Read a couple of his books, and I am quite happy with the choice. I was a little annoyed with the ITN report saying no-one has written a Bond novel since Fleming, (Markham, Gardner, and Benson) but hey thats news researchers for you. I hope that he carries on with what Markham, Gardner, and Benson have done.
I love the title Devil Might Care, it sounds just like a Bond title, like Never Send Flowers, Win Lose or Die, Never Dream of Dying etc.
Don't know anything about this author but this is very good news. About time we had a proper Bond novel. I refuse to read the young Bond novels which to my mind are a cynical money making venture which *******ises Fleming's creation. But this sounds promising.
But the last part of The Fatal Englishman: Three Short lives is the closest to what you're looking for. It's about Jeremy Wolfenden, who turned traitor and defected to Russia. Wolfenden had the same kind of priviledged background as Fleming, worked in British Intelligence, but went in a different direction. Faulks brilliantly describes this world, Oxford, the Cold War and the machinations of East and West.
Thanks for the tip. The Fatal Englishman: Three Short lives is now next on my reading list right after I finish Colonel Sun.:)
"A blunt instrument wielded by a Government department. Hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic. He likes gambling, golf, fast motor cars. All his movements are relaxed and economical". Ian Fleming
Asp9mmOver the Hills and Far Away.Posts: 7,536MI6 Agent
Don't know anything about this author but this is very good news. About time we had a proper Bond novel. I refuse to read the young Bond novels which to my mind are a cynical money making venture which *******ises Fleming's creation. But this sounds promising.
I thought this too... STRONGLY!! For me, Fleming was THE ONLY author ever to have written a perfect Bond story, and all others were pretenders. But seriously, you must read Higsons stuff, he captures the true essence of Flemings Bond and re-packages it for a slightly younger audience, and as a period piece too. I'm 36, and I recognize Flemings Bond here, and congratulate Higson for his faithfull adaptation. Buy one please and read it, you will very pleasantly surprized.
...I refuse to see Casino Royale because Daniel Craig is blonde. Cubby is turning over in his grave, I say!!!!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
-{
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Perhaps, if it's a big enough best-seller, Eon could be persuaded to pluck a couple of currency bills off the cash mountain upon which they sit...purchase the rights...and adapt it?
)
Loeff, according to The Guardian Barbara B has read and liked Faulk's manuscript.
Faulks's novel has already been blessed by Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Albert "Cubby" Broccoli who produced more than a dozen Bond films. She said it could pass for an old manuscript of Fleming's found in the attic.
Maybe, just maybe we can dream of seeing this adapted. :007)
I'm torn over this. On the one hand, I'm glad to see a proper, grown up, critically acclaimed novelist having a crack at Bond; Birdsong is a stalwart of book clubs across the country. Somehow over the years we slipped from Kingsley Amis (a titan of 20th Century British literature) to John Gardner (a very good genre writer) to Raymond Benson (a computer programmer). Faulks is a "name", and his perspective on Bond sounds interesting and fresh. Like Higson (who I haven't read, but I have heard nothing but praise - I was fingering the bookbindings to SilverFin in Waterstone's the other day, so I'm beginning to crack) and "Westerbrook" (whose Moneypenny Diaries I really enjoyed), or indeed, like Casino Royale, it's the same, but different.
However, the bad for me is that I have only read one Sebastian Faulks novel myself: Charlotte Grey. And by pure coincidence, I spent much of Monday talking with a friend about how bloody awful that book was, how it was inutterably dull and about as thrilling as a wet weekend in Bridlington (breakfast not included).
It's still got me interested. For the first time since High Time To Kill I am actually considering buying a Bond novel when it comes out. That's a sea change in itself.
Present Day? Pish Posh on Present Day! having the novel take place in the cold war, after the events of the jast Fleming novel, is an inspired idea. This is great news! The literary Bond is finally back!
Hmm, don't expect much in the way of racy writing. Seems Faulks has picked up a Bad Sex Award, the award at poor literary depictions of graphic sexual activity, for Charlotte Grey:
Hmm, don't expect much in the way of racy writing. Seems Faulks has picked up a Bad Sex Award, the award at poor literary depictions of graphic sexual activity, for Charlotte Grey:
It's still got me interested. For the first time since High Time To Kill I am actually considering buying a Bond novel when it comes out. That's a sea change in itself.
