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Hard-to-Find Bonds


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#1 kenhelm

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 04:52 PM

I'm looking for two hard-to-find items:

 

- the Killing Zone scan (I have the transcript) for my collection;

 

- "The Little-Known Ian Fleming/James Bond Short Stories" by Saul Fischer, appearing in Bondage magazine, No. 4, Summer 1977.

 

If someone is willing to help me out, please send me a PM. Thanks.
 



#2 stromberg

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 05:38 PM

Thought I have a scan of TKZ, but found that it's only a transcript. Only front and back covers are scans.

 

Not certain if an entire scan exists. I believe it was only "published" in paperback form, which brings the inevitable danger of damages that come with the scanning process. Don't know if it's still true, but in the days of old, word had it that there weren't more than three copies in circulation. Which doesn't mean that there aren't any more of them – the last one that made its way into collector's hands was found at a London bookstore.



#3 AMC Hornet

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 06:12 PM

You could write your own fanfic, get it bound at a vanity press and claim to have a 'hard to find' item just as valuable as TKZ.

 

It's not a collector's item - it's one man's fantasy fulfillment, just as derivative and full of plagiarism as any other fanfic, only more so.

 

If you can find a scan, fine. Read it and then realize you've been had, but don't spend a dime on it.



#4 kenhelm

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 06:46 PM

Thought I have a scan of TKZ, but found that it's only a transcript. Only front and back covers are scans.

 

Not certain if an entire scan exists. I believe it was only "published" in paperback form, which brings the inevitable danger of damages that come with the scanning process. Don't know if it's still true, but in the days of old, word had it that there weren't more than three copies in circulation. Which doesn't mean that there aren't any more of them – the last one that made its way into collector's hands was found at a London bookstore.

 

Well, according to zencat here (http://debrief.comma...ject/#entry5132), there used to be a xerox exchanged within the Bond community. It's not very hard to turn a xerox into a scan - at least, that's what I'm hoping for.



#5 AMC Hornet

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 11:27 PM

Why?

 

You could cobble together your own TKZ. All you need are copies of TMWTGG, Col. Sun, JB the Authorized Biography, LR, FSS, IB, ROH, and the novelizations of Magnum Force, Commando and Star Trek II.

 

Plus Drew's Script-o-rama will provide you with the dialogue you need from NSNA and AVTAK.

 

Of course, those are only the sources I recognized when I read this farce - there are bound to be others besides (I suspect some passages were lifted from Mack Bolan and Nick Carter as well).



#6 Dustin

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Posted 29 November 2015 - 11:35 PM

It's a bit absurd how much attention this TKZ thingy still gets. I've read plenty of fanfiction, lots of it never finished, polished or even run through spell check. And still most of what I read was easily superior to TKZ. If you don't happen to be immortal and thus have aeons of time to kill I strongly suggest you spend this precious commodity with something more worthwhile...

#7 billy007

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Posted 30 November 2015 - 12:42 AM

Good catch recognizing Commando and Star Trek II, AMC Hornet.  I only recognized LR and JB Authorized Biography the only time I had chance to read scan.

TKZ is a farce,pure toro taca, and it is not worth the time to find,let alone read.



#8 glidrose

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Posted 30 November 2015 - 10:30 PM

The Killing Zone was available online. That's how I got my copy.

 

And it still is available online. Google is your friend.

 

Want another clue? It's on a Bond site named after Bond's export employer.



#9 GodwulfAZ

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Posted 30 November 2015 - 11:15 PM

Well, personally I got at least one good laugh out of TKZ - the scene where "Bond" is piloting a speedboat toward the bad guy's lair and the boat is described as resembling "a thrusting penis".  Wow.

 

Speaking of laughs...when Jeffrey Deaver was here signing 'Carte Blanche', he gave a little talk, describing and illustrating "bad writing" - pitfalls that aspiring authors should avoid.  While I was having my copies signed, I asked Deaver whether the bad writing excerpts he'd read were from Jim Hatfield; I didn't know whether he was familiar with TKZ or Hatfield, but his reaction confirmed that he was.



#10 freemo

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Posted 02 December 2015 - 05:14 AM

Who else first heard of The Killing Zone from the old 007Forever.com article circa 2000-1? I remember that piece did a great job (perhaps too great) of selling this "bootleg Bond book" - with its bizarre, puzzling history - as a sort of legendary "lost" tome:

"In fact it is even better than quite a few of the John Gardner novels."

