I think Gardner did a good job with LTK and GE, so did Benson with TWINE, which is very pleasant to read considering the movie is full of good ideas terribly arranged.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,865MI6 Agent
Writing film novelisations is not for for the faint of heart if John Gardner's experiences with writing the LTK novelisation and the constant script changes from Eon are anything to go by.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Would personally put Christopher Wood's novelisations of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker above everything else in terms of mimicking Fleming's style - despite the fact that these films and their leading man were far away from Fleming's original concept.
Both manage to fudge the issue of Bond not being set in the 50s/60s by not really alluding to it. Both are sexy and sadistic in a way not countenanced by the Ian Fleming foundation today. That said, Horowitz's books are set in the Fleming era - the first takes place after Goldfinger, the second is a prequel to Casino Royale and the last one takes place after the events of Golden Gun, to produce a better finale (it doesn't reference Amis' Colonel Sun).
Back on topic, I don't really see the actors as Bond, just the guy described by Fleming, and is oft depicted on the Pan paperbacks - well, Live and Let Die and Moonraker, not the smarmy civil servant shown holding a gun on the cover of Goldfinger.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,865MI6 Agent
That smarmy civil servant with a gun was the director of Pan Books at the time, hence this became known as the Director's series.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
In my memory, the events of Colonel Sun are not supposed to occur immediately after Golden Gun, whereas With A Mind To Kill is a direct sequel, which is why there's no reference. Furthermore, Horowitz mentions Amis' novel in the aknowledgements, explaining the open ending permits to consider the "continuation" for those who want, but also to close Ian Fleming's James Bond chapter for those who don't.
Colonel Sun explicitly takes place one year after the end of ...Golden Gun.
its not so much that With a Mind to Kill prevents Colonel Sun from happening (though that depends on how you interpret the final pages of WaMtK). Rather, in the opening pages of Colonel Sun, Bond reviews with Tanner how he spent the last year, and theres no mention of any trip back to Russia.
the book begins in September, and this passage places the approximate time passed since Golden Gun
He had managed a clear two hundred and fifty yards straight down the middle, a shot that had demanded every ounce of effort without (blessed relief) the slightest complaint from the area where, last summer, Scaramanga's Derringer slug had torn through his abdomen.
this passage tells us of the two missions Bond's had since then
'I'm under-employed. What have I done this year? One trip to the States, on what turns out to be a sort of discourtesy visit, and then that miserable flop out East back in June.'
Bond had been sent to Hong Kong to supervise the conveying to the Red mainland of a certain Chinese and a number of unusual stores. The man had gone missing about the time of Bond's arrival and had been found two days later in an alley off the waterfront with his head almost severed from his body. After another three days, memorable chiefly for a violent and prolonged typhoon, the plan had been cancelled and Bond recalled.
I'd like to see theories that could reconcile these two continuation novels into one continuity. I've forgotten the details, but the mission to Moscow was very top secret, need to know only. Had to be for it to work. Was Tanner shown as being in the loop on this Moscow mission? if not, then maybe Bond is still concealing it from Tanner a year later.
But none of the different continuations authors acknowledged any of the others efforts, except maybe in Pearsons Bond Biography, where there is passing mention of Colonel Sun (but not by Bond). Of course the Bond Biography is a special case in terms of continuity, too complex to get into here, but just because a books title is mentioned does not mean it "happened".
Thanks for that @caractacus potts I don't spend my time cataloguing Bond's adventures and their timeline, but it is interesting that some continuation authors conveniently forget what came before.
What I like about Amis' Colonel Sun is that is does follow on quite clearly from TMWTGG, both in the style Amis attempted to evoke [not imitate] and in the novel's time setting - the mid sixties.
There is of course, for any continuation author, the problem of where TLD short story fits into the scheme of things, set specifically in Berlin at the time of the Wall and featuring the possibility of Bond being bundled out of the service due to his failure to kill a target. One assumes M had a touch of compassion himself.
