My thoughts on SOLO
Muston
Huncote, Leicestershire Posts: 228MI6 Agent
Okay just finished it and without trying to give anything away here's what I think.
First off the title is great. Not a Fleming title maybe but still great. However, during the latter stages of the book it becomes somewhat annoying that first Bond, then another character keeps bringing up the term "Going solo".
The novel begins well enough and is very enjoyable for the first 100-odd pages but suffers a deep in the middle where there is little action or even any real detecting on Bond's part. Part 3 of the novel which is titled GOING SOLO starts off the most promising in my view. Bond is never better than when contemplating revenge. However, I think Boyd fails to live up to this idea and instead turns Bond into somewhat of a dim wit. Bond's fire seems to be in his pants as he saunters around the place constantly sexually aroused before making up his very own salad dressing in a streak house (of which Boyd gives us the full recipe for a Bond salad at the bottom of the page
) before Bond rather brutally calls a villain "filth and scum" and then tries to sever the blokes spinal cord with a pocket knife (didn't I read somewhere that Bond kills but doesn't like killing?)
Frustratingly Boyd seemed to have kind of lost the character and never really comes good in the end. One review I think on here is that Boyd writes Bond like Gardner wrote him and I'd probably agree with that to a certain degree. All together I'd rate SOLO a 6/10 for effort but it doesn't come close to Faulks which is still the best after Amis' in my view. It's not a novel I'll be reading again in a hurry but good on Boyd for giving it a go. However I am glad that he isn't going to write a follow-up.
First off the title is great. Not a Fleming title maybe but still great. However, during the latter stages of the book it becomes somewhat annoying that first Bond, then another character keeps bringing up the term "Going solo".
The novel begins well enough and is very enjoyable for the first 100-odd pages but suffers a deep in the middle where there is little action or even any real detecting on Bond's part. Part 3 of the novel which is titled GOING SOLO starts off the most promising in my view. Bond is never better than when contemplating revenge. However, I think Boyd fails to live up to this idea and instead turns Bond into somewhat of a dim wit. Bond's fire seems to be in his pants as he saunters around the place constantly sexually aroused before making up his very own salad dressing in a streak house (of which Boyd gives us the full recipe for a Bond salad at the bottom of the page
) before Bond rather brutally calls a villain "filth and scum" and then tries to sever the blokes spinal cord with a pocket knife (didn't I read somewhere that Bond kills but doesn't like killing?)Frustratingly Boyd seemed to have kind of lost the character and never really comes good in the end. One review I think on here is that Boyd writes Bond like Gardner wrote him and I'd probably agree with that to a certain degree. All together I'd rate SOLO a 6/10 for effort but it doesn't come close to Faulks which is still the best after Amis' in my view. It's not a novel I'll be reading again in a hurry but good on Boyd for giving it a go. However I am glad that he isn't going to write a follow-up.
"Thank you very much. I was just out walking my RAT and seem to have lost my way... "
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