***Warning shameless sucking up to a Moderator ahead***
JSW, if it is as good as While Englands Dreaming it will be well worth buying. Any chance there is another chapter coming soon?
"A blunt instrument wielded by a Government department. Hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic. He likes gambling, golf, fast motor cars. All his movements are relaxed and economical". Ian Fleming
It's still got me interested. For the first time since High Time To Kill I am actually considering buying a Bond novel when it comes out. That's a sea change in itself.
Doubleshot was a brilliant book, I've got Never Dream of Dying to read on holiday next week which I am looking forward to. Amis, Gardner and Benson have all written excellent Bond novels.
Haven't most people got into Bond through the films, rather than the books?
JSW read the rest of Bensons novels, you will find that the Union are an excellent organisation, such as SPECTRE.
I'm looking forward to Faulks' novel, however I am just praying its an entertaining novel, rather than a high brow book that does the rounds in a University English course.
Even if Eon were to adapt DMC, I'm sure they'd 'fudge' the bit about it being Bond's last adventure; perhaps as the final movie in a particular actor's run
There's just something very cool about the possibility (however crazily remote!) of a new Bond novel being adapted to the silver screen...
[takes a moment of personal indulgence to imagine it...]
Yeah. It would be cool B-) Ah well...back to reality
I also think it'd be interesting to see a new Bond novel turned into a motion picture but I have the feeling that that won't happen anytime soon...if at all.
It's long been my suspicion that Eon doesn't want to do any business with any writers other than Ian Fleming.Living authors,even if they're paid well--either with good publicity or good money or both--to create pastiches featuring characters created by somebody else, might still want a bigger piece of the pie if one of their books was adapted for the screen.
And BTW, there is no such thing as too much sucking up to a Mod WED will continue, at some point, but I'm trapped in a cycle of boredom with the current chapter; it's tedious action stuff, I'm afraid...
I did actually start reading Doubleshot in a library just before Christmas. I read about four chapters before I hurled it down in disgust. Benson may have great plots, but I think he's a terrible writer, just dreadful. There was no sparkle or elegance, and he didn't have a writer's voice at all; it was a bad photocopy of Fleming, with "Sweep" moments shoehorned in. As I have said elsewhere, I really, really, wanted to like Benson's books, but after the first three I could no longer subject myself to his atrocities. It was a sad day for me, I assure you.
I did actually start reading Doubleshot in a library just before Christmas. I read about four chapters before I hurled it down in disgust. Benson may have great plots, but I think he's a terrible writer, just dreadful. There was no sparkle or elegance, and he didn't have a writer's voice at all; it was a bad photocopy of Fleming, with "Sweep" moments shoehorned in. As I have said elsewhere, I really, really, wanted to like Benson's books, but after the first three I could no longer subject myself to his atrocities. It was a sad day for me, I assure you.
I think that Doubleshot is Benson's best book, so there isn't much hope of you liking the last two novels - Never Dream Of Dying is horrible (IMO) but The Man With The Red Tattoo isn't all bad. I agree with you about the writing, jetset, but I do have a modicum of sympathy for Benson when you read what he had to go through to write these novels.
I am looking forward to Faulks' Devil May Care though.
Oh, I totally sympathise with Benson, and indeed, I do with anyone charged with writing a Bond novel; you have to somehow satisfy people who have read From Russia With Love and people who have seen Moonraker, which is like juggling with a pea, a basketball, and the Hubble telescope. I was very pleased when Benson was announced as the writer, because the JBBC is The Bible in my house. I'm sure that Glidrose (or whatever it's called now) pulled him every which way, demanding that Bond be a ruthless emotionless killer with an exploding briefcase that turns into a hang glider.
My objection was to his mediocre prose style. Even at their worst, Fleming, Amis and Gardner still made you care. I'm re-reading GF at the mo, and it strikes me that Fleming spends three chapters talking about golf, a "sport" which is about three inches above inducing cataclysmic brain death as far as I'm concerned, but it's interesting. Even when Gardner was basically collecting the paycheques, he still managed to throw some characters or passages in to keep you going. But Benson... though in fairness, he did send Bond to Belgium at one point, so really, he was onto a loser from the start
To drag it back to topic, I think this is why it's healthy to have a writer of Faulke's calibre on side; I don't think he will be dictated to in quite the same way because he is a "name" (cf Paul Haggis on the movies).
