Last Bond Novel You Read

Perilagu Khan wrote:

To my mind, the classics are CR, MR, FRWL, YOLT, OHMSS, and tendentious though it be, TB. The only one I'm not wild about is GF, and even it far surpasses the vast majority of espionage novels out there.

I really like GF. Thoroughly memorable; I haven't read it in years.

Hilly wrote:

I still need to come round to YOLT. I don't disparage it as such, it's crawling upwards in my mind. I feel that it's the least I should do literary-Bond wise.

I rank it highly because of the excellent cultural exploration, the dynamic between Bond and Tiger/the UK and Japan, and of course the characterisations of Bond and M.

Like I say, I'll have to give it another bash in the new year. Leave OHMSS to settle. I sometimes think that if only, maybe, Fleming had left it at OHMSS. Imagine the response if people suddenly realised that the Bond series had ended with Bond mourning the loss of his brief bride. It sort of feels that what came after that book wasn't as good but again, I need to re-assess YOLT so ignore my rambling.

I'm sure, as I repeat myself on this forum, there was a suggestion Fleming was thinking of ending Bond with OHMSS one way or the other but had a change of mind. Yet I've never, since I heard that, found concrete info to back it up.

There needed to be some sort of closure to Blofeld. From the Thunderball mission Bond's been tracking SPECTRE and for the head of the organisation to kill Bond's bride on their wedding day, MI6's best agent needed to close the file as much as Bond needed to for his own reason. Fleming couldn't have stopped with OHMSS.

Fleming was certainly considering stopping after From Russia With Love, which is why it ends with Klebb's shoe-knife 'connecting' and a poisoned Bond crashing to the floor.

Yes. The "wine red" floor, if I recall correctly...

Conan Doyle also tired of Holmes, hence him and Moriarty seemingly plunging to their deaths from the Reichenbach Falls at the end of The Final Problem.

in light of recent posts and in spite of my pile of books...

You Only Live Twice

I figured it was time for a re-assessment. Certainly I feel it has improved in my standings. I guess OHMSS leaves such a mark in my mind, that as far as I'm concerned OHMSS is the last Bond.

In some respects this is Bond at his most human. Tracy's death clearly has impacted him enough to knock him right off the track as far as his job goes. You suspect if this was any other 00, M would not be bothered as much but 007 warrants it. Tracy is not heavily focused on but there's enough there that Bond really did seem to love her enough that it wears heavily on him.

There is though a surreal air to this book in my head. It's regular Bond fare until we get closer to Blofeld. The Castle of Death is fantastically bizarre and then you have the Blofeld/Bunt dynamic. For one thing, imagining Blofeld in that suit robs me of taking it too seriously but then you have this couple who are at once sickening but quite weird. As couples go they aren't exactly JFK/Jackie.

I do like how as soon as Bond sees the photo of Blofeld he immediately goes into revenge mood. That Tanaka is puzzled but doesn't question. That Bond immediately seems to think "I'll get the bastard for killing Tracy". The moment Bond meets Blofeld the book seems different. The 'Baedeker guide to Japan' becomes "Bond must kill Blofled". This is why in my fanfic, I had Bond with the repetitive thought of "KILL BLOFELD". That his mindset is such that the closer he gets the more narrowed his mental thoughts become. It's fantastic how Bond changes closer we get to him killing Blofeld. That Tracy warrants this. The moment Bond kills Blofeld is a seminal moment. After that, the way his mind snaps. It strikes me as odd that Bond wouldn't directly kill Bunt, maybe because in the film she was the one that actually does kill Tracy. I know Bunt dies when the castle is destroyed but that Bond doesn't finish the job as such.

Blofeld appears to reach peak evil in this book. The fact he collects death, that people kill themselves here or go mad here.

What makes it surreal is that Bunt is in the book. Without her in DAF (the film), there feels something quite uneven and I know it's for obvious reasons.

Little bits do tickle, the reference to the hot weather via the atomic bomb testing or that Bond sits in Regent's Park...

...to me, IF's Bond ends here. I used to think OHMSS but it ends here.

The tragedy amongst many is that Dikko didn't translate to the film stage properly. I guess had he appeared as the book form in 1967, it'd have pushed the film fully into parody (Crocodile Dundee pre-empted by twenty odd years). I remember reading the late Alan Whicker's Journey of a Lifetime and how Dikko was based on Richard Hughes. From what I've read, no one could ever have done that justice on the big screen.

Indeed, The Castle of Death would've worked on film but not in 1967. Either now, 2020, or in the 50s. I think the great shame is that Lazenby/ Bond never took proper revenge on Blofeld.

So, yes, I like the book now. We could do without the sex merchant stuff maybe but imagine...say Lazenby not only did a second-revenge driven film but a third, where the PTS has him amnesiac and returns to the station of dead agents...

Have to thank PK for pre-empting me to read YOLT.

Glad its risen in your estimation, Hilly. One of Fleming's finest pieces if I'm honest. The chatter about Japan and England's place in the world is absorbing material.

Been a while since I read OHMSS and YOLT but would Bond know Bunt was the one who killed Tracy?

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Glad its risen in your estimation, Hilly. One of Fleming's finest pieces if I'm honest. The chatter about Japan and England's place in the world is absorbing material.

Been a while since I read OHMSS and YOLT but would Bond know Bunt was the one who killed Tracy?

I can't imagine he would know it was Bunt who was the trigger finger. In the book it might well have been her driving and Blofeld shooting.

