Bond novel reviews
onemonk909
Posts: 65MI6 Agent
Don't you hate it when someone joins a forum and immediately posts a link to their website? I sure do.
Speaking of which, I thought some of you might be interested in the Bond novel reviews I've been posting on my blog, Glorious Trash!
https://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Bond
So far I've just reviewed CR, LALD, MR, and Amis's The James Bond Dossier, but I'll have a review of DAF up soon.
I read most of the Flemings as a kid back in the mid '80s, and I've really enjoyed reconnecting with the books all these years later. I am though looking forward to getting to the ones I actually read back then -- the earliest one I started with was FRWL. As I recall, my favorites were Doctor No, OHMSS, and YOLT. In the case of the latter two, I actually read the books before I saw the films, which was a cool experience probably not too many kids could experience in today's DVD/Blu Ray/instant download world.
Also, I'm really glad to have finally joined this forum...I've been reading it for years but have just never registered an account on it, for some reason.
Speaking of which, I thought some of you might be interested in the Bond novel reviews I've been posting on my blog, Glorious Trash!
https://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Bond
So far I've just reviewed CR, LALD, MR, and Amis's The James Bond Dossier, but I'll have a review of DAF up soon.
I read most of the Flemings as a kid back in the mid '80s, and I've really enjoyed reconnecting with the books all these years later. I am though looking forward to getting to the ones I actually read back then -- the earliest one I started with was FRWL. As I recall, my favorites were Doctor No, OHMSS, and YOLT. In the case of the latter two, I actually read the books before I saw the films, which was a cool experience probably not too many kids could experience in today's DVD/Blu Ray/instant download world.
Also, I'm really glad to have finally joined this forum...I've been reading it for years but have just never registered an account on it, for some reason.
Comments
Plaster it on your signature so that you can always shamelessly self-promote like the rest of us
Haven't read them all but when I do, I will.
That said, welcome to the AJB. Moderators include Sir Miles, Barbel and SiCo (who happens to be the founder of this establishment).
See you around! Introduce yourself in Welcomes/Comings and Goings in Off-Topic Chat.
Thank you very much, onemonk909.
I'm reading Diamonds Are Forever, too! I'd never read this one before so it's all new to me. But I'm reading the old Signet paperback edition, with the INCREDIBLY small print...
I know there's a thread on here about it (at least I think I found one the other year), but BBC radio did a nice adaptation of DAD, featuring Toby Stephens as Bond. I really enjoyed it. Plus Stacy Keach of all people turns up as the cab driver!! I've enjoyed all of the Bond adaptations with Stephens, and hope they do more.
You like your fiction pulpy! me too, so I'll have to search through more carefully for some recommendations.
When collecting old books, I always want the seedier looking edition from the 60s or earlier. If there's a lady getting her blouse torn on the cover, that's usually the one for me, bonus marks if no such scene even happens in the story.
The more recent trade paperback printings of the exact same books, where the publisher emphasises what great literature something is, take away half the fun.
Thanks! I really appreciate your comments about my blog! And yes, I really like my fiction pulpy! And I'm with you on the covers -- I think you and I are on the same wavelength, as I think it was you who did a post on that "new Anthony Horowitz novel" thread about how the Trigger Mortis trade paperback cover looks like the cover of that Penguin edition of Gravity's Rainbow. I actually thought the same thing when I saw that TM cover! (As for Gravity's Rainbow, if we're talking small print -- nothing beats the Bantam mass market paperback edition of that book! That one could cause permanent eye strain!!)
I don't know those -- will have to look them up. My intro to Bond in the '80s was courtesy the editions then being published by Jove, I think it was -- garish-colored covers with a silhouette of Bond striking various "action" poses. Positively "1980s" in retrospect!
I think you mean "Berkley" rather than "Jove." The Jove paperbacks are certainly garish but don't use silhouettes (http://www.thebookbond.com/2011/11/jove-paperbacks.html), whereas the Berkley (later Charter) line is silhouette-centric (http://www.thebookbond.com/2011/10/fleming-in-80s-and-case-of-curious.html).
