61 replies to this topic

[Triton]

I don't understand why the literary James Bond series can be in such bad shape while I see piles of Electronic Arts James Bond related game titles such as Agent Under Fire and Nightfire and the MGM Special Edition DVDs at most chain and warehouse stores. GP Putnam & Sons and Jove books here in the United States should really be ashamed of themselves. I don't think that readers have lost interest in James Bond, I think that the only people who knew of the existence of the Raymond Benson books were long-time literarly James Bond fans that knew about them from other fans or from James Bond Web sites on the Internet. I don't understand why there isn't any marketing muscle being put behind the newer James Bond books.

I know that this idea isn't very popular with some fans, but why isn't Ian Fleming Publications allying itself with the MGM/UA-Eon Productions marketing machine? I think that the Raymond Benson books would have generated much more interest if they bore the 007 logo and the likeness of the current James Bond Pierce Brosnan on the cover. Why can't the cover art look like a movie poster or one of the boxes for the Electronic Arts games? The cover art of the novels are so boring. Where's the promotion?

I really cannot say that the James Bond books failed because Raymond Benson is a poor writer. You pick up most books on the bestseller list and you find worse writers.

With such considerable public interest in the James Bond character you would think that the continuation novels would be a license to print money.

[clinkeroo]

Good points, Triton,

Hell, if they'd given Benson's covers and marketing the beautiful treatment they've given the U.S. Fleming re-issues, things may have been a little different.