All or nothing
Muston
Huncote, Leicestershire Posts: 228MI6 Agent
I'm now in the process who buying every Bond novel written. Trying my best to get most of them in hardback but paperbacks in between. I already own all of Fleming's apart from The Spy Who Loved Me so will get that, along with all the others plus the novelizations (already have both of Wood's.)
But does anyone else on here own ALL the novels? Do you see it as a vital part of collecting them as it is with the films?
But does anyone else on here own ALL the novels? Do you see it as a vital part of collecting them as it is with the films?
"Thank you very much. I was just out walking my RAT and seem to have lost my way... "
Comments
They are the best way to find out about Bond the man and not the
superman of some of the films.
I collected mine over the years many from used book stalls etc, and I'm
re-reading them again after many years. I'm on to DAF at the moment.
I've currently got three of Gardners and three of Benson's but will get the rest as quick as possible. I have no real desire to collect the Young Bond novels though, I just don't count them, even though they are said to be well written.
Likewise The only ones I don't have are the Young Bonds and the Bensons - I've avoided the latter as I heard they weren't well written. I didn't enjoy the last few Gardners as much - they were a bit like "the law of diminishing returns" though I really enjoyed the first few (mind you, I read them when they first came out and was still at school so ts even a while!)
I hope you are enjoying Solo, any views on it so far ?
I've read 6 of the Fleming novels, the one by Deaver, and find Solo pretty good so far, does to me seem to read alot in the Fleming tone which I really like.
I'm Also listening to The Devil May Care in audiobook.
Your book or movie list is pretty similar to mine, OHMSS is my #1 book.
Currently reading Zero Minus Ten and enjoying it more than Gardner's first Bond novel.
How do u turn off the quote function, I'm getting wore out back spacing..
A man precisely after my own tastes! -{
The Flemings are a must. Then you read COLONEL SUN, a natural canonical follow-up to THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. Brilliantly written, though not the greatest of stories (starts wonderfully, meanders swiftly). Then you imagine an older Bond, now in the mid 1970s, and read Wood's SPY.
And that's it. Re-read the Flemings and the other two. Pick up little things you've missed, particularly from the Flemings.
If you want to know how an early 80s Bond might be, written by another hand, read LICENCE RENEWED and FOR SPECIAL SERIVICES. But only if you really must.
The rest are pointless exercises, simply attempts to exploit and profit.
I have all of 'em, from CR to SOLO, on my shelves. In hardback first edition. Have I read many more than once other than those I consider viable? No. I have them because I'm an older bugger, and bought the lot, from Wood, through Gardner and Benson, Higson, Weinberg and the latest three, when they came out anew, with a dip into the past for Pearson. In all cases, I was hoping for one book that was worthy of Fleming. None are. Would I buy them now, in addition to the Flemings, CS and SPY? No.
Just hit the 'reply' button that's next to it...or type directly into the empty box at the bottom...
I think that if someone wants to read about an older, dare I say mellowing Bond, then SOLO is definitely the book. Personally I like to think of the real Bond as all the Flemings, then Colonel Sun, then Devil May Care, then Solo.
Then the Gardner's and the Benson's and the Wood's as character's in their authors own universe.
Would love to see an author give us a Bond around the age of 55 (which would place him around the year of 1975) and see how he copes with aging, maybe he would be retired from the field and put behind a desk? Maybe he would be beginning to look back and regret never having settled down after Tracy?
I think Boyd's SOLO has come as close to the above idea's as we've seen thus far.
I haven't re-read it since it was first published a loooong time ago, but isn't that kind of where Gardner was going with "Licence Renewed"? I seem to remember that although he fudged the time-lines so that Bond wasn't exactly an OAP, it was the 1980s and Bond was in his late 40s/early 50s-ish and had slowed down....before being re-instated as a "00". I thought it worked very well at the time, although I was rather young then I will admit!
You make a good point there Domino. Though I felt that even in Gardner's Licence Renewed, Bond was written more Super-Spy than tarnished man which I felt he was by the end of TMWTGG.
In interviews at the time, Gardner stated he took Bond from where Fleming left him in the 60s and dropped him in 1981. Fine, so we have an early 40s Bond. Gardner remarks that he now has a few grey hairs and has knocked back on the boozing (he is no longer the piss-head of Faulks and Boyd, then
But other than that - and a bit of a better diet - Gardner makes no other concession to Bond "slowing down" or ageing, particularly as his novels went on.
Gardner was cracking out Bond for 14 years, 14 years in which he could have shown Bond ageing, losing certain skills and reactions as a consequence, perhaps becoming resentful as he went through his 40s and into his 50s. Fleming showed Bond ageing, becoming cynical and burned out. Gardner just continued to knock out novels about an ageless agent which were less and less entertaining and more and more run of the mill mundane.
A wasted opportunity.
On the same-ish issue...I don't really want to read about an 'older' Bond...