Catching up on my Bond reading
Golrush007
South AfricaPosts: 3,421Quartermasters
I recently got back into reading novels after more than a year without reading a single book. With the news of Trigger Mortis coming soon I decided to catch up on some of the James Bond books that I've still never read. I counted recently and there were still 20 continuation novels or novelisations that I'd never read, so I set about reading some of those titles in the lead up to the new Bond novel being released. I started with Colonel Sun, which I had actually read before but it didn't make much of an impression on me so I thought I'd give it another try. Next I read Brokenclaw. I've always liked the John Gardner books but there are a number that I haven't got round to reading yet. And now, I'm currently reading Nobody Lives For Ever. As I've been reading I've felt that it would be nice to write down my thoughts about each novel so I will be doing that in this thread, starting with my review of Colonel Sun which I will type up and post in the next day or two. I don't usually write reviews of Books that I've read, but thought it might be fun to reflect on the stories' strengths and weaknesses and also consider how they compare to the other Bond books that I've read in the past and hopefully it will also generate some discussion in this thread.
Just to give some context to where I'm coming from as a literary Bond fan, my first introduction to Bond novels was around 2000 (I was 13 years old then) when I read Benson's Zero Minus Ten followed by his novelisation of Tomorrow Never Dies. I enjoyed both of these, and hungry for more literary Bond I went to my library and read the only Fleming novel they had on the shelves which was The Man With The Golden Gun. Then I didn't read another Bond novel for a few years until I stumbled across an extremely tatty copy of John Gardner's Scorpius in a box of books that was being donated to my school's library. I figured nobody would miss it, so I decided to help myself to it, and so the start of my Bond book collection was a stolen copy of Scorpius. I read it and really enjoyed it, so decided to finally get around to exploring the literary Bond and read Fleming's Dr. No and loved it. I then proceeded to read through the Fleming novels in roughly chronological order, and once I'd finished those every now and then I have read the occasional continuation novel. I have yet to read a Bond novel that I didn't enjoy at all (although Carte Blanche came close to that) and even the weakest books have entertained me. So I am looking to reading a number of new Bond adventures in the coming months as we head towards Trigger Mortis. Look out for my Colonel Sun review in the next few days.
Just to give some context to where I'm coming from as a literary Bond fan, my first introduction to Bond novels was around 2000 (I was 13 years old then) when I read Benson's Zero Minus Ten followed by his novelisation of Tomorrow Never Dies. I enjoyed both of these, and hungry for more literary Bond I went to my library and read the only Fleming novel they had on the shelves which was The Man With The Golden Gun. Then I didn't read another Bond novel for a few years until I stumbled across an extremely tatty copy of John Gardner's Scorpius in a box of books that was being donated to my school's library. I figured nobody would miss it, so I decided to help myself to it, and so the start of my Bond book collection was a stolen copy of Scorpius. I read it and really enjoyed it, so decided to finally get around to exploring the literary Bond and read Fleming's Dr. No and loved it. I then proceeded to read through the Fleming novels in roughly chronological order, and once I'd finished those every now and then I have read the occasional continuation novel. I have yet to read a Bond novel that I didn't enjoy at all (although Carte Blanche came close to that) and even the weakest books have entertained me. So I am looking to reading a number of new Bond adventures in the coming months as we head towards Trigger Mortis. Look out for my Colonel Sun review in the next few days.
Comments
Reading the Gardner's is that basically everything before and including Scorpius
Is OK to good, a couple are very good. Sadly those after it are bad to very bad.
( in my opinion of course).
I too enjoyed Col Sun, I felt it fit very well in with the Fleming books. -{ all the
Early reviews of TM, seem to be very positive.
The Fleming's, Col Sun, DMC & SOLO, Chris wood's TSWLM, MR.
Then The Gardner's ( up to Seafire), next the Benson novels and
Cart Blanche, and I'll stick Trigger Mortis, in there somewhere.
Although Honestly after Scorpius the Gardner's do go down hill
Badly, I'm only reading these last few. Just to familiarise myself
once again with the stories. I'll never read them again as they are a
Bit of a chore to get through, and I don't have a high regard for Benson's
Work either.