"He is obviously capable of writing a first class Bond adventure".

"Jim Hatfield does know his James Bond and what constitutes a solid 007-adventure novel".

"In sum, lucky Bond novel hunters may someday see, on the farthest corner of dusty bookstore shelving, a strange little paperback composed of 251 of the wildest pages you may ever read in the James Bond "saga"."

Ha. I'm there! 2001Freemo (a Bond fan of a whole three-four years standing) was interested.

#11 kenhelm

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Posted 02 December 2015 - 12:32 PM

Yes, and zencat also found the book interesting:

 

[...] Why he wrote and self-published THE KILLING ZONE isn't really clear, but he used all the correct copyright markings, thanked Glidrose in his introduction, and really went out of his way to create a convincing fake. The rub is it's a pretty darn good Bond book!



#12 AMC Hornet

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Posted 04 December 2015 - 04:21 AM

 

Yes, and zencat also found the book interesting:

 

[...] Why he wrote and self-published THE KILLING ZONE isn't really clear, but he used all the correct copyright markings, thanked Glidrose in his introduction, and really went out of his way to create a convincing fake. The rub is it's a pretty darn good Bond book!

 

So is Assassin of Secrets, if obsessive plagiarism is your thing.

 

Everything in both books was copied word-for-word from other sources.

 

If TKZ was a good novel, we can thank John Gardner et al, instead of praising Hatfield while criticizing Gardner's legitimate, licenced output.



#13 Jim

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Posted 04 December 2015 - 07:08 AM

It's a terrible "book". Spare yourself the bother and, as others have suggested, photocopy a few pages from a random selection of proper books and derive pleasure that way if you must.

#14 AMC Hornet

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Posted 04 December 2015 - 08:37 PM

If anyone is still going to try to hunt down this tripe, you deserve to know that Bond dies in the end, and that the passage lifted from Star Trek II:TWOK was Bond's funeral at sea, fired out the photon torpedo tube of the HMS Reliant, substituting M for Kirk.

 

"Of all the agents I have known, he was the most...like a son."

 

Spoiler alert! Oops, wrong place. Oh well...



#15 Dustin

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Posted 04 December 2015 - 08:59 PM

Gods...really? I never made it to the end, I checked out when I read Bond was driving a pimp Porsche...

#16 AMC Hornet

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Posted 04 December 2015 - 09:38 PM

...which contained every gadget ever written into a Bond car (before Q accepted the CIA's offer and was off like a shot). These modifications were presented simply as a list.

 

In one scene, when Bond fired a missile at a guy there was a dramatic ten-second countdown while the guy realized what was going to happen.

 

Erm...

 

How useful is a ten-second delay when you're trying to fire a missile, presumably from one moving vehicle at another?

 

Just one example of what made this - to the posters at 007forever - "first class Bond", "solid 007 adventure" and "even better than quite a few of the John Gardner novels".

 

I'd rather read Heaven Isn't Too Far Away again. It had its flaws, but at Least Barbara Emanuelle wrote it herself.



#17 kenhelm

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Posted 05 December 2015 - 02:43 AM

You're absolutely right. This Jim Hatfield should be found and shot on the spot.

 

What, he's already dead? Well, then, he should be exhumed and incinerated.

 

What, he's cremated? Err... Never mind, nuke the graveyard...


Edited by kenhelm, 05 December 2015 - 03:06 AM.


#18 AMC Hornet

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Posted 05 December 2015 - 05:27 AM

Even I wouldn't go that far.

 

...on a good day.



#19 glidrose

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Posted 05 December 2015 - 08:28 PM

Does this mean George W. Bush wasn't arrested for cocaine possession?

 

Just one example of what made this - to the posters at 007forever - "first class Bond", "solid 007 adventure" and "even better than quite a few of the John Gardner novels".


Our own Zencat seems to have liked it. "Despite all this, The Killing Zone is not entirely without Bondian merit. It features some clever action scenes, good use of Mexican locales (Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Sierra Madre), and a strong villain in Klaus Dobermann. The return of Triple X is fun in a fan fiction sort of way, but Hatfield does go a step too far with the name of his Bond Girl: Lotta Head."
 



#20 coco1997

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Posted 14 December 2015 - 05:09 PM

I just ordered a banned-in-the-U.S. Bond book called "Bond On the Rocks" by Curtis Cook.

