Forever and a Day - reviews and open discussion (spoilers)
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,334MI6 Agent
This is the thread to review and discuss Anthony Horowitz' "Forever and a day" (FaaD? ) completely freely. If you haven't read the book yet I strongly suggest you read the other FaaD thread instead.
I have just finished reading the novel, so these are only my first impressions. The plot and writing is really good and I enjoyed reading the book. About midway I missed action and fighting. I enjoy reading about the food, people, places etc. of Bond's world, but the story might gain from a stronger sense of danger and threat in the first part of the novel. But the later chapters were so full of it, in many ways it makes up for the calmer start.
The French Riviera has been the setting of Bond novels before, but Horowitz has found new locations there and makes it fresh and interesting. Stockholm and Sweden is new for Bond, so that's good. I have commented on Rolf Larsen's backstory in the other FaaD thread, so I won't do it here.
Scipio and Wolfe are interesting villans, Scipio being the most colourful. Their plan isn't the most original or complex, but it doesn't have to be - It works. I see to remember reading somewhere that Scipio tortures and kills people by sitting on them, simply crushing them by his enormous weight. He doesn't, but that's just as well.
Sixtine is a more interesting Bond "girl" than most, I liked her and her story.
In my opinion Bond was sometimes too "modern" in his thinking, even PC, at times in Trigger Mortis.
In Faad Bond kisses Sixtine forcefully and without invitation, just like Fleming's and Connery's Bond did. Good for him. But Sixtine says: “I want to make it clear that you are never to touch me again without asking.” Perhaps too Meetoo# for some, but it works for a character like Sixtine.
What didn't I like? The military isn't Horowitz' strong suit. Wolfe's sons were Marines who were killed on Omaha beach, but the US Marines didn't fight there. As far as I know the USMC didn't fight in the European theatre at all. All the guards at Wolfe's factory seems to be carrying light machine guns. That's a bit much. Even elite military units in the 1950's weren't that heavily armed. Rifles, carbines or even submachine guns would be more realistic.
Sixtine's death is explained with her saying "something hit her" when they jumped ship seems like lazy writing to me. It should be "300 kronor", not "300 krona" Bond steals from Larsen. All minor stuff.
Generally I think "Forever and a day" is one of the best continuation novels, up there with Trigger Mortis and Colonel Sun.
I have just finished reading the novel, so these are only my first impressions. The plot and writing is really good and I enjoyed reading the book. About midway I missed action and fighting. I enjoy reading about the food, people, places etc. of Bond's world, but the story might gain from a stronger sense of danger and threat in the first part of the novel. But the later chapters were so full of it, in many ways it makes up for the calmer start.
The French Riviera has been the setting of Bond novels before, but Horowitz has found new locations there and makes it fresh and interesting. Stockholm and Sweden is new for Bond, so that's good. I have commented on Rolf Larsen's backstory in the other FaaD thread, so I won't do it here.
Scipio and Wolfe are interesting villans, Scipio being the most colourful. Their plan isn't the most original or complex, but it doesn't have to be - It works. I see to remember reading somewhere that Scipio tortures and kills people by sitting on them, simply crushing them by his enormous weight. He doesn't, but that's just as well.
Sixtine is a more interesting Bond "girl" than most, I liked her and her story.
In my opinion Bond was sometimes too "modern" in his thinking, even PC, at times in Trigger Mortis.
In Faad Bond kisses Sixtine forcefully and without invitation, just like Fleming's and Connery's Bond did. Good for him. But Sixtine says: “I want to make it clear that you are never to touch me again without asking.” Perhaps too Meetoo# for some, but it works for a character like Sixtine.
What didn't I like? The military isn't Horowitz' strong suit. Wolfe's sons were Marines who were killed on Omaha beach, but the US Marines didn't fight there. As far as I know the USMC didn't fight in the European theatre at all. All the guards at Wolfe's factory seems to be carrying light machine guns. That's a bit much. Even elite military units in the 1950's weren't that heavily armed. Rifles, carbines or even submachine guns would be more realistic.
Sixtine's death is explained with her saying "something hit her" when they jumped ship seems like lazy writing to me. It should be "300 kronor", not "300 krona" Bond steals from Larsen. All minor stuff.
Generally I think "Forever and a day" is one of the best continuation novels, up there with Trigger Mortis and Colonel Sun.
Comments
I didn't mind. Those habits had to come from someone, and it makes sense that it came from an experienced and complex person like her.
I also like the start of FaaD. The first 007 dies, Bond meets M for the first time and Bond decide to take up the 007 number. It's nice. :007)
While I think the guards at Wolfe's factory are almost ridicolously heavily armed, I liked the poisonous nettles. it's a very Bondian touch.
The nettles are a hint of the Garden of Death, but not too heavy-handed.
I also like the name Sixtine. It echoes (or foreshadows) the numerical names of Le Chiffre and 007 himself without being obvious. Making it Joanne Brochet's codename while she was an SOE agent in WWII makes sense. I'm pretty knowledgable about SOE's activities in Norway during the war, not so much when it comes to other occupied countries such as France. Because of this I don't really know if SOE really sent agents to France knowing their cover was blown like Sixtine claims. Can anyone enlighten us?
Another of his strictly held beliefs ( like the perfect time for a boiled egg ) but I'll let it go. The story is good but
Very familiar to Bond movie fans. It has a few obvious twists, so not many surprises. I did enjoy it though and
Hope he gets a few more opportunities to write more adventures.
I remember an episode of Foyle's War that was about SOE agents being sent to France even though the bosses knew their cover as blown. This was in the season set after the war, when Foyle was working in MI5. The brother of one of the agents killed SOE bosses. Of course Foyle's War was written by Anthony Horowitz.