Try and keep his books in the vein of the films. Hence why he used so many
Gadgets etc.
By the way Goldrush007, interesting story on your Bond reading. It's odd
but I always pictured you as an older gentleman.
The Gardner books I really enjoyed, in no order would be ......
Nobody lives forever, No deals Mr Bond, For special services and Role
of Honour.
I was reviewing the whole Gardner Trilogy, but stopped after NLF. I should return to that Project one Day.
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
CASINO ROYALE
DR NO
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
MOONRAKER
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
LIVE AND LET DIE
GOLDFINGER
THUNDERBALL
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
ICEBREAKER
OCTOPUSSY AND THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
NO DEALS, MR BOND
COLONEL SUN
SOLO
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
LICENCE RENEWED
SCORPIUS
WIN, LOSE OR DIE
ZERO MINUS TEN
DEATH IS FOREVER
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
FOR SPECIAL SERVICES
DEVIL MAY CARE
BROKENCLAW
SEAFIRE
ROLE OF HONOUR
CARTE BLANCHE
The first James Bond novel that I shall be reviewing in this thread is Colonel Sun, which of course was the very first non-Fleming James Bond novel, written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham. One of the aspects of this novel which stood out to me on this, my second reading, is that the descriptive prose is a cut above all of the other continuation authors in my opinion. No surprise though, given Amis’ literary credentials.
When I first read Colonel Sun I must admit that I didn’t enjoy it very much. I think I read it in 2008, and ever since then I’ve always had this nagging feeling that I need to give it another chance. A few weeks ago I was in a small South African town called Ashton in the middle of nowhere and stumbled across an old hardback copy of Colonel Sun published by the Companion Book Club in 1968. I was fascinated by the cover art which I’d never seen before and immediately bought it and decided that the time had come to revisit Colonel Sun. This also coincided with the James Bond Radio podcast reviewing the novel and that helped prime me to ensure that I enjoyed the novel more on the second time around.
After reading the first three chapters concerning the kidnapping of M, I had already decided that Colonel Sun deserves a much higher place on my Bond novel ranking (It had previously sat near the bottom keeping Devil May Care and SeaFire company). These chapters were terrific. Firstly I enjoyed seeing Bond at the golf course with Bill Tanner, fleshing out their relationship a bit. Then the action scene at Quarterdeck was rather thrilling. Top marks to Mr Amis-Markham.
When the location shifts to Greece, I enjoyed the descriptions such as “There is something to be said for the view that the Parthenon is best seen from a distance”. I don’t know a great deal about Greece, having never been there but the Aegean setting of the story kept making me think of the film ‘The Guns of Navarone’. The link to WWII through Von Richter and Litsas may have contributed to this.
The ‘Bond girl’ of this story, Ariadne Alexandrou, is a character that I never particularly warmed to although Amis does describe her ‘features’ in some detail. I certainly didn’t dislike her, but she won’t be appearing in my list of favourite characters. Likewise, Nikos Litsas, Bond’s main ally. He is a decent character, but he is no Kerim Bey or Felix Leiter. The villain, however, is one that I feel is worthy of being included among the greats. The torture scene is excruciating and probably the most memorable passage in the novel. He is a formidable adversary and his dastardly scheme, although quite low-key, is I think a good one which fits well with the novel’s overall more realistic tone. This is certainly a less fantastical adventure than many of Fleming’s, being more of a cold-war conspiracy type story, ie. tonally closer to From Russia With Love than Dr No.
I feel the novel’s dark tone, combined with the fact that I never really took to either of Bond’s allies in this tale, account for the fact that I didn’t enjoy the novel very much on first reading. My opinion has certainly changed on revisiting the novel and I would regard it as one of the strongest continuation novels but certainly not my favourite. There are some extremely strong passages, and although the middle section didn’t feel as strong I didn’t feel that it dragged too much either.
It’s good to be back reading Bond again, and my next review will be Brokenclaw, which I have already finished so I hope to post the review sometime in the next week.
It was written so close to the Fleming books or because Amis wanted to try and capture
The feel of his Friend's writing style.
