'The Battle For Bond' Coming on 18 June 2007

Qwerty

This has definitely become one of the big literary 007 releases for me this year.

Some cool new photos from it: http://commanderbond.net/article/4350

Anyone else planning on picking it up?

Hardyboy

Absolutely! I've always found the case fascinating, and I think the book will be a good read.

Sir Miles

Qwerty wrote:

Anyone else planning on picking it up?

Already have this on pre-order, should be a great read on what is, a fascinating story.

Barbel

Sounds fascinating, I'll be buying this one.

TOOTS

This book is BRILLIANT!

Really good James Bond Journalism.

I really recommend it.

http://www.tomahawkpress.com/tomahawk.html

Napoleon Plural

Londoners can pick it up for £15 in the St Martin's Road cinema bookshop.

It's a good read, I like the relating of the shambles of Never Say Never Again. Kirshner says that in every scene he had to compromise his vision. He agreed however that script doctors Le Frenais and Clements should change the intro, which had seen Bond in a medieval jousting tournament go after a hitman and kill him in the car park, saying "You've got Connery, a great leading man, but he's hidden behind a tin mask for the opener, you only see him when he kills the assassin and takes the mask off..." So they rewrote it as is in the movie, but had in a mind a stopwatch ticking over the opening. They later said: "It had tension when they did it like that, but they went and killed it by putting a song on it... We couldn't believe it... " (I'm paraphrasing).

a rogue AI

I'll be getting mine soon, but is there a reason why a paperback is priced for $50? (on Amazon; of course with the usual discount, it becomes $31.50) I am not complaining, I'm just curious.

Napoleon Plural

Blimey mate, that's a fair bit.. give me your address and I'll send you a copy myself! I take it you're in the US.

a rogue AI

Thank you very much for the offer, but it is unnecessary, as the main Amazon is very practical for me. It's just that I find it a little odd for a softcover to sell for $50. (Btw, I live in Europe, so the Amazon option will cost me ~20 euros, IMHO a very reasonable price for a paperback)

Hardyboy

Here's why the book costs $50.00--it comes from a small publisher and it's a "niche" book that will appeal to only a small audience, specifically hardcore Bond fans who want to know every detail about the making of two films. The costs of paper, printing, and the rights for more than a hundred film stills and photographs further mean that the publisher has a lot of overhead on the project. So anyone who wants the book is going to have to pay a lot to get it! Them's the realities of the business.

Napoleon Plural

This book has now been banned, discontinued, due to legal threats from EON*.

All it is apparently, some of the photos in it hadn't got clearance form the publishers, who are now counting the cost. I thought it was some juicy legal contention about the content.

Anway, three copies left at Cinema Store in St Martin's Lane, London, for those interested. Price now gone up to £25.

* Edit: though according to CBn, it's the Ian Fleming Trust that's banned it, over content of never-before-published material.

http://commanderbond.net/article/4905

Hardyboy

Well, it's not that EON or IFF "banned" it--the publisher decided to pull the plug. I hope this gets resolved, since, though the book has the kind of "small press" problems decried by jetsetwilly in this thread, Battle for Bond is necessary reading. Then again, if it's out of print for ages--if not forever--then that means my copy is a collector's item!

Pendragon

well crap...I'll have to pay an arm and a leg for one then, won't I? hopefully there's one to be found online...

~Pen -{

Napoleon Plural

Depends where you live Pen, as I say it's £25 at Cinema Store in London...

Napoleon Plural

Hardyboy wrote:

...though the book has the kind of "small press" problems decried by jetsetwilly in this thread, Battle for Bond is necessary reading.

That link is brilliant reading! Though perusing BFB, can't say I noticed too many typos. At times the author can't decide it seems whether he likes NSNA or not, realising that if he is too negative, it might evoke a 'So what am I reading a book partly based around it then?' response from the reader.

Pendragon

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Depends where you live Pen, as I say it's £25 at Cinema Store in London...

USA...

~Pen -{

Napoleon Plural

I thought you 'could be anywhere'...

Anyhow, this has made me wonder how much the author would earn for his effort. I mean, he's put in a lot of time, research, etc... But if he was only going to earn, say £10,000 I'd question whether we'd want to go to all that trouble, it's hardly life-changing. I know money isn't the only motive for such a project, but all the same...