My objection was to his mediocre prose style. Even at their worst, Fleming, Amis and Gardner still made you care.
It's true- he's simply not a writer at all. It was always a terrible decision to get a man who knows James Bond foremost to write Bond books; you get a man who can write books foremost to, well, write books!
As an example, and I'm sure he was under tremendous pressure at the time of writing this -moreso than even usual when writing his Bond novels- and I understand that deadlines are king, but I don't know how anyone can allow such a staggeringly pedestrian passage of action description as: "The sedans closed group behind them as they sped toward the alley's end, which opened to a boat-filled river. The cycle soared out and onto a boat that was tied to the dock. From there they jumped to the next boat, and then the next. The sedans skidded to a halt behind them" (Tomorrow Never Dies novelisation, p.156 of the paperback)
I can't believe that a description of a heavy cruiser motorbike carrying two people jumping across a busy river from boat to boat was more drably conveyed in the script he was copying from! How can you take a stage direction in a script and make it less exciting and descriptive?!
So it's really great to see IFP, who I can't imagine are more than a couple of people to be honest, to suddenly have had some sort of revelation in the last few years and have gone from the depths of hiring Benson and watching his books disappear to the back of the shelves to the masterstroke of Higson's Young Bond, and then to hiring and making a massive publicity of one of the country's best authors. It's amazing to see that happen- they've really been inspired by something and I can't wait to read the fruits of their labours.
Oh yeah, that's true; but most manage to be at least competently written. I just can't see an excuse, tight deadlines or not, for prose like that.
It was always a mistake. If you've got a problem with your toilet, do you call up a man who's researched the history of toilets and water cupboards throughout the modern time, or do you get a plumber in?
Thankfully, this time they've got a proper plumber in (probably stretching the metaphor there a bit! )
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
In fairness, there isn't a single film novelization in history worth reading. And yes, I am including Christopher Wood in that.
Can't really dispute your larger point, but I make a personal exception for the Christopher Wood novelizations of TSWLM and MR, which are the best of an admittedly dubious category, IMRO; Wood manages to give submarine-swallowing tanker ships and space shuttle adventures a hint of Fleming---no small feat.
Novelizations of film scripts inevitably lack the internalized character depth of original prose; it's a congenital flaw of the form. IMO, Wood's strength was in camouflaging this problem with Flemingesque stylisms, as seen in chapter titles like 'Aiguille du Mort,' and the neat bit about hiding the disassembled Walther PPK inside a portable typewriter: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." B-)
Certainly not worthy of inclusion in the Fleming canon, but---from my own admittedly pedestrian perspective---very much worth reading...and this from a non-Moore Bond fan!
Another surprisingly good novelization came out of the '70s: "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," written by someone whose name escapes me at the moment ;% It really was quite hilarious...
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Another surprisingly good novelization came out of the '70s: "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," written by someone whose name escapes me at the moment ;% It really was quite hilarious...
I read that one, too- if my memory of 30 years ago is working better than usual, it was written by Frank Waldman who had co-written the screenplay with Blake Edwards.
But Benson... though in fairness, he did send Bond to Belgium at one point, so really, he was onto a loser from the start
I am with you 100 per cent on Benson jetset. I have read a few of his dreadful things (they are all much of a muchness as far as quality is concerned) and struggle to see merit in his writing.
Nonetheless, having just come back from Belgium, I fear you are being rather too harsh on the little country. I hear that the problem with the Brussels stuff is how it is written and where he sends Bond, as opposed to the great city itself. And anyway, Brussels (and Belgium) must surely be better than Scouseville.
I was hugely surprised that someone of Faulks' stature has been signed to write the new novel. Having read some of Mr Faulks' quotations it does look like he has an understanding of the *character* of Bond, which is the most important starting point. He is also a writer of human relationships first and foremost, which is encouraging in terms of Bond. It is difficult to get too enthusiastic until the novel is released, but the turnaround in IFP thinking is staggering. To go from Benson (who, despite what I understand is a very good reference manual, is simply not a writer) to someone like Faulks is incredible.