DMC and Solo both attempt to carry on the Bond mythology and fail to reference Colonel Sun, which is clearly part of Bond's timeline.
Horowitz falls into the same well.
Personally, I wish they wouldn't try to emulate the era or the 'feel' of Fleming. The movies don't really do it, even when they choose to use Fleming as a source. Charlie Higson's On His Majesty's... works well because he brings Bond up to date, baggage and all, but simply doens't address the passage of time, just as the films do. It is the best way to go IMO.
but you did sort out Doctor Who's internal continuity and contradictions and thats vastly more complex. at least Bond doesnt time travel between adventures.
John Gardner acknowledged Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun by having the Davisons replace the Hammonds as M's servants at Quarterdeck as they were murdered in that novel. In turn, Raymond Benson referred to characters and events in the John Gardner novels too, including having Bond ask after Cedar Leiter. I think he also referenced Colonel Sun in The Facts of Death as it was also set in Greece. It could be said that Benson was almost obsessive with continuity, especially with the original Fleming Bond novels and short stories. Those earlier Bond continuation novels (prior to 2008) had a pleasing level of continuity between them. Bond continuation authors since then have tended to do their own thing by using only Fleming as their base and only seeing it as sacrosanct. I believe the brief from IFP from at least Benson onwards is that continuation authors can use whatever they like from previous Bond continuation novels or if they prefer they don't have to use anything at all. It's a shame that no Bond author since 2008 has seen fit to refer to ColonelSun as it deserves to sit along with the original Fleming Bond works as part of the canon.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I'd quite like a short story collection where different authors can be a little more experimental with Bond perhaps and play around with these different versions and timelines: maybe one story set in the cold war 80s, a Fleming-style 50s one, Bond in the war, a more Eon-style silly OTT story, one where Bond actually works for the Russians etc.
I think that could be fun, but maybe getting different authors to do short stories is more expensive than one novel, I don't know.
just to test whether my braincells are correctly allocating the important things I need to know to survive, lets see if I can remember...
in the first film, Dr Evil and Austin are both cryogenically frozen and wake up in the late 90s. that parts simple, the technology even exists, ... I think
in the 2nd film, Dr Evil has built a time machine and Austin follows Dr Evil back to the 60s. In the final moments Austin uses the same machine to travel 10 minutes back in time to team up with his own self to save the world (so somehow Dr Evil had already built the machine in the 60s but instead chose to be cryogenically frozen?). did we ever see Austin and Evil return to the 90s?
in the third film Basil has built his own time machine in the shape of a jacked-up purple pimpmobile, blasting out EW&F as it travels back to the 70s. Presumably this machine is era-specific and Basil'd have to build a second time machine in the shape of a psychedelic painted VW van, with a PigPen era Grateful Dead livetape playing, to return to the 60s, and so on for each target time period. same question, did we ever see Austin and Evil return to the present?
the timey-wimey stuff looks remarkably simple in the Austin Powers movies
the third film ends with the whole gang at the premiere of a film-within-a-film (AustinPussy), in which Tom Cruise plays Austin Powers, so come to think of it that has to be the present
I'm not sure we see them returning to the present, but maybe thats boring unneeded info, as we already know they now have two different time machines they could use
I've jut returned from a little road trip. I got through a few audiobooks along the way, including Colonel Sun. I played it while driving which, for me at least, isn't the best way to listen as I'm concentrating on other things. I wasn't set alight by it but I think it needs another listen before I can make a judgement.
Author of 'An Ungentlemanly Act' and 'Execution of Duty'. The WW2 espionage series starring Harry Flynn.
Comments
I concur with @SeanIsTheOnlyOne the Christopher Wood TSWLM is the closest anyone has got to the Fleming style and his MR is also very good.
On another, more controversial note, I wouldn’t give any of the others the time of day.