As you point out Golrush007, he is the only continuing writer to come close to the brilliant
descriptive passages of Fleming. The torture scene is graphic, and Bond's subsequent escape and attack, is very well written, especially as he has Bond doing everything with a knife. A very basic weapon, very " up close and personal" no long range gadgets or explosives.
One touch I really loved was Bond not allowing the teenage Bony to accompany them to visit Col Sun. As He didn't want the boy to die and have to tell his parents. Which I think shows that Bond is not some cold killing machine but a trained soldier.
+1, thanks Golrush007!
After finishing Colonel Sun, the next Bond novel I read is John Gardner’s Brokenclaw - one of the Bond novels which has been sitting unread on my shelf for a long time, about 10 years to be precise. I always liked the title, I thought it sounded quite Bondian and something that Fleming would have come up with. In fact, when one thinks back to Fleming, it has a certain similarity to the name Shatterhand from You Only Live Twice.
Being one of the late Gardner novels, I went in without any grand expectations from the novel, simply hoping to be entertained. After all, I had enjoyed Death is Forever and SeaFire when I read them in 2011/2012. Unfortunately I found Brokenclaw less satisfactory than those two adventures. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it, but it certainly will rank as one of the weaker Bond novels. In fact, until the final act unfolded I was fairly certain it would end up on the bottom of the pile in terms of my ranking.
The story took a while to get going, the first 5 chapters or so unfolded fairly slowly but I was nonetheless quite engaged in the story. Bond’s first sighting of Brokenclaw Lee was an interesting chapter. We then move into several chapters of briefings which did drag on for a bit, but I was still kept interested. ‘Wanda’s Story’ was an interesting chapter as it shifted the narrative to Wanda’s perspective and I found this a very interesting passage.
The next section of the novel is where my interest started to wane. As Bond and Chi-Chi infiltrate Brokenclaw’s organisation I started to get a little lost. The purpose of Operation Jericho went over my head, and I was a little confused by all the goings on. One reason for this is that I wasn’t able to read the novel as quickly as I’d normally like. With a Bond novel, I like to read about 2-3 chapters a day and finish it about a week or so. Unfortunately, owing to circumstances my reading was a little protracted and this middle section is the part that suffered. I read the first 5 or 6 chapters in one sitting, but then the next 10 chapters or so, I was only reading 1 chapter a day and each day I would have difficulty remembering what had gone before.
Luckily as the book entered its final third, I had a bit more time on my hands and was able to read the last 5 chapters in 1 sitting. When Bond’s infiltration is detected by Brokenclaw Lee and Bond is captured, I found my interest in the story returning. The passage with the wolves I found particularly exciting, especially when the narrative shifts to Ed Rushia’s point of view and we see how he foils Brokenclaw’s planned demise for Bond. The final section of the novel, the traditional Indian O-Kee-Pa ceremony is brutally violent and I found this an entertaining, if slightly excruciating and possibly distasteful passage. Although I never had any fear that Bond wouldn’t come out on top, I found this a suspenseful scene and a strong ending to the novel.
I didn’t feel like the novel’s lead female character was memorable at all. I never felt any sort of connection with Chi-Chi. Wanda was an interesting character, but she came and went fairly quickly, which is a bit of a pity. However, I thought that Ed Rushia was a great character. Although not on the level of Felix Leiter or Kerim Bey, he reminded me a little of those great allies of Bond. Whenever Rushia was around, I felt more engaged in the story. Brokenclaw was also a fairly strong villain, although possibly not developed as well as Gardner might have done. He had great potential but didn’t come off as well as I would have hoped. However, I have never felt like Gardner’s villains were particularly memorable, and Brokenclaw was one of the closest to a proper ‘Fleming’ villain that I can recall from his books, so at least that is one aspect where I feel this novel succeeds.
Overall, Brokenclaw is certainly not a great Bond novel. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a total failure. It has some strong sections and I was fairly well entertained by the read, even though it didn’t hold my attention through the middle section I felt that the ending rewarded me for perservering.
Next up is Nobody Lives For Ever, one of Gardner’s strongest novels. I have just finished it, and I must say it was a cracking read. I look forward to typing up the review.
