Last Bond Novel You Read

I did the same: found the Jeffrey Caine interview and went into full nerd mode and then sought out the Meyer interview. Meyer didn't have much to tell but it was very helpful getting it from the horse's mouth which pretty much confirms the story told in Some Kind of Hero. (Except the part in SKOH where his proposal essentially met with the disdain of BB.) It's a brilliant and absolutely perfect scenario for a villain though the tricky part would be in writing/staging the "Bond sorta goes along with the plan for a bit".
The Caine interview is essential. For years I wondered if it was indeed he who contributed the wonderful harder spy edge to GE and it indeed was. He should have been brought back instead of P&W.



The funny thing is that the overpopulation idea HAS been used before. In MR Drax's scheme at first is seemingly about power only but in Wood's novelization the detail is added that Drax was primarily worried about overpopulation and this led to his plan/scheme which just so happened to also make him the new ruler so everything worked out to his mind.

Reading all this makes me want to go into QUANTUM and redub Mathew A's dialog so he gets introduced as 'Greene - Soylent Greene.'

Is Caine the guy who wrote the unused PTS for a Dalton where he does a WANTED thing and drives an Aston into or onto a moving train? I remember reading that somewhere and thinking this might be jumping the shark in a POINT BREAK chuteless skydive level kind of way, but also admired the huevos.

hegottheboot wrote:

The Caine interview is essential. For years I wondered if it was indeed he who contributed the wonderful harder spy edge to GE and it indeed was. He should have been brought back instead of P&W.

I agree about it being essential. We'll never see official materials like Eon commissioned from Cork again, so it's great that fans through podcasting are able to convince some of these guys to go on the record (James Bond Radio has gotten a number of good interviews), especially from the Brosnan era which passed those official making-of materials by.

Also regarding his being brought back: did you catch him saying that the reason he wasn't asked back was because Feirstein was easier to live with?

Whole interview was candid. "MGW was convinced your were supposed to string stunts together and work a story around it."

trevanian wrote:

Is Caine the guy who wrote the unused PTS for a Dalton where he does a WANTED thing and drives an Aston into or onto a moving train? I remember reading that somewhere and thinking this might be jumping the shark in a POINT BREAK chuteless skydive level kind of way, but also admired the huevos.

Fairly certain you're thinking of Michael France there. His pre-titles had a big overlap with the eventual Mission Impossible finale.

The car-onto-moving-train thing WAS in the Blood Stone video game, but it was written by Bruce Feirstein.

You need that general push back and mixture of ideas to make a successful story. There also has to be someone to at the very least fly the "Bond wouldn't do that" flag which hasn't been there.

I agree there. Harry and Cubby would be having a good laugh at the idea of getting rid of anyone they felt was hard to live with, notably each other.

Well chaps, unrelated to seeing the film, I got Moonraker from the local library (what with all but a few books in storage back in the sticks).

Moonraker is a favourite, though I cite OHMSS as top dog, I suspect MR might well be it.

The copy I rented is one of the more recent ones by Vintage. I'm not mad on the cover, the lime colour and rocket don't chime but are better than the very recent releases of Fleming's Bond which include the silhouette of a man on the cover which seems to be the staple of any book nowadays.

This comes with an intro by a Susan Hill who I'm not familiar with. Usually I skip intros but hers held me as I was about to flick the pages, so I hope you chaps bear with me:

"It was once the fashion to sneer at Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. A tutor in English at my university dismissed them variously as lightweight, snobbish, mere entertainment, lacking in substance or depth, without a moral compass and irrelevant to the serious concerns of contemporary life.
He was simply wrong about the moral compass. They all have a very clear and straightforward one. Bond is on the side of right, fighting against wrong- good versus evil, however you put it. He is a hero, he fights villains. It is the oldest story in the world."

As she talks about MR, Hill mentions she was at school/college when the Cuban Missile Crisis happens so the above remarks by her 'teacher' chime quite well. In that, even as Fleming lived, he got this reception.

She describes MR as being the one book of the Bondverse that taps into real-world concerns, or the contemporary mood.

The mention of Gala being named for her father's command makes me think of a local MP who was named after her father's command (HMS Penelope). We can but be glad that some skipper never named his child after the likes of Ark Royal, Bristol etc.

Fleming was always accused of being snobbish, and so he was, but it is a snobbery which looks up and tries to emulate the best; it does not look down and sneer at those less smart, privileged or wealthy. James Bond lives at the right address, shops in the right area of London, plays the right games, drives the right cares, frequents the right clubs. But he is not wealthy. He is a single man with a modest salary and expensive tastes and when he wins massively at the game of cards with Drax, he spends the money on a Rolls-Royce convertible and three diamond clips.