I think Gardner did a good job with LTK and GE, so did Benson with TWINE, which is very pleasant to read considering the movie is full of good ideas terribly arranged.
Writing film novelisations is not for for the faint of heart if John Gardner's experiences with writing the LTK novelisation and the constant script changes from Eon are anything to go by.
Would personally put Christopher Wood's novelisations of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker above everything else in terms of mimicking Fleming's style - despite the fact that these films and their leading man were far away from Fleming's original concept.
Both manage to fudge the issue of Bond not being set in the 50s/60s by not really alluding to it. Both are sexy and sadistic in a way not countenanced by the Ian Fleming foundation today. That said, Horowitz's books are set in the Fleming era - the first takes place after Goldfinger, the second is a prequel to Casino Royale and the last one takes place after the events of Golden Gun, to produce a better finale (it doesn't reference Amis' Colonel Sun).
Back on topic, I don't really see the actors as Bond, just the guy described by Fleming, and is oft depicted on the Pan paperbacks - well, Live and Let Die and Moonraker, not the smarmy civil servant shown holding a gun on the cover of Goldfinger.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That smarmy civil servant with a gun was the director of Pan Books at the time, hence this became known as the Director's series.
In my memory, the events of Colonel Sun are not supposed to occur immediately after Golden Gun, whereas With A Mind To Kill is a direct sequel, which is why there's no reference. Furthermore, Horowitz mentions Amis' novel in the aknowledgements, explaining the open ending permits to consider the "continuation" for those who want, but also to close Ian Fleming's James Bond chapter for those who don't.
Colonel Sun explicitly takes place one year after the end of ...Golden Gun.
its not so much that With a Mind to Kill prevents Colonel Sun from happening (though that depends on how you interpret the final pages of WaMtK). Rather, in the opening pages of Colonel Sun, Bond reviews with Tanner how he spent the last year, and theres no mention of any trip back to Russia.
the book begins in September, and this passage places the approximate time passed since Golden Gun
He had managed a clear two hundred and fifty yards straight down the middle, a shot that had demanded every ounce of effort without (blessed relief) the slightest complaint from the area where, last summer, Scaramanga's Derringer slug had torn through his abdomen.
this passage tells us of the two missions Bond's had since then
'I'm under-employed. What have I done this year? One trip to the States, on what turns out to be a sort of discourtesy visit, and then that miserable flop out East back in June.'
Bond had been sent to Hong Kong to supervise the conveying to the Red mainland of a certain Chinese and a number of unusual stores. The man had gone missing about the time of Bond's arrival and had been found two days later in an alley off the waterfront with his head almost severed from his body. After another three days, memorable chiefly for a violent and prolonged typhoon, the plan had been cancelled and Bond recalled.
I'd like to see theories that could reconcile these two continuation novels into one continuity. I've forgotten the details, but the mission to Moscow was very top secret, need to know only. Had to be for it to work. Was Tanner shown as being in the loop on this Moscow mission? if not, then maybe Bond is still concealing it from Tanner a year later.
But none of the different continuations authors acknowledged any of the others efforts, except maybe in Pearsons Bond Biography, where there is passing mention of Colonel Sun (but not by Bond). Of course the Bond Biography is a special case in terms of continuity, too complex to get into here, but just because a books title is mentioned does not mean it "happened".
Thanks for that @caractacus potts I don't spend my time cataloguing Bond's adventures and their timeline, but it is interesting that some continuation authors conveniently forget what came before.
What I like about Amis' Colonel Sun is that is does follow on quite clearly from TMWTGG, both in the style Amis attempted to evoke [not imitate] and in the novel's time setting - the mid sixties.
There is of course, for any continuation author, the problem of where TLD short story fits into the scheme of things, set specifically in Berlin at the time of the Wall and featuring the possibility of Bond being bundled out of the service due to his failure to kill a target. One assumes M had a touch of compassion himself.