 

http://www.blurb.com...nd-on-the-rocks

 

 

James Bond faces his most diabolical challenge of all time -- modern life. The cultural icon that role-modeled behavior of men for generations was pushed into retirement 20 years earlier in a feminist rebellion at Regents Park. He has blown through the personal fortune he accumulated as an irresistible and heavy-drinking super spy and survives on a modest pension in a world stumbling toward globalization, privatization and war. He is a jobless senior citizen on the brink of losing his Chelsea flat to the bank. “Very sad, very troubling but actually very funny all at once. We witness the real-world frailties, humiliations, joys, quirks and anguish of human struggle that the mythical hero has always managed to keep off-camera.” Mary Goodnight calls on him and is appalled at the pathetic version of the man she had once served and loved. She connects him with the former 006 who is now CEO of a flourishing private corporation in the emerging international security industry. Despite misgivings over the loyalties and principles of private enterprise, Bond finds the incentives, perks and female staff highly appealing. He is dispatched to Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad to locate and buy off a Russian physicist who absconded with plans for an advanced missile defense system. But the physicist is a stubborn, Soviet-era Communist who resists all offers to relocate to the West. With a major bonus at stake, Bond resorts to enhanced interrogation to uncover the missing plans – a bad move. Banned in the U.S., “Bond on the Rocks” (unsanctioned by the Franchise) is still available at reasonable cost in Canada, Japan, Cuba, New Zealand, China and many other countries that adhere to the "life plus 50" rule of the Berne Convention.



#21 glidrose

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Posted 14 December 2015 - 08:04 PM

I just ordered a banned-in-the-U.S. Bond book called "Bond On the Rocks" by Curtis Cook.
 
http://www.blurb.com...nd-on-the-rocks


The site features a prevue. Here's the opening sentence:

"Harris' hands arch over his keyboard like two house cats frozen in mid-pounce. His glazed eyes fix on the word-processor screen but his mind drifts far from his cubicle in the Personnel Department for the massive Secret Intelligence Service complex at Vauxhall Cross, London."

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. More overwritten fan-fiction. And does anybody really like novels written in the present tense?

Bond makes his entrance in chapter 2. He gets an official notice of service termination from the Electric Board. He hasn't been paying his bills, you see. After all he's a senior on a fixed income.

Let's see, what chapter 3 has. "The telephone in James Bond's study explodes in a raucous burst of clatter, breaking the quiet peace as he makes his way up to the second floor. He momentarily crouches from the startling, unfamiliar intrusion and grasps the stair rail to steady his stand. The telephone had not rung since the bank that holds a second mortgage on his flat called a month ago about another missed payment."

Oh some good news at last! Bond never gets wrong number calls.

Thankfully the prevue ends here.

If Sean Connery ever decides he wants another acting gig he won't have to look too far...

#22 AMC Hornet

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Posted 14 December 2015 - 09:07 PM

There's a reason these are hard to find.

 

They're not worth looking for, and better off forgotten.

 

Unfortunately, in 20 years everyone will be dusting off their fanfics and seeking publication.



#23 Revelator

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Posted 15 December 2015 - 09:02 PM

Let me shift the discussion to this item:



- "The Little-Known Ian Fleming/James Bond Short Stories" by Saul Fischer, appearing in Bondage magazine, No. 4, Summer 1977.

 

Does anyone have any knowledge of the article's contents? I'm guessing it discusses "OO7 in New York".



#24 Dustin

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Posted 15 December 2015 - 11:00 PM

I have only recently read about this, can't remember where. Was that here possibly?

I thought I heard about this a long time ago. Supposedly it's about "007 in NY" and "Property of a Lady" but I have not the foggiest whether that's true.

#25 glidrose

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Posted 22 December 2015 - 07:59 PM

On top of that, Hatfield's anonymous and imaginary GWB informant talks an awful lot like the villains in TKZ. Exact same ear for dialogue. Wouldn't be surprised if Hatfield plagiarized his Bond novel when writing the GWB informant's dialogue.

#26 glidrose

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Posted 24 December 2015 - 01:02 AM

On top of that, Hatfield's anonymous and imaginary GWB informant talks an awful lot like the villains in TKZ. Exact same ear for dialogue. Wouldn't be surprised if Hatfield plagiarized his Bond novel when writing the GWB informant's dialogue.

 
Coincidence? I think not.


In case I wasn't clear, I was saying that Hatfield's GWB informant was no more real than Hatfield's contract with Glidrose/IFP.