Continuity

ABurgess

Are the James Bond film novelizations considered to be part of the official Bond literary cannon? I would think so, considering the amount of editing the authors do to fit the novelizations into their Bond framework. EX: Gardner had to create a reason why in the novelization of GoldenEye Bond is a Commander when just a book earlier he held the position of Captain.

jetsetwilly

Gardner also jumps through hoops to explain how Felix Leiter can have the misfortune of being fed to a shark twice in his lifetime - apparently the shark chewed on his false leg and decided not to eat the rest of him!

The authors have referenced other novels in the novelisations, so I suppose that could make them canon. On the other hand, they never refer back to them - they're a curious anomaly within the literary series. I think it's safest to say that they exist in a sub-category of literary Bond (and if you've read the novelisation of GoldenEye, you'll understand that's where some of them belong!).

Hardyboy

I haven't read the Gardner or Benson novelizations (I know, Sir Miles, shame on me); but in 1989 I did thumb through Gardner's LTK and I came across the passage about Felix that Jetset references. I rolled my eyes and found the whole thing ludicrous--Felix being fed to a shark twice?

Anyway, as Jetsetwilly indicates, the novelizations seem to exist in a world of their own. As I wrote in "The Wood Novels" thread, I think Christopher Wood's Spy Who Loved Me works in the continuity of novels--the characters are similar to Fleming's, the writing is much like Fleming's, and the adventure is one the literary Bond has never been on. I feel the book deserves to be seen as the sixteenth Bond novel, following Colonel Sun. However, Wood's Moonraker is more problematic--the literary Bond has already faced a Hugo Drax and a nuclear rocket called the Moonraker, and so it doesn't make sense that he'd again encouter a Drax (who looks exactly like Fleming's character) and that the villain would have a fleet of space shuttles called Moonrakers. Also, in this book Wood adds Bond's health report from Thunderball and makes it a major part of the plot--another thing that harms continuity.

Anyway, continuity in the literary Bond series is tough to figure out. John Pearson in James Bond: The Authorized Biography gives Bond a brother and an aunt; which means that when M wrote in Bond's obit (YOLT) that Bond has no living relatives he's showing he knows little about his own agents--not a good quality in an SIS head. Gardner ignores Colonel Sun; and Benson rewrites Gardner, bringing back characters Gardner killed off. 'Tis a tangled web. . .

Willie Garvin

Ultimately it's up to the reader to decide if a novelization fits into the established continuity of the novels.As already noted here and elsewhere,Christopher Wood's The Spy Who Loved Me is an excellent Ian Fleming pastiche and it probably succeeds beyond it's author's original expectations.TSWLM is both a novelization _and_ an authentic James Bond novel.But I think most of the other books derived from the movies exist in the EON universe as opposed to the Fleming universe.

That's not a bad thing at all--just a helpful line of demarcation.This allows readers to pick and choose as the mood strikes whether or not a particular movie storyline falls into place with the original Fleming novels.If,for instance,you want to accept that James Bond confronts and defeats two hideously scarred, entirely evil,redhaired,multimillionaire knights of the realm(each named Hugo Drax)--on two seperate occasions--that's your choice.It could happen.It's really no more unlikely than Felix Leiter being fed to a shark twice in one lifetime.All things are possible in fiction...

mr zorin

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Sir Miles

Hardyboy wrote:

I haven't read the Gardner or Benson novelizations (I know, Sir Miles, shame on me);

I'm shocked to hear that you haven't read them, HB

Whilst they don't compare to Fleming's works some are a good read in their own right and some aren't ! I actually like Gardner's LTK novelisation but the passage you mention is silly.

Asp9mm

Sir Miles wrote:

Hardyboy wrote:

I haven't read the Gardner or Benson novelizations (I know, Sir Miles, shame on me);

I'm shocked to hear that you haven't read them, HB

Whilst they don't compare to Fleming's works some are a good read in their own right and some aren't ! I actually like Gardner's LTK novelisation but the passage you mention is silly.

Shocked, Hah, bloody disgusted. Get out there man and read them. Hell I'll even send you the paperbacks. Some of Gardners novels are really good, and his choice of pistols exemplory

Hardyboy

Sigh. . .Asp, look at the date of my old post. It was nearly SIX YEARS AGO! I'm quite up to speed, thank you very much. 8-)

Sir Miles

Hardyboy wrote:

Sigh. . .Asp, look at the date of my old post. It was nearly SIX YEARS AGO! I'm quite up to speed, thank you very much. 8-)

My fault too, HB. ;%

I need to carefully read the dates on some these threads

Glad to hear you've read them now though

DAWUSS

To be quite honest, I've never really paid attention (or even noticed, for that matter) that there was a set canon to James Bond.

As mentioned above, it's really up to the individual to decide what is and what isn't "canon" so to speak. I think one of the things that allows for that is the fact that it really isn't that well (for lack of better words) "defined" or "organized", possibly because it's constantly set in the real-world present-day era. You take things like Star Wars, which has a very well established canon, and it's a lot easier to determine continuity and all that.

Scribe74

Sir Miles wrote:

Hardyboy wrote:

I haven't read the Gardner or Benson novelizations (I know, Sir Miles, shame on me);

I'm shocked to hear that you haven't read them, HB

Whilst they don't compare to Fleming's works some are a good read in their own right and some aren't ! I actually like Gardner's LTK novelisation but the passage you mention is silly.

I read the first Benson novel and that was enough for me. Absolutely horrible. The man couldn't write his way out of a second-grade classroom (sorry, Benson fans).

Golrush007

Scribe74 wrote:

I read the first Benson novel and that was enough for me. Absolutely horrible. The man couldn't write his way out of a second-grade classroom (sorry, Benson fans).

Benson's first was actually the second Bond book I ever read (after the novelisation of TND). I seem to remember enjoying it, although I'm not sure if I would still enjoy it now being a fan of the original books.