I do hope that Devil May Care is a novel about James Bond as opposed to a 'James Bond novel', if that makes any sense. I look forward to reading it (the revelation of the 1967 Paris setting is quite exciting), and I am convinced it will be an enormous step up from the recent literary past. As it is Mr Faulks who is writing the novel I am sure it will be a quality novel. For the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic, although this does have the whiff of Daniel-Craig-cast-as-Bond about it.
PS. I am happily awaiting this new novel and would not start any of the sites listed above =D
Sorry, I have just realised how unclear my post was! I meant the 'Daniel-Craig-cast-as-Bond' statement in a good way, in the sense that a very high calibre individual has been hired for the part. Therefore, I should be very excited indeed about the new novel, as I was about Casino Royale following the casting of Craig, instead of 'cautiously optimistic'.
It made sense in my head when I wrote it; looking at my post now it is as clear as mud. Apologies.
Any wonder people don't trust the media? Glom this article that appears on the ABC News website--a legitimate, supposedly respectable news agency. Let's count the factual errors:
New James Bond Novel
The First New Bond Book in 42 Years Set for Publication
By Ben Barnier
LONDON, July 16, 2007
Forty-two years after the last James Bond novel was published, the world's most-famous spy is set to go on a new literary adventure.
(FIRST Bond novel in 42 years? So Amis/Markham, Gardner, Benson, and the still-active Higson have been relegated to the memory chute? I'd say this is Stalinistic, but, in keeping with the theme of this site, I'll call it akin to something SMERSH would do.)
"Devil May Care," the 15th James Bond book, is set to be published May 28, 2008. We'd like to tell you what it's about, but Ian Fleming Publications will not reveal details about the novel's plot.
We know that the book has been written by Sebastian Faulks, a British author who wrote spy books, and that it features classic Bond elements. For example, the British spy travels to exotic locations across two continents.
"The novel happens during the Cold War," said Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications. "This is James Bond in his element."
In an attempt to learn more about the plot, ABC News asked John Walsh, a close friend and rival of the author, whether he had a sneak peek at the manuscript.
"Are you kidding, no?" answered Walsh. "It would be like reading 'Harry Potter' before publication."
So far, the book has been available to just a little circle of people in the entertainment industry, but there are already rumors that it could be adapted to a movie. "It would be fantastic," said Turner.
Turner said she gave a copy of the manuscript to Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond movies, without giving her the name of the author.
After Broccoli read the book, she said it could have been a lost manuscript by Ian Fleming, the original author of the James Bond books, according to Turner.
Turner also said that "Devil May Care" will feature a very humane version of the British spy. "He is the James Bond that Ian Fleming created," said Turner, adding, he is "flawed."
Fleming and Bond shared some attributes — they both drank the same spirits and shared the same taste for women and exclusive gentlemen's clubs in London.
Faulks is a "family man," said Walsh. "I don't think that he would be too keen on gentlemen's clubs."
Legend has it that when Fleming, who died in 1964, had to write a James Bond book, he would always fly to Jamaica, where he could mix work and pleasure.
("Legend?" Try available in every single biography ever written of Fleming!)
He would write 1,000 words in the morning, go snorkeling, write another 1,000 words and spend the rest of the day drinking cocktails and socializing with gorgeous women. After six weeks of this grueling schedule, Fleming would turn in the finished manuscript.
Faulks tried to mimic Fleming, said Walsh, "without cocktails and snorkeling." Faulks churned out the manuscript in record time, according to Walsh.
(But WITH the gorgeous women. . .?)
Unlike Fleming, Faulks didn't serve as an intelligence agent, but he went to a public school "full of chaps who were sons of people in the army," said Walsh.
"You don't need specialized knowledge [to write a good James Bond novel]," said Walsh. "You just have to look at the MI6 building, see people coming around and imagine what they are up to."
(Using that logic, one can watch people going in and out of a nuclear fission laboratory and write a brilliant science book!)
There might be something else than his sense of observation that made Faulks the man for the job: He would be a very good spy, said Walsh.