At the risk of repeating my previous mutterings on the novel, what I love about MR really is the detail of everyday life at SIS. The films (I guess being films and not able to show it) give the impression Bond rarely hangs about in place long. But we have Bond practicing his gunnery and then office work. We have the mentions of the two other 00's (008 and 0011) both of whom have come a cropper. 008 has been shot up and is recuperating in West Berlin (though it seems he won't make it) and 0011 has disappeared out east.
For some reason I always assume we have a full department, i.e 001 to 009. I always find it funny that we have a 0011, hence my short story but either way, this is great detail.

There is in effect no glamour. Bond's missions are so infrequent that he remains at best a glorified civil servant. It's hard to imagine any of the Bond's film-wise spending time doing office work.
Personally, what a shame Loelia Ponsoby didn't appear at least in Terence Young's films. She is by now used to the attentions of the likes of Bond and co but has this motherly love for her charges. With respect to Penny and Lois Maxwell, I could readily picture Ponsoby sobbing at Bond's wedding but quietly happy for him. The awkward wave by Lazenby's Bond would somehow land as heavily as it does with Penny.

Eight years to go before he was automatically taken off the 00 list and given a staff job at Headquarters. At least eight tough assignments. Probably sixteen. Perhaps twenty-four. Too many.

This bit hit home somehow this time round. If 009 and 0011 have been clobbered, then what are the odds of Bond making it through even eight missions? Indeed, had Fleming lived a little while longer, could Bond have simply disappeared into a bland horizon? It's hard to picture Bond, even literary, going up to HQ. I suspect Bond would quit the SIS before that and fade away somewhere. Had Tracy lived, I think this would have been the case.

The odd line up to where I am tickles. M's reaction to Bond ordering a Martini at Blades ("rot gut") and Bond saying he 'has a mania' for salmon. Can't imagine any of the actors uttering a mania for salmon. Maybe Lazenby or Moore. Indeed, I pictured Lazenby in M's office and at Blades. I could see his walk into Blades and beyond.

There's something about M asking for Bond's help here. Though "Drax cheats at cards" line at the end of a chapter made me laugh. But then we skip that and move on. There's a very real feeling that Blade's is M's domain, his clubhouse.

However, that is that for now.

In terms of Bond actors having to utter odd lines from the novels, I always go back to GOLDEN GUN, when Bond says something like 'Golly what fun.'

It shows my age, but 'golly' is strictly the purview of Jim Nabors in my mind. I can live with lines like 'queering his pitch' in literature because after eyeblinking a bit, I always realize it isn't talk about homosexual baseball players.

Somebody should make up a list of the Fleming Bond lines that would choke Dalton and Connery.

Good stuff, Hilly.

Those Vintage editions never caught my interest. Hate a bland cover. My favorites have always been the Penguin paperbacks from the early 00s.

But I’d be interested in reading any appreciation for the novels so they might at least warrant a read or a rent from the library, as you’ve done.

Hilly wrote:

"It was once the fashion to sneer at Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. A tutor in English at my university dismissed them variously as lightweight, snobbish, mere entertainment, lacking in substance or depth, without a moral compass and irrelevant to the serious concerns of contemporary life.
He was simply wrong about the moral compass. They all have a very clear and straightforward one. Bond is on the side of right, fighting against wrong- good versus evil, however you put it. He is a hero, he fights villains. It is the oldest story in the world."

Jeremy Duns wrote a great article some time ago chronicling the attacks from the literati establishment against Fleming nearly from the beginning.  

Her tutor fellow there seems to have been a victim of that thought contagion, being he is “simply wrong” on many fronts. There is far more literary meat to these books than anyone has ever written about, in my opinion. Closest has been Kingsley Amis and Umberto Eco but even their assessments are hardly exhaustive.

Brushing Fleming’s book off as “mere” pulp — and sneering at him — has always been a basic if tempting error. He wrote Bond for a lit fic publishing house and was an exhaustively well read man. He never did himself any favors by being continuously self-deprecating about his work (“they’re hardly Shakespeare, dear boy,” and all that — Shakespeare, another great populist who would never have survived the 20th century intellektual crowd) but there’s a great deal of literary intent and artistic merit to them. There’s a huge hole wanting to be filled in Fleming critical assessment.

Hilly wrote:

Fleming was always accused of being snobbish, and so he was, but it is a snobbery which looks up and tries to emulate the best; it does not look down and sneer at those less smart, privileged or wealthy. James Bond lives at the right address, shops in the right area of London, plays the right games, drives the right cares, frequents the right clubs. But he is not wealthy. He is a single man with a modest salary and expensive tastes and when he wins massively at the game of cards with Drax, he spends the money on a Rolls-Royce convertible and three diamond clips.