The Berkley books were my first Bonds and I still love their covers the most. The colors are very loud but the text leaves you in no doubt that each book is a James Bond adventure by Ian Fleming. The base design is elegantly simple and gets it across that all the books are members of a series. The silhouettes are very well drawn (l love their variations) and pay homage to Maurice Binder's gunbarrel and Fleming's idea of Bond as "the man who was only a silhouette." I know lots of folks prefer covers with Bond girls on them, but those have always felt tacky and salacious to me.
I think the covers look positively beautiful, combining both the film and the novel. They are US versions released from 1983 all the way to 1992.
Sucks that they don't include the Man With The Golden Gun, Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy. Not all of them are pictured, though (for instance, Casino Royale).
lookit some of those images they've chosen to illustrate:
the giant squid fight from Dr No! a scene still awaiting adaptation in one of the films, c'mon Brocollis!
took me a minute to get whats happening in FYEO, but that's the dispatch riders motorcycle from From a View to a Kill
You Only Live Twice is illustrating the movie not the book, boo to that one, even if it is a good graphic
The illustrations are on a removable sleeve.
Goldfinger is also a movie-only illustration (and also the only book from this series that I own), but that's counterbalanced by the very Flemingian covers for LALD and TSWLM, which can be seen here:
http://illustrated007.blogspot.com/2008/09/james-bond-classic-libray.html
I should also point out that this series was published by MJF Books.
My intro to literary Bond was through this set and I absolutely love these covers!
You are of course correct -- I was confusing the two. I might've given the wrong impression, as I do like those '80s Berkleys, and will always have a soft spot for that edition of DN in particular as it was the first Bond novel I ever bought. I seem to recall the cover being very orange. I too like the silhouettes, and it seemed to me at the time that they were trying to look similar to the mass market paperback editions of John Gardner's Bond novels, or vice versa. I recall at least the first few of those had similar "silhouette Bond" covers.
Currently I just have the full Fleming run in the mid-'60s Signet editions, most of which have covers by Barye Philips. As luck would have it I got multiple copies of each book; for a while a certain used bookstore I visited would have a "new" Fleming on the shelf each time I went there, most of the time in mint condition (as if stored carefully for decades) -- at half off the cover price!! This meant I was getting great-quality copies of the old Signet books for like twenty cents. Even the dude at the checkout counter seemed taken aback...because usually this store puts stickers on old books, with inflated prices. At any rate I now have a set of Flemings to give my son when he's 12 or so (he's only a year old right now)...
Thanks for posting these, they're awesome! I especially like the covers for DN and TB. I've never even seen these before, probably because I'm a paperback snob. You mentioned these have a lot of typos in the text? The covers are great though -- would never guess they were from the '80s and '90s.
https://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/2018/03/ian-flemings-incredible-creation.html
Ah yes, Ms. Friedman and her weirdo essay. Odd that she said she knew Fleming, yet her name never comes up in any biography or article on the man. I don't think I can agree with the idea that all the “Bondgirls” are weakened by Bond--that certainly doesn't apply to Tiffany Case, Honey Ryder, Domino, or Kissy Suzuki. One might also throw in Gala Brand, though she never has a romantic relationship with Bond. And while Vivienne needs Bond to rescue her, she goes on with her non-conformist life.
As for the rest, Vesper and Tracy end up getting caught in the crossfire of Bond's world, Solitaire is an admittedly weak heroine from the start, Tatiana is mostly passive throughout FRWL, Tilly is punished for being a lesbian while Pussy is initialized, and Mary Goodnight is barely even a character.
Friedman's analysis is also self-contradictory. She makes a big deal out of TMWTGG that Bond finally "accepts" his role as a cold-blooded killer...then she complains about the part in the film Dr. No where Bond kills Professor Dent...in cold blood.
Good point on Friedman because I couldn't find out a thing about her. One possibility is it's a pseudonym...another is it's someone who didn't know IF at all, just lied in the text that they did, and in reality was written by some anonymous critic of the day.
https://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/2018/04/diamonds-are-forever-james-bond-4.html
Right now I'm almost finished Amis's The Book Of Bond, and will have a review of it up within the next couple weeks. Really been on a Bond kick lately!