"He is very discreet."
What was it I once heard? They'll print anything these days. . .
"You don't need specialized knowledge [to write a good James Bond novel]," said Walsh. "You just have to look at the MI6 building, see people coming around and imagine what they are up to."
Cool! I've seen that building. Got pics. too! Considering that Ian Fleming never saw the Vauxhall Cross HQ, I'm surprised he was able to write at all.
A shame ABC couldn't be discreet in their choice regarding news. While I'm all for satisfying the jones for new reading material, a less prudent report would be difficult to find. But you must admit the lost Fleming manuscript makes for a great ad campaign. (for those that wish to believe)
Comments
I love the title Devil Might Care, it sounds just like a Bond title, like Never Send Flowers, Win Lose or Die, Never Dream of Dying etc.
Can't wait for it!!!!!!
Thanks for the tip. The Fatal Englishman: Three Short lives is now next on my reading list right after I finish Colonel Sun.:)
I thought this too... STRONGLY!! For me, Fleming was THE ONLY author ever to have written a perfect Bond story, and all others were pretenders. But seriously, you must read Higsons stuff, he captures the true essence of Flemings Bond and re-packages it for a slightly younger audience, and as a period piece too. I'm 36, and I recognize Flemings Bond here, and congratulate Higson for his faithfull adaptation. Buy one please and read it, you will very pleasantly surprized.
As for Faulks, THIS IS EXITING INDEED!!!!!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Loeff, according to The Guardian Barbara B has read and liked Faulk's manuscript.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2123271,00.html
Faulks's novel has already been blessed by Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Albert "Cubby" Broccoli who produced more than a dozen Bond films. She said it could pass for an old manuscript of Fleming's found in the attic.
Maybe, just maybe we can dream of seeing this adapted. :007)
However, the bad for me is that I have only read one Sebastian Faulks novel myself: Charlotte Grey. And by pure coincidence, I spent much of Monday talking with a friend about how bloody awful that book was, how it was inutterably dull and about as thrilling as a wet weekend in Bridlington (breakfast not included).
It's still got me interested. For the first time since High Time To Kill I am actually considering buying a Bond novel when it comes out. That's a sea change in itself.
@merseytart
Present Day? Pish Posh on Present Day! having the novel take place in the cold war, after the events of the jast Fleming novel, is an inspired idea. This is great news! The literary Bond is finally back!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/223065.stm
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It looks like it could be well-earned...
a quote from the article
"Meanwhile her ears were filled with the sound of a soft but frantic gasping and it was some time before she identified it as her own."
***Warning shameless sucking up to a Moderator ahead***
JSW, if it is as good as While Englands Dreaming it will be well worth buying. Any chance there is another chapter coming soon?
Doubleshot was a brilliant book, I've got Never Dream of Dying to read on holiday next week which I am looking forward to. Amis, Gardner and Benson have all written excellent Bond novels.
Haven't most people got into Bond through the films, rather than the books?
JSW read the rest of Bensons novels, you will find that the Union are an excellent organisation, such as SPECTRE.
I'm looking forward to Faulks' novel, however I am just praying its an entertaining novel, rather than a high brow book that does the rounds in a University English course.
I also think it'd be interesting to see a new Bond novel turned into a motion picture but I have the feeling that that won't happen anytime soon...if at all.
It's long been my suspicion that Eon doesn't want to do any business with any writers other than Ian Fleming.Living authors,even if they're paid well--either with good publicity or good money or both--to create pastiches featuring characters created by somebody else, might still want a bigger piece of the pie if one of their books was adapted for the screen.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2125252,00.html
And BTW, there is no such thing as too much sucking up to a Mod
I did actually start reading Doubleshot in a library just before Christmas. I read about four chapters before I hurled it down in disgust. Benson may have great plots, but I think he's a terrible writer, just dreadful. There was no sparkle or elegance, and he didn't have a writer's voice at all; it was a bad photocopy of Fleming, with "Sweep" moments shoehorned in. As I have said elsewhere, I really, really, wanted to like Benson's books, but after the first three I could no longer subject myself to his atrocities. It was a sad day for me, I assure you.
