (Ian Earle)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
1 mixed review: The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)
1 mixed negative: The Australian (Adrian McKinty)

The anonymous Publishers Weekly review is positive. "An excellent mimic of Fleming's prose, Horowitz delivers an entertainment sure to please James Bond fans." http://www.publisher...m/9780062395108

[glidrose]

Scorecard:

14 positive: New Statesman (Ian Sansom), London Times (Andrew Lycett), The Sydney Morning Herald (Mark McGinness), Free Lance-Star (Drew Gallagher), Seattle Times (Adam Woog), Publishers Weekly (anonymous), The Sydney Morning Herald (Scott Murray), The Wall Street Journal (Christopher Bray), The Evening Standard (Nicholas Lezard), The Financial Times (Simon Schama), The Independent (Barry Forshaw), The New Zealand Herald (Linda Herrick), The Telegraph (Jake Kerridge), Stuff (Ian Earle)
1 qualified positive: The New York Times (Felix Salmon)
2 mixed reviews: The Sunday Times (David Mills), The Guardian (Sarah Ditum)
1 mixed negative: The Australian (Adrian McKinty)

The London Times review by Andrew Lycett - author of a well-regarded Fleming biography - is very positive. Horowitz successfully "incorporates telling detail while maintaining a pulsating sense of excitement. I’m not always a fan of continuation novels, but Trigger Mortis is a masterly feat of literary ventriloquism. It could almost be Fleming’s work."

The Sunday Times review by David Mills is mixed. "Horowitz has an amazing facility for narrating action, and the set-pieces are terrific. The 10 pages of Bond racing his Maserati in a duel to the death at Nürburgring are superbly paced. And the final 50 pages pass in a breathless rush of excitement as our hero escapes a horribly slow execution and has to crawl on top of a speeding subway train that’s packed with baddies to save the day. It is just the rest of it that is the problem. I didn’t want to reach this conclusion, but Trigger Mortis is not a book for grown-ups." Despite this, "It is traditional for Bond baddies to unburden themselves, but none has carried exposition to quite these lengths. Sin takes 20 pages to explain himself." Mills also criticizes anomalies in the story and the world of Bond.

The New Statesman review by crime novelist Ian Sansom is positive. In addition to praising the new Lagercrantz "Lisbeth Salander" sequel, he writes "Trigger Mortis is much cooler and more restrained in comparison. But then the original Fleming novels are much cooler and more restrained than one perhaps remembers: the Bond books are not the Bond films. Fleming’s best work was possessed of a rather insouciant tone, almost reminiscent of the work of a stylist such as Osbert Lancaster; a wry, weary, mid-century tone that Horowitz captures exactly. There is certainly none of the dismal, tormented Bond evident in the recent Daniel Craig incarnation. The true mimic is no mere parrot or performing monkey. The best are bone-conjurors, bringing back the voices of the dead, able to express what a person would say about anything you can think of. Horowitz and Lagercrantz are in this club of crafty necromancers." http://www.newstates...d-stieg-larsson

The Sydney Morning Herald review by Mark McGinness is positive. "But it is Bond's sketchiness, his unknowability that allows him to endure and remain the subject of constant reinvention. He's not quite a cypher, but he needs a good plot to make him fit to read. Here, Horowitz has nailed it. He is true to Fleming's formula." http://www.smh.com.a...926-gju3zx.html

The Free Lance-Star (Texas) review by Drew Gallagher is positive. "Horowitz has a lot of fun with Trigger Mortis. Trigger Mortis is an entertaining addition to the James Bond canon and it’s nice to have the ongoing legacy of 007 in the hands of a storyteller as capable and compelling as Horowitz." http://www.frederick...75ea8f72ef.html

The Seattle Times review by Adam Woog is generally positive. "It’s all pretty silly, but great fun." The reviewer mistakenly thinks the villain is North Korean. http://www.seattleti...ican-mysteries/