What is the reading order?
IstvanTheHun007
Posts: 75MI6 Agent
Would I read Devil May Care and Solo before or after A Mind to Kill?
Or better question: including Colonel Sun and the above-mentioned new books set back in the Fleming end-days,
what is the reading order from MWTGG to License Renewed?
Comments
I think if you want to read chronologically, your reading order would go:
The Man With The Golden Gun
With a Mind to Kill
Octopussy and the Living Daylights
Colonel Sun
Devil May Care
Solo
Licence Renewed
I'm not 100% sure if Colonel Sun or Devil May Care would come first.
the stories in Octopussy were all written before Man With The Golden Gun. Theres even a reference to one of the characters from Property of a Lady in ...Golden Gun. not that anything important happens in any of them, saga-wise.
I havent read this new Horowitz yet, but it sounds like a direct sequel to ...Golden Gun and should be read next.
and I dont think any of these continuation authors acknowledged the events of previous continuation novels, not even Colonel Sun. but it and the the next two @Golrush007 named are meant to happen in specific years, I think 1964, 1967, and 1969?
thing with Colonel Sun: it happens a year after ...Golden Gun, and Bond tells Tanner he hasn't had any significant missions in that time. So Horowitz is contradicting Amis by inserting a major mission in there. as I say, I think each of the four authors has made his own postFleming timeline and ignored the others,
Or perhaps Amis had foresight and considers With A Mind To Kill an insignificant mission....
I thought that might the case that the Octopussy short stories might have originally been pre-TMWTGG. I knew Property of a Lady was, at least. Wasn't sure about the others and I didn't check up on those.
we sorted out when Octopussy was written and when the other three stories were first published in this thread . It doesnt really matter, nothing happens in them that effects anything, whereas the last five novels each follow the events of the previous ones starting with Thunderball
I haven't read this new Horowitz (its on my christmas wish list) but from the prerelease hype it doesn't sound like any minor mission! Not unless Bond gets amnesia again.
@IstvanTheHun007 you might want to add three more books to your Reading Order, in between Solo and the first Gardner, if you find them
John Pearson: James Bond the Authorized Biography 1973
Christopher Wood: James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me 1977
Christopher Wood: James Bond and Moonraker 1979
these are all long out of print, and the Biography in particular is hard to find, but worth reading if you can find them. I think theyre each better than any of the later continuation novels. Theres also decades of all-original stories in the Daily Express comic strip, reprinted by Titan Books. Those Titan Books comic strip collections are easier to find than the above mentioned three novels.
The more recent continuation novels are all easy enough to find, I often see them on bookshelves when there isnt any proper Fleming.
Thanks everyone! This is the information I was looking for.
Given Amis's thoughts on the John Gardner Bond novels that followed after his own Colonel Sun I'd say that's a very good call. 😀