Still got some Gardners to read, including his LTK and GE novelisations. Also Horowitz's Forever And A Day and 'Shoot To Kill' (a post-Higson Young Bond).

Good write up, Hilly. YOLT is a strong entry.

It is a shame about Dikko, I suppose, as I do regard him as one of the best allies of the novels. Not sure how a blokey Aussie turned into an old English *ahem* bachelor in a kimono in the film version.

Thanks CJB. I forgot to elaborate as such that what makes the book surreal is imagining Blofeld in all that clobber Fleming has him in and the love-pairing of him and Bunt. All this "lieber Ernst".

Yeah, it's a real shame Dikko didn't translate onto screen or the way he did. I did like Charles Gray as an actor in films but...ahem bachelor is right. As I say Dikko was meant to be inspired by this Richard Hughes chap and had he made it onto film it would've been fantastic. I'm now somehow imagining Paul Hogan getting famous earlier on internationally by playing Dikko.

"Jimmy, that's not a gun, mate, THIS is a gun!"

The mind imagines Connery and Lazenby as Bond and Dikko in a faithful YOLT.

I have to admit I love the ideas and certain sequences/passages of YOLT more than the book itself. On my last reread I realized it's really due to the middle section where the plot and Bond seem to meander before the realization of Shatterhand's identity. I still love all of IF's books but if I had to rank them I'd actually have YOLT with TB at the bottom of the full novels because I do think his health did start to influence the writing in certain ways.

Admittedly I do prefer the more two fisted swift and cynical Fleming works to the later books if I'm honest. But I love them all dearly otherwise I probably wouldn't reread them all every single year! Of coure I reread the whole series every year and once you've reread late Gardner enough times you start to question sanity amongst other things. (Nothing against JG. I stick up for these books but the law of diminishing returns really, really applies here.)

I know what you mean. My most recent Gardner was Man From Barbarossa and while not bad, something about it was ... a little 'off'.

Not a novel but I gave FAVTAK a reread yesterday. I'd forgotten what a striking entrance Mary Ann Russell makes, especially considering the set up of Bond's fantasy, his realisation of what actually might be instead, and then her bold arrival.

It is a nice little story. Would've served as a nice PTS maybe.

Yep, or post-opening credits sequence, a la FYEO or TLD.

Work more for Daylights in that you would at least have Dalton perhaps doing some of the bike riding. The close-ups of the eyes say through the visor and so on and so forth. Nice bit of a Barry score. Dalton sealing the deal with a curt one liner. Job done.

Recently finished Forever And A Day ... aside from a slight disappointment that the bad guys' evil scheme is virtually a retread of one from the Moore movies, a very enjoyable read.

Horowitz 'gets it' more than any of the other recent Bond continuation novelists, IMHO.

Nice to see some love for the book, Blunty. Yes, the scheme is what it is and it's the only slight on a book that as you say, is the best of the continuations post-Gardner. I thought Horowitz has done a good job giving us the origin of Bond or at least his 007. This Bond is not as well rounded or polished as he is of course in Casino Royale and beyond.

I think there's enough of a gap from FAAD to CR for Horowitz, if he returns, to do more.

Just started reading Diamonds are Forever again, as I know it has a reputation for being one of the weaker ones, and I'm waiting on a couple other copies to get here (my old paperback copies are pretty beat up / I don't want to destroy them any further since they hold some sentimental value) I'll update when I've finished it.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Recently finished Forever And A Day ... aside from a slight disappointment that the bad guys' evil scheme is virtually a retread of one from the Moore movies, a very enjoyable read.

Horowitz 'gets it' more than any of the other recent Bond continuation novelists, IMHO.  

This makes me want to pick it up. Yet to read it but isolation might just give me the time to get through it. I've been smashing some reads lately.

Hilly wrote:

Nice to see some love for the book, Blunty. Yes, the scheme is what it is and it's the only slight on a book that as you say, is the best of the continuations post-Gardner. I thought Horowitz has done a good job giving us the origin of Bond or at least his 007. This Bond is not as well rounded or polished as he is of course in Casino Royale and beyond.

I think there's enough of a gap from FAAD to CR for Horowitz, if he returns, to do more.

This is the element I'm most curious about. My disdain for the origin story in the film series is well documented but this might just be the origin story I might respond to-- even if it's something I don't find entirely necessary.

Xenia93 wrote:

Just started reading Diamonds are Forever again, as I know it has a reputation for being one of the weaker ones, and I'm waiting on a couple other copies to get here (my old paperback copies are pretty beat up / I don't want to destroy them any further since they hold some sentimental value) I'll update when I've finished it.

I haven't read DAF in a number of years but I found it incredibly underrated. I was absorbed from start to finish, and there are entire passages that I can still visualise in my mind. I think it's much stronger than Thunderball, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved me and perhaps even Live and Let Die.

Heh, I too am thinking about buying a backup copy of the books. I have the series below and want to protect them from further creases in the spine as I can. I think these are the most stylish covers since the 1st editions so I'm not sure which other versions I'd like to get:

For further novels, Horowitz could maybe do what he did with Trigger Mortis (set them between the events of 2 of the Fleming novels in the timeline) or possibly afterwards ... the Seventies are a pretty much 'unmined' decade for 'book Bond'.

I was saying to Fields off-forum that Horowitz has, as you say, the books to pick from. I like the idea of something for the run-up to OHMSS, showing his growing disenchantment with the service.

The 70s is rich for stuff as you say. He could bridge the gap to Licence Renewed but I guess it's down to the IFF really.