I have similar feelings about Brokenclaw. He was an Interesting villain ( loved
his lair, hidden inside another building) , but the women are easily forgettable
Infact, I think Gardner came up with very boring female characters throughout
His books.
Nobody lives forever, on the other hand I loved. A great story, with some inventive
Characters. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too.
One Scene I did like though was the final Torture Scene.
I have now finished Nobody Lives For Ever as I mentioned in my Brokenclaw review, and this evening I have just started reading High Time to Kill which is exciting as I haven't read any Benson (excluding novelisations) since my very first encounter with Bond literature back in 2000 when I read Zero Minus Ten.
favourite of mine, but then I may have missed something.
After reading Brokenclaw, one of the weakest Bond novels I’ve read to date, I relished the prospect of reading Nobody Lives For Ever which has the reputation of being one of the best continuation novels. It was a novel that I previously missed out for some reason. I’ve owned a copy for a number of years but it has sat on the shelf, patiently waiting its turn. It certainly didn’t disappoint, I found it an exciting page-turner from beginning to end.
This novel wasted no time in getting going, and within a couple of chapters the set-up for the novel was clearly established and the action began unfolding with breathtaking pace. The ‘head hunt’, a deadly contest arranged by head of SPECTRE Tamil Rahani in which the contestants are to deliver Bond’s head to Rahani on his deathbed makes for a relatively straightforward but exciting plot. I feel that the simplicity of this setup is one of the novel’s greatest strengths. Too often, the John Gardner books have been a little too convoluted so I found this a very refreshing take on a Bond adventure.
This is one of the most action packed Bond adventures, with little time spent on exposition scenes. The majority of the novel flows like a continuous chase scene, with violence and danger following Bond at every step. The car chase early on in the novel was a memorable sequence, as was the assault on Bond in his hotel bathroom by a vampire bat, which brought back memories of Bond’s encounters with exotic and deadly creatures in Dr. No.
The novel is not without twists - several characters prove to not be who they seem. This is par for the course in Gardner’s novels, but I think that this sort of plot twist works well here because of the overall simplicity of the plot and also because I felt that the characters are better developed here than they are in the other Gardner books, especially Nannie Norrich. The twist hits harder because I’d developed a connection with her character during the course of the novel. Even though I suspected that she would turn out to be a villain, I spent most of the novel hoping that she wouldn’t, because I liked her as a character.
I enjoyed the novel’s locations. I always like reading about European locations, and Salzburg was a particularly appealing locale. I also enjoyed the scenes set in Key West, which brought back memories of the film, Licence to Kill. This section also includes an underwater scene which harks back to the Fleming classics, although Gardner’s attempt is certainly not in the same class as the excellent underwater swimming sequence in Live And Let Die. The finale on the island is quite memorable, and I found Rahani’s grisly demise a very satisfying end for his character.
The two leading female characters, Sukie and Nannie, are both entertaining characters and are certainly two of Gardner’s best Bond Girls. I also enjoyed the way that May and Moneypenny were central to the plot of the novel. Although they are ‘off screen’ for most of the novel, they have a great presence in the story because of Bond’s personal affection for them. The plot is very personal to Bond and this gives the novel a strong emotional foundation on which the action is built, making it one of the most satisfying novels in the continuation series.
If I’m not mistaken this is the shortest of John Gardner’s novels and I feel that this works to its advantage. It has few lulls in pace and it kept my interest throughout. I liked the lean but meaty story and the characters were some of Gardner’s strongest. I feel that this novel ranks second, behind Icebreaker, in my list of favourite continuation novels. A thoroughly enjoyable read! I am currently halfway through Benson’s High Time to Kill, which will be the next title in my ongoing series of reviews. I look forward to reporting back when I have completed that novel.
My next Bond novel review is High Time to Kill, which is the first time I’ve read one of Raymond Benson’s continuation novels since I read Zero Minus Ten (my first Bond novel experience) about 15 years ago. I don’t know why I haven’t read any more Benson since then, apart from the novelisations of Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day. I’ve always been interested in reading his novels, but I guess when it came down to a choice between Gardner and Benson for what to read next, Gardner has always won. On this occasion I decided to read High Time To Kill as the idea of a mountaineering Bond adventure set in the Himalayas was very appealing to me. I should also mention that I read it primarily in audiobook form. I was about 100 pages into the novel when suddenly I was without any free time to read. I found the audiobook online as I figured the only way that I would get through the novel would be to listen to the audiobook while I was doing other things like cooking or driving. I enjoyed ‘reading’ the novel this way. I’ve never tried an audiobook before, and this probably won’t be the last time I do.