DMC and Solo both attempt to carry on the Bond mythology and fail to reference Colonel Sun, which is clearly part of Bond's timeline.
Horowitz falls into the same well.
Personally, I wish they wouldn't try to emulate the era or the 'feel' of Fleming. The movies don't really do it, even when they choose to use Fleming as a source. Charlie Higson's On His Majesty's... works well because he brings Bond up to date, baggage and all, but simply doens't address the passage of time, just as the films do. It is the best way to go IMO.
chris said: I don't spend my time cataloguing Bond's adventures and their timeline
_______________________________________________________________________________________
but you did sort out Doctor Who's internal continuity and contradictions and thats vastly more complex. at least Bond doesnt time travel between adventures.
Basil and Austin suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing and just enjoy yourself. I'm with them
John Gardner acknowledged Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun by having the Davisons replace the Hammonds as M's servants at Quarterdeck as they were murdered in that novel. In turn, Raymond Benson referred to characters and events in the John Gardner novels too, including having Bond ask after Cedar Leiter. I think he also referenced Colonel Sun in The Facts of Death as it was also set in Greece. It could be said that Benson was almost obsessive with continuity, especially with the original Fleming Bond novels and short stories. Those earlier Bond continuation novels (prior to 2008) had a pleasing level of continuity between them. Bond continuation authors since then have tended to do their own thing by using only Fleming as their base and only seeing it as sacrosanct. I believe the brief from IFP from at least Benson onwards is that continuation authors can use whatever they like from previous Bond continuation novels or if they prefer they don't have to use anything at all. It's a shame that no Bond author since 2008 has seen fit to refer to Colonel Sun as it deserves to sit along with the original Fleming Bond works as part of the canon.
I'd quite like a short story collection where different authors can be a little more experimental with Bond perhaps and play around with these different versions and timelines: maybe one story set in the cold war 80s, a Fleming-style 50s one, Bond in the war, a more Eon-style silly OTT story, one where Bond actually works for the Russians etc.
I think that could be fun, but maybe getting different authors to do short stories is more expensive than one novel, I don't know.
just to test whether my braincells are correctly allocating the important things I need to know to survive, lets see if I can remember...
in the first film, Dr Evil and Austin are both cryogenically frozen and wake up in the late 90s. that parts simple, the technology even exists, ... I think
in the 2nd film, Dr Evil has built a time machine and Austin follows Dr Evil back to the 60s. In the final moments Austin uses the same machine to travel 10 minutes back in time to team up with his own self to save the world (so somehow Dr Evil had already built the machine in the 60s but instead chose to be cryogenically frozen?). did we ever see Austin and Evil return to the 90s?
in the third film Basil has built his own time machine in the shape of a jacked-up purple pimpmobile, blasting out EW&F as it travels back to the 70s. Presumably this machine is era-specific and Basil'd have to build a second time machine in the shape of a psychedelic painted VW van, with a PigPen era Grateful Dead livetape playing, to return to the 60s, and so on for each target time period. same question, did we ever see Austin and Evil return to the present?
the timey-wimey stuff looks remarkably simple in the Austin Powers movies
Pretty sure we see Austin and Evil return to the present in the 3rd movie, less sure about the 2nd one.
the third film ends with the whole gang at the premiere of a film-within-a-film (AustinPussy), in which Tom Cruise plays Austin Powers, so come to think of it that has to be the present
I'm not sure we see them returning to the present, but maybe thats boring unneeded info, as we already know they now have two different time machines they could use
One day I must watch all 3 again.
I've jut returned from a little road trip. I got through a few audiobooks along the way, including Colonel Sun. I played it while driving which, for me at least, isn't the best way to listen as I'm concentrating on other things. I wasn't set alight by it but I think it needs another listen before I can make a judgement.
Author of 'An Ungentlemanly Act' and 'Execution of Duty'. The WW2 espionage series starring Harry Flynn.