@merseytart
I think that Doubleshot is Benson's best book, so there isn't much hope of you liking the last two novels - Never Dream Of Dying is horrible (IMO) but The Man With The Red Tattoo isn't all bad. I agree with you about the writing, jetset, but I do have a modicum of sympathy for Benson when you read what he had to go through to write these novels.
I am looking forward to Faulks' Devil May Care though.
My objection was to his mediocre prose style. Even at their worst, Fleming, Amis and Gardner still made you care. I'm re-reading GF at the mo, and it strikes me that Fleming spends three chapters talking about golf, a "sport" which is about three inches above inducing cataclysmic brain death as far as I'm concerned, but it's interesting. Even when Gardner was basically collecting the paycheques, he still managed to throw some characters or passages in to keep you going. But Benson... though in fairness, he did send Bond to Belgium at one point, so really, he was onto a loser from the start
To drag it back to topic, I think this is why it's healthy to have a writer of Faulke's calibre on side; I don't think he will be dictated to in quite the same way because he is a "name" (cf Paul Haggis on the movies).
@merseytart
It's true- he's simply not a writer at all. It was always a terrible decision to get a man who knows James Bond foremost to write Bond books; you get a man who can write books foremost to, well, write books!
As an example, and I'm sure he was under tremendous pressure at the time of writing this -moreso than even usual when writing his Bond novels- and I understand that deadlines are king, but I don't know how anyone can allow such a staggeringly pedestrian passage of action description as:
"The sedans closed group behind them as they sped toward the alley's end, which opened to a boat-filled river. The cycle soared out and onto a boat that was tied to the dock. From there they jumped to the next boat, and then the next. The sedans skidded to a halt behind them" (Tomorrow Never Dies novelisation, p.156 of the paperback)
I can't believe that a description of a heavy cruiser motorbike carrying two people jumping across a busy river from boat to boat was more drably conveyed in the script he was copying from! How can you take a stage direction in a script and make it less exciting and descriptive?!
So it's really great to see IFP, who I can't imagine are more than a couple of people to be honest, to suddenly have had some sort of revelation in the last few years and have gone from the depths of hiring Benson and watching his books disappear to the back of the shelves to the masterstroke of Higson's Young Bond, and then to hiring and making a massive publicity of one of the country's best authors. It's amazing to see that happen- they've really been inspired by something and I can't wait to read the fruits of their labours.
@merseytart
It was always a mistake. If you've got a problem with your toilet, do you call up a man who's researched the history of toilets and water cupboards throughout the modern time, or do you get a plumber in?
Thankfully, this time they've got a proper plumber in (probably stretching the metaphor there a bit!
Can't really dispute your larger point, but I make a personal exception for the Christopher Wood novelizations of TSWLM and MR, which are the best of an admittedly dubious category, IMRO; Wood manages to give submarine-swallowing tanker ships and space shuttle adventures a hint of Fleming---no small feat.
Novelizations of film scripts inevitably lack the internalized character depth of original prose; it's a congenital flaw of the form. IMO, Wood's strength was in camouflaging this problem with Flemingesque stylisms, as seen in chapter titles like 'Aiguille du Mort,' and the neat bit about hiding the disassembled Walther PPK inside a portable typewriter: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." B-)
Certainly not worthy of inclusion in the Fleming canon, but---from my own admittedly pedestrian perspective---very much worth reading...and this from a non-Moore Bond fan!
Another surprisingly good novelization came out of the '70s: "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," written by someone whose name escapes me at the moment ;% It really was quite hilarious...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I read that one, too- if my memory of 30 years ago is working better than usual, it was written by Frank Waldman who had co-written the screenplay with Blake Edwards.
Nonetheless, having just come back from Belgium, I fear you are being rather too harsh on the little country. I hear that the problem with the Brussels stuff is how it is written and where he sends Bond, as opposed to the great city itself. And anyway, Brussels (and Belgium) must surely be better than Scouseville.
I was hugely surprised that someone of Faulks' stature has been signed to write the new novel. Having read some of Mr Faulks' quotations it does look like he has an understanding of the *character* of Bond, which is the most important starting point. He is also a writer of human relationships first and foremost, which is encouraging in terms of Bond. It is difficult to get too enthusiastic until the novel is released, but the turnaround in IFP thinking is staggering. To go from Benson (who, despite what I understand is a very good reference manual, is simply not a writer) to someone like Faulks is incredible.