It's also worth mentioning that the car Sam drives Foyle around in has suicide doors. Of course the car Bond and Sixtine uses to get into Wolfe's factory has suicide doors and the chapter is titled "suicide doors".
In that one. The thought of how that would leave a person
Was horrific.
Do anything for your next fix.
Bond's thoughts when he is under the influence of the drug can be said to be a version of what he has to will himself to think when does some of his daredevil acts. A cynic might even say the Bond of the heroin high is the 007 of many Bond movies.
I can't find anything about the guards carrying walkie-talkies in their belts. In chapter 15 a guard carries a radio transmitter, but I don't think it says it's in the belt. It could be elsewhere in the book, I guess. The most modern walkie-talkies were AN PRC-6, best known from photos from the Vietnam war (developed in the late 40's, but they were I use in the 60's). Those were carried over the shoulder. If a drug lord could get hold of several of them when they were almost new is a different question.
There was essentially only two locations outside of England, the south of France and Stockholm.
Mediteranian France has been used before in Bond novels. Stockholm was only in one chapter and the city wasn't described that much. Strangely I've never been in Stockholm (or France, but that's less surprising) so I can't say how well Horowitz captured the city.
Just finished the book. I enjoyed it very much. I can't comment from experience on how well the location was captured, but I did like how the quaint and picturesque descriptions of the towns contrasted with the underworld of crime. The small bakery and local café and then the secluded industrial plant or the ship hiding secrets.
I also enjoyed how Bond shows a transformation from the beginning when he takes out Rolf Larsen and ponders it in the moment and after the fact versus the end when he kills Griffith and "felt nothing". He has become the true 007.
I will post my review, I'm just taken up with my current addiction to heroin, well, I thought after reading this book it sounded pretty good, much better than a vodka martin.
It might take a day or two.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Heavy handed B-)
Agreed. He could have left the metaphor without "zeroes, perhaps" and the reader would not be insulted.
The lead in "La French" is Jean Dujardin, known for playing a comic agent in two OSS-117 movies.
And for that matter The French Connection 2 as well. That went to Marseille for the French side of that network. Decent flick.
A restaging of Kai holst as he was found
The two SOE-agents had lured Warholm to the Legation to get him on Norwegian territory. It was probably not a sanctioned killing since Sørli later critizised Pevik for shooting. After killing Warholm they rolled him into a carpet and drove to the British Legation where the body was dumped. The British understood the Norwegians were behind the killing and asked them to sort out the mess. They sent Ida Lindebrække to make the body ready. She was the secretary at the SOE office at the Norwegian Legation. Her normal duties involved wining and dining agents returning agents from missions at the best restaurants in the city. When their R&R was over she issued them with suicide pils and other equipment before going to the next mission in occupied Norway. Sometimes she also handed the assassination orders from London. She was basically "Miss Moneypenny". After the war she married SOE-agent Max Manus (the movie "Man of War" is about him), and became known as "Tikken" Manus. Then someone drove the body outside the city and dumped it in a bog.
Both Sørlie and Pevik returned to Norway where they worked for the SOE for the rest of the war. Odd Sørli worked for the Oslo Gang, an outfit led by Gunnar "Number 24" Sønsteby and considered to be the best sabotage unit in Europe by the SOE. Rolf Larsen, Bond's target in "Forever and a day" was also described as a member of the group. The Oslo Gang were the personal bodyguard of crown prince Olav when he returned to Norway weeks after the war ended. The German soldiers were still armed, but Sørlie drowe the crown prince's car calmly in the welcoming parade.Odd Sørli led the group that shot Oliver Rinnan after he got the death penalty after the war. It wasn't Odd Sørli who asked for the job - he was there on Rinnan's request.
Odd Sørli driving the king's car during the freedom parade in 1945
[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg/220px-Kronprins_Olav_i_åpen_bil,_Mai_1945_(3610415183).jpg[/img]
Arthur Pevik
Ida Lindebrække/"Tikken" Manus
Oliver Rinnan (in the middle) while he was in prison after the war. The officer with his back to the camera is the SOE agent Tormod Morset. Morset's exact words to Rinnan when the photo was taken were: "Rinnan, you killed my brother". My father knew a younger Morset brother while they were students who lost an arm as a boy during the German hunt after the Morset Family.
The restaurant of Grand Hotel in Stockholm. This place was a favourite fro diplomats, spies and SOE-agents during WWII.
Horowitz did describe a lot of details; locations, food, people. Really fun to read. I hope he'll write a few more.
I finished the novel yesterday, and I enjoyed. Horowitz does a good job of capturing the voice of the early Fleming and of telling a solid adventure. I also like his imagining of Bond's first mission as a Double-0, with such details as his first meeting with M and the fact there was a "007" before Bond--and Bond asks for the number to honor the previous holder of it. I also think Scipio is a decent Flemingesque minor villain, and Sixtine is a good love interest. Still, the problem with these continuation novels is that it all seems to have been done before. . .I kept getting strong whiffs of Live and Let Die--both the novel and film--and it seems Bond has to be given a quip at the end of every scene of action or violence, just like in the movies. And though he is good at capturing Fleming's voice, it's hard to escape that Horowitz is writing in the early 21st century. . .just as in Trigger Mortis he had to undo Bond's "conversion" of the lesbian Pussy Galore, in FAAD he has Bond expressing a cynical view of Americans and the CIA that is more 1960s Graham Greene than 1950s Ian Fleming.
But these are minor quibbles. It's an enjoyable novel, one that keeps the Bond flag flying. I hope Horowitz is asked back to deliver another.
Although I continue to believe that the continuation novels should be set in the present, Horowitz is probably the closest thing to Fleming we are ever likely to get. I’d like it if he did another.
Also, how great was the Fleming material? I’m surprised that this is the first time it’s ever seen the light of day.