It also seems odd that such a book would have to go to an independent publisher, I mean, it got some decent reviews in The Sunday Times Culture section, it's hardly totally obscure as a subject matter. Is it really that hard to get published, with so much other dross you see in the shops? Or am I missing something here?

Hardyboy

There's a story about the withdrawl of The Battle for Bond in the Times Online. The story is mostly a rehash of the various Thunderball battles, so here's the relevant stuff about the book:

The book about Thunderball, by Robert Sellers, was published last autumn. In January the publisher, Tomahawk Press, was accused of breaching copyright for including a number of court documents from the plagiarism case.

The Fleming Will Trust, which was set up to look after the interests of the author’s family and headed by Kate Grimond, Fleming’s niece, demanded the book be pulped.

“We’re just a very small publisher with no money to fight a big legal action,” said Bruce Sachs, Tomahawk’s managing director. Olswang, the solicitors acting on behalf of the Fleming Will Trust, claims that under English law the full documents could not be published.

On Thursday Sachs had to order a warehouse in Lancaster to hand over 300 copies of the book for pulping. Bookshops that already have copies are not being forced to remove them although Amazon, the online retailer, has decided to withdraw the book.

The idea of "pulping" a book just makes me heartsick. I hope Sellers and Tomahawk can remove the documents themselves--they should, of course, allude to the court materials--and get a revised second edition out. The book sets many things straight, such as who created SPECTRE and Blofeld, and it should be read.

Pendragon

Napoleon Plural wrote:

I thought you 'could be anywhere'...

well, yes I can


gonna go try and find this book on amazon or beg the local Barnes and Noble to order it for me...'cause now I reeeeeally wanna read it

~Pen -{

Napoleon Plural

Hmmm, maybe it's a publicity ruse! Like they only have 500 books left so pulping aint' a problem!

I did read that the book is gonna be reissued in May anyway without the offending legal documents, so are you sure you really want to buy this edtion Pendragon?

Edit: Amazon aren't supposed to be selling it but there's one for sale at, er, around £150!


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Bond-Genesis-Cinemas-Greatest/dp/0953192636/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205080945&sr=1-1

Pendragon

If it's going to be re-released in May, I'll hold out for that issue...but May's so far away...:#

~Pen -{

justvisiting

I would think that prices are only going to go up on this book, considering that the publisher had anticipated a certain level of sales, printed a corresponding number of copies, and yet 300 to 500 units are to be destroyed. As a book collector, it can only go up in price as it's a first edition (if newer editions are planned, they won't contain the sensitive material that riled the IF Trust. Not sure myself if its worth the 100 pounds for a copy, but for a paperback (though well-worth it as it is packed with information and photos) as a fan, was expensive to begin with (I paid $50 for my copy a few months ago), so I would guess that it would only go up.

justvisiting

Napoleon Plural

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Hardyboy wrote:

...though the book has the kind of "small press" problems decried by jetsetwilly in this thread, Battle for Bond is necessary reading.

That link is brilliant reading! Though perusing BFB, can't say I noticed too many typos.

Well, I'm quoting myself again, but to eat my words. I've settled down to read my purchased copy at last, rather than flicking through it in the bookshop, and it's littered with typos like Rambo is littered with gunfire.

Now I must say it's brilliantly researched with lots of titbits... the account of the making of Never Say Never Again reminds me the account of the making of Bonfire of the Vanities in The Devil's Candy. There's a brilliant chapter as well, in which an actor tells how he saw producer Kevin McClory in a Dublin bar and gets chatting, being a Bond fan. McClory is all Irish blarney and charm, later calling the actor with a proposition - to fly out to Nassau and sell his home for him, (it's the home featured in the closing scene of NSNA with Rowan Atkinson). I won't spoil the tale, but it conjurs up a wonderfully eerie atmosphere of mistrust and betrayal. The actor later tries to confront McClory back in Galway, but he's checked out of his hotel, leaving a bouncing cheque.