I do hope that Devil May Care is a novel about James Bond as opposed to a 'James Bond novel', if that makes any sense. I look forward to reading it (the revelation of the 1967 Paris setting is quite exciting), and I am convinced it will be an enormous step up from the recent literary past. As it is Mr Faulks who is writing the novel I am sure it will be a quality novel. For the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic, although this does have the whiff of Daniel-Craig-cast-as-Bond about it.
well, nobody has started
www.faulksnotbondauthour.com
or if you could have
www.faulksnotfleming.com
or if you wanted to be really exact
www.faulksnotflemingsocantwritebondnovelwithoutitbeingrubbish.com
PS. I am happily awaiting this new novel and would not start any of the sites listed above =D
It made sense in my head when I wrote it; looking at my post now it is as clear as mud. Apologies.
@merseytart
New James Bond Novel
The First New Bond Book in 42 Years Set for Publication
By Ben Barnier
LONDON, July 16, 2007
Forty-two years after the last James Bond novel was published, the world's most-famous spy is set to go on a new literary adventure.
(FIRST Bond novel in 42 years? So Amis/Markham, Gardner, Benson, and the still-active Higson have been relegated to the memory chute? I'd say this is Stalinistic, but, in keeping with the theme of this site, I'll call it akin to something SMERSH would do.)
"Devil May Care," the 15th James Bond book, is set to be published May 28, 2008. We'd like to tell you what it's about, but Ian Fleming Publications will not reveal details about the novel's plot.
We know that the book has been written by Sebastian Faulks, a British author who wrote spy books, and that it features classic Bond elements. For example, the British spy travels to exotic locations across two continents.
"The novel happens during the Cold War," said Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications. "This is James Bond in his element."
In an attempt to learn more about the plot, ABC News asked John Walsh, a close friend and rival of the author, whether he had a sneak peek at the manuscript.
"Are you kidding, no?" answered Walsh. "It would be like reading 'Harry Potter' before publication."
So far, the book has been available to just a little circle of people in the entertainment industry, but there are already rumors that it could be adapted to a movie. "It would be fantastic," said Turner.
Turner said she gave a copy of the manuscript to Barbara Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond movies, without giving her the name of the author.
After Broccoli read the book, she said it could have been a lost manuscript by Ian Fleming, the original author of the James Bond books, according to Turner.
Turner also said that "Devil May Care" will feature a very humane version of the British spy. "He is the James Bond that Ian Fleming created," said Turner, adding, he is "flawed."
Fleming and Bond shared some attributes — they both drank the same spirits and shared the same taste for women and exclusive gentlemen's clubs in London.
Faulks is a "family man," said Walsh. "I don't think that he would be too keen on gentlemen's clubs."
Legend has it that when Fleming, who died in 1964, had to write a James Bond book, he would always fly to Jamaica, where he could mix work and pleasure.
("Legend?" Try available in every single biography ever written of Fleming!)
He would write 1,000 words in the morning, go snorkeling, write another 1,000 words and spend the rest of the day drinking cocktails and socializing with gorgeous women. After six weeks of this grueling schedule, Fleming would turn in the finished manuscript.
Faulks tried to mimic Fleming, said Walsh, "without cocktails and snorkeling." Faulks churned out the manuscript in record time, according to Walsh.
(But WITH the gorgeous women. . .?)
Unlike Fleming, Faulks didn't serve as an intelligence agent, but he went to a public school "full of chaps who were sons of people in the army," said Walsh.
"You don't need specialized knowledge [to write a good James Bond novel]," said Walsh. "You just have to look at the MI6 building, see people coming around and imagine what they are up to."
(Using that logic, one can watch people going in and out of a nuclear fission laboratory and write a brilliant science book!)
There might be something else than his sense of observation that made Faulks the man for the job: He would be a very good spy, said Walsh.
"He is very discreet."
What was it I once heard? They'll print anything these days. . .
Cool! I've seen that building. Got pics. too! Considering that Ian Fleming never saw the Vauxhall Cross HQ, I'm surprised he was able to write at all.