Any chatter as to whether or not Folio Society releases the final work ?
MFisher
Posts: 748MI6 Agent
As the title states..... we have 13 Folio society releases of the original Fleming work... but still lack the final novel... (OK.. technically we do have 14 Folio Bond books - with the last being a substantial price gouge attempt at roping in completist suckers to grab a do-over of Casino Royale for the anniversary 🤣)
But.... there's been a gap in production on these.... curious if they will do the final novel... or if the revisionist spin on the Fleming Bond work has torpedoed that....
Comments
I've not been purchasing these new Folio editions (new editions are not really my thing plus they're rather pricey) but I believe they've published all of the Fleming Bond books apart from Octopussy. There has been some debate about whether they will publish this last book as Octopussy and The Living Daylights with just the two short stories as it was originally published by Jonathan Cape in 1966 or if it will be published as Octopussy which was the expanded paperback title and include 'The Property of a Lady' (added in 1967) and '007 in New York' (added in 2002). Personally I hope they publish it as Octopussy and include all of the four short stories it has been expanded to include in paperback form. It's too slim a volume of short stories otherwise. I've no information on how they're going to approach publishing the final book but I assume they are going to publish it at some point in order to complete the series. As to when that'll be, well only time will tell...
As an update I found this on the Folio Society's Facebook page in reply to a post they made on 1 October 2023:
Well, it looks like we’ve all been taken for a very expensive ride. Three years on from ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and no ‘Octopussy & The Living Daylights’. I’m livid.
Frankly we’ve had every excuse under the sun from these guys. First off : ‘It’s for a happy reason but we can’t tell you why without invading somebody’s privacy’. Then : ‘It involves a happy pregnancy’ (even an elephant would be done by now). Now: ‘Rumours of a plagiarism abound’.
In terms of timing. First off: ‘You’ll have it for Xmas ‘23’. Then: ‘It will be next year’. Now: ‘We are definitely doing it but can’t say when’.
In the interim they’ve published a limited, commemorative edition of Casino Royale with some fresh art from Fay Dalton and all 700 signed by said artist.
We’ve all been taken for shmucks. I’ve no interest in an incomplete collection and these shysters should offer a returns arrangement for those who don’t want to participate in their indefinite wait !
I hope that's not the case, It's certainly peculiar we haven't heard anything rock solid from them at this point.
Villieurs53 said : ‘Rumours of a plagiarism abound’
_________________________________________________________
what could be these rumours of plagiarism? surely they have the legal right to reprint Flemings text, if that were the problem they would have been stopped years ago, not after 13 books. So is it Fay Daltons artwork? I've seen lots of illustrations based on Fleming and none of them look anything like her illustrations. not just the style, but the compositions look all original to my eyes. so what left if its not the text or the illustrations?
sure hope they do finish the project, then they can follow it up with a nice big coffee table book compiling all the illustrations at a larger scale, because thats the part I'm interested in, and I think they should be better known to the BondFanCommunity.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
EDIT: so it is Fay Dalton. Not her Bond illustrations, so far as I can tell, but some work she did for Magic the Gathering playing cards is accused of being a little too similar to another artists work. Well thats no good, if true, dont want to trivialize that, but I'd still like to see her complete the project I'm interested in
I’ve just looked on their website and none of the Bond editions have sold out. It may well be that they are losing money on them so they have decided not to continue (albeit rather late in the day). Frustrating as it is to those collecting the series they are in business to make profit so a business decision has to be made. Another problem is that if they don’t publish the last novel then it may be unlikely that anyone will begin to buy the remaining copies, so they are not going to advertise the fact that they are not continuing. They may do a special low print run at a later date with a higher purchase price to compensate. Time will tell.