Continuity
ABurgess
Posts: 4MI6 Agent
Are the James Bond film novelizations considered to be part of the official Bond literary cannon? I would think so, considering the amount of editing the authors do to fit the novelizations into their Bond framework. EX: Gardner had to create a reason why in the novelization of GoldenEye Bond is a Commander when just a book earlier he held the position of Captain.
Comments
The authors have referenced other novels in the novelisations, so I suppose that could make them canon. On the other hand, they never refer back to them - they're a curious anomaly within the literary series. I think it's safest to say that they exist in a sub-category of literary Bond (and if you've read the novelisation of GoldenEye, you'll understand that's where some of them belong!).
@merseytart
Anyway, as Jetsetwilly indicates, the novelizations seem to exist in a world of their own. As I wrote in "The Wood Novels" thread, I think Christopher Wood's Spy Who Loved Me works in the continuity of novels--the characters are similar to Fleming's, the writing is much like Fleming's, and the adventure is one the literary Bond has never been on. I feel the book deserves to be seen as the sixteenth Bond novel, following Colonel Sun. However, Wood's Moonraker is more problematic--the literary Bond has already faced a Hugo Drax and a nuclear rocket called the Moonraker, and so it doesn't make sense that he'd again encouter a Drax (who looks exactly like Fleming's character) and that the villain would have a fleet of space shuttles called Moonrakers. Also, in this book Wood adds Bond's health report from Thunderball and makes it a major part of the plot--another thing that harms continuity.
Anyway, continuity in the literary Bond series is tough to figure out. John Pearson in James Bond: The Authorized Biography gives Bond a brother and an aunt; which means that when M wrote in Bond's obit (YOLT) that Bond has no living relatives he's showing he knows little about his own agents--not a good quality in an SIS head. Gardner ignores Colonel Sun; and Benson rewrites Gardner, bringing back characters Gardner killed off. 'Tis a tangled web. . .
That's not a bad thing at all--just a helpful line of demarcation.This allows readers to pick and choose as the mood strikes whether or not a particular movie storyline falls into place with the original Fleming novels.If,for instance,you want to accept that James Bond confronts and defeats two hideously scarred, entirely evil,redhaired,multimillionaire knights of the realm(each named Hugo Drax)--on two seperate occasions--that's your choice.It could happen.It's really no more unlikely than Felix Leiter being fed to a shark twice in one lifetime.All things are possible in fiction...
I'm shocked to hear that you haven't read them, HB
Whilst they don't compare to Fleming's works some are a good read in their own right and some aren't ! I actually like Gardner's LTK novelisation but the passage you mention is silly.
Shocked, Hah, bloody disgusted. Get out there man and read them. Hell I'll even send you the paperbacks. Some of Gardners novels are really good, and his choice of pistols exemplory
My fault too, HB. ;%
I need to carefully read the dates on some these threads
Glad to hear you've read them now though
As mentioned above, it's really up to the individual to decide what is and what isn't "canon" so to speak. I think one of the things that allows for that is the fact that it really isn't that well (for lack of better words) "defined" or "organized", possibly because it's constantly set in the real-world present-day era. You take things like Star Wars, which has a very well established canon, and it's a lot easier to determine continuity and all that.
I read the first Benson novel and that was enough for me. Absolutely horrible. The man couldn't write his way out of a second-grade classroom (sorry, Benson fans).
Benson's first was actually the second Bond book I ever read (after the novelisation of TND). I seem to remember enjoying it, although I'm not sure if I would still enjoy it now being a fan of the original books.