On to the novel itself...I found the first chapter most entertaining and I enjoyed the reference to Fleming’s Quantum of Solace, and seeing the character of the governor from that story appearing again, although sadly the chapter doesn’t end well for him. This is followed by an enjoyable golfing scene at Stoke Poges with Bill Tanner, which reminded me a bit of the opening to Colonel Sun. The characters of Harding and Marquis are introduced, and I thought Marquis was a good character, totally unlikable and obnoxious. The link back to Bond’s Eton days was a nice touch. The chapters detailing the theft of Skin 17 moved nice and swiftly and I thought that the plot was well set-up.
One sequence which I didn’t enjoy was the car chase in Belgium where Bond uses a remote-controlled drone that emerges from his Jaguar to dispatch his enemies. In my opinion this was taking the gadgetry a bit far. It feels like something from one of the Bond videos games such as Everything or Nothing, and I don’t believe it is right for a Bond novel, even for a Bond film. In a game, you could just about get away with it. Another thing which struck me during Bond’s visit to Belgium was that the sexual detail in the prose was a lot more explicit than I am used to in a Bond novel, and while this is a relatively minor thing, I would have preferred it to be toned down a bit.
The plot is very similar to Thunderball and I enjoyed that. In many ways, Thunderball is the most typical Bond plot, and the resetting of it to the Himalayas worked well in my opinion. It is a memorable and unique setting for a Bond film, and although I am not a mountaineer myself I have enough of an interest in it to be engaged by the mountain climbing passages. The trek up the mountain does go on for a long time though, and in a way it does mirror the experience of the characters in that it feels a bit of a slog. I wonder if I had been reading the text rather than listening to the audiobook I would have found this part of the novel tiring? A little thing which I noticed was that I didn’t enjoy all the reference to particular brands of mountaineering equipment. I have never had a problem with the many uses of brand names in Fleming, whether it is Morlands cigarettes, the Amherst-Villiers supercharger or Turnbull and Asser shirts. These more classic items work for me, but somehow when it is brand names of something relatively mundane like mountaineering equipment I don’t enjoy it. That is a very minor gripe though.
I felt like this novel had an over-abundance of secondary and tertiary characters, especially once the novel reached the mountaineering section. It was difficult to keep track of who everybody was, but I think Benson just about gets away with it because the primary characters are fairly well defined. As mentioned previously, Marquis is effective as an antagonist, and his shared background with Bond adds a depth which makes him stand out from the other characters. Chandra is another character that I really enjoyed, likable and very capable. The background and history of the Gurkhas was an interesting aspect to this novel, and was something that I knew nothing about going in. I enjoyed Chandra’s relationship with Bond and he is probably one of my favourite ally characters in the continuation series. Hope Kendall is the main Bond girl in this novel. She only enters the story relatively late and I did take a while to warm to her character, but as the novel neared its climax I did feel that I had warmed to her, and I thought the sex scene at 7,900m was a very novel approach, with both participants breathing through respirators!
The novel has a very melancholy ending which reminded me a bit of Casino Royale (never a bad thing) and upon finishing the book I must say I was pleasantly surprised by High Time to Kill. Given the general lack of appreciation for Benson’s work amongst Bond fans, I found the novel very entertaining and it delivered a good plot which takes a well-worn Bond storyline and freshens it up nicely. In terms of literary style, I feel it is below the level of Fleming, Amis and Gardner but nonetheless it was more enjoyable overall than many of the other continuation novels. I will certainly be reading some more Benson in the future, possibly continuing with the Union trilogy although I don’t own a copy of Doubleshot at this point.
Next up on my reading list is Christopher Wood’s James Bond and Moonraker. I remember enjoying his The Spy Who Loved Me novelisation very much so I am quite excited about Moonraker which is a film that I have a huge soft spot for.