The narrative drive is great, but typos and errors of phrasing are everywhere, even in the blurb on the back page. "Imagine a Bond film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Richard Burton... preposterous and unbelievable you may think, but it almost happened." Preposterous AND unbelievable. Okay. Then... something like: "This is a story of betrayal, litigation... and even death." Well, yes, a story covering 40 years or so might involve the death of someone somewhere along the line. All the blurb has different fonts or tracking, then there's a really waffley, gramatically incorrect recommendation by Len Deighton, which is sincere enough but may as well be scribbled on the back of a fag packet.

Inside, you have typos like "So Sean stormed out of the studio." He said.
Doesn't anyone with an elementary grasp of English proofread this? It seems a waste of the writer's effort, esp as the book is very well designed, it's an attractive-looking purchase.

Sellers (the writer) is also unable to tailor or truncate a quote. It reads best when writers Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais are talking, because they are so articulate, the same with the actor who went out to McClory's Nassau home, that it isn't noticeable. But most people waffle or repeat certain words when chatting, and Sellers can't edit it down, he doesn't use the quote to propel the narrative along, it just sits there. Kirshner talks about how NSNA "was not an organised shoot, in fact I would call it dis-organised (sic). Empire was very organised... NSNA, however, was disorganised." I'm paraphrasing, but you get the picture.

Maybe Pendragon's better waiting for the May edition when they might have ironed out these flaws.

Still, I must commend the writer's effort, and the text reads much better in the early sections of the book, dealing with the court case. Sections on NSNA are depressing whichever way you look at it... an action director tells how great footage was cut out of the shark attack, including a shark getting harpooned: "Maybe they didn't want a shark death shown on screen." I'm not 100 per cent, but it seems that a shark was actually killed for real for this scene, which seems borne out by Vic Armstrong's harrowing description of how they treated sharks out there... tied down with rope, deprived of water (their oxygen) and suffering. No one cared, complained Armstrong, because they're killers and fish, too... It's all quite horrible.

McClory's attempt to get money back from EON because he launched the original blueprint for the Bond films seemed as miguided as Heather Mills aiming for over £125 million from Macca. McClory ends his days broke.

a rogue AI

Would you advise someone buy a 1st edition now (e.x. Amazon dot com still sells it) or wait for the summer edition? Will "important documents" be removed from the book or added to it in the 2nd edition?

Napoleon Plural

Erm, not sure. Too much to spend over £100 methinks. Some typos might be cleaned up for the second edition. Look over on mi6.co.uk for what might be taken out, I'm not sure it amounts to much for the general reader, ie it's not necessarity that entertaining. Only thing is, the current book looks very nice, some great photos on it. You can always maybe go back and buy that one if the new one doesn't cut it.

Update: It's a very reasonable price on Ebay.co.uk, that said that's before the auction kicks in! I tried bidding for a mid-50s Moonraker rare paperback yesterday, it was £38 then jumped £20 in price in last few seconds!

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?ht=1&from=R4&saatc=3&salic=3%26saatc%3D-1&satitle=The+Battle+for+Bond&sacat=267%26catref%3DC6

Napoleon Plural

Well, here's the second edition. Looks much the same, but there's a foreword by Len Deighton this time...


http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/articles/literature_the_battle_for_bond_preview2.php3?t=&s=&id=01936

Hardyboy

"The Book They Tried To Ban!" I think Elliot Carver must be working in the publicity department!

zencat

I'm a fan of this book, but I really don't like the whole "The book they tried to ban" thing. They imply the oh-so-hot content has something to do with this when it was simply a matter of the publisher trying to skirt copyright and use images without permission. They had to remove the images. That's hardly a "ban." I think the way they are twisting and exploiting their own screw-up is sleazy and unfair to the Ian Fleming Will Trust.

Napoleon Plural

Was it that? I thought it was about court documents used that were part of the Ian Fleming Foundation or something. But if they've been taken out, then surely this isn't the book they tried to ban! I mean, they succeeded...

Edit: It's going for only a tenner in the St Martins Lane London store, signed by the author too...

chrisno1

I just bought this on Amazon for some knockdown price (£8) Reading the above makes me wonder if I should have bothered.
I already glanced at the introduction and, as Napoleon states, there is a massive typesetting error on the opening paragraph! I was fuming X-( I don't pay good money for shoddy work. I hope the info inside is better than the initial impression....