I think it was Amis who pointed out that Fleming very carefully positioned Bond as just beyond the reach of the masses but not so far above them as to be unrelatable. So in MR here we have Bond being the best shot in the service — but he’s not as good as the instructor. Elsewhere he uses the very best soaps — but he takes cold showers.

Hilly wrote:

For some reason I always assume we have a full department, i.e 001 to 009. I always find it funny that we have a 0011, hence my short story but either way, this is great detail.

This always made me think Fleming’s intent (at this point in his career as Bond’s biographer) was that the double-o numbers did not get reassigned (contra NTTD), hence why you have a 0011 and why Bond is mentioned as being the senior man in the group.

Of course later on in the series we get a 006!

Hilly wrote:

This bit hit home somehow this time round. If 009 and 0011 have been clobbered, then what are the odds of Bond making it through even eight missions?

It just occurs to me that this is precisely what happened, is it not? Even if we skip the short stories, we have the MR assignment here, then DAF, FRWL, DN, GF, TB, OHMSS, YOLT, and TMWTGG. Far more than eight even, I suppose.

This is why arguments about Fleming intending that Bond’s ultimate fate was to die on the job fall deafly on me. Yes, Bond muses on the high chance of his death but he survived so much in spite of all the danger, itself a fantastical proposition.

Fleming presents these thoughts to color the danger of Bond’s world not to suggest his fate. It seems to me rather that if Bond has a fate it is not that he’s destined to die because his job is dangerous (it is) but that he’s destined to never be able to have a normal life yet must continue on.

The Susan Hill who wrote that intro is probably the same author who's most famous for penning the chilling Woman In Black.

Somerset wrote:

Fleming presents these thoughts to color the danger of Bond’s world not to suggest his fate. It seems to me rather that if Bond has a fate it is not that he’s destined to die because his job is dangerous (it is) but that he’s destined to never be able to have a normal life yet must continue on.

I like these points. It's actually why my dream version of CR is done as Brosnan's last movie, because Vesper is his last chance to get out, and it obviously does not work out. He's condemned to go on in this role because in the end it is all he can do, or at least do so well.

Hilly wrote:

It's hard to imagine any of the Bond's film-wise spending time doing office work.

I can imagine Craig's Bond clobbering the printer-photocopier into dust out of frustration.

"That last jam... nearly killed me."

Now THERE'S how you make Bond 'relatable' ... having him lose his shit with a piece of malfunctioning office technology.

CJB wrote:

Hilly wrote:

It's hard to imagine any of the Bond's film-wise spending time doing office work.

I can imagine Craig's Bond clobbering the printer-photocopier into dust out of frustration.  

"That last jam... nearly killed me."

One sympathizes...

I've toyed with and tried to figure out for years how to make the office Bond "Mondays are Hell" lifestyle work in a cinematic sense. It doesn't quite work and the only way to do it would be the way Fleming did with just the sense of it for periods of time and the general briefest of hints in the original films. The films ran away from the idea because the last thing you'd want to do is remind people of the office when they came to the picture to get their heads out of the office...

Finally got around to finishing my re-read of Zero Minus Ten that I started in October. A few days after starting it, I went on vacation. By the time I got back, completely forgot about it until a few days ago.

Needless to say, I guess that tells you how I feel about the book. I never enjoyed the first two Benson's (although not a huge fan of his books, I remember thinking his mid/late entires were enjoyable - but then again, it has been close to 20 years now....so could be faulty memory.)

Thought that maybe as I get older and less picky as a Bond fan, I could get into them. But it was still a real slog. Definitely had some good ideas, but not executed well.

Jumping into The Facts of Death next. Hoping my opinion will change on this one, too.....time will tell.

hegottheboot wrote:

I've toyed with and tried to figure out for years how to make the office Bond "Mondays are Hell" lifestyle work in a cinematic sense. It doesn't quite work and the only way to do it would be the way Fleming did with just the sense of it for periods of time and the general briefest of hints in the original films. The films ran away from the idea because the last thing you'd want to do is remind people of the office when they came to the picture to get their heads out of the office...

Bond at work in MR is some of my favorite stuff, but you're right, it doesn't play cinematically (though you could probably squeeze it into a TV series, just don't tell anybody at Apple+ that!) There's also the tiff with Paymaster Troop, which is either FRWL or GF, where they are debating over the security issue of homosexuality (yeah, Bond is that bored.) I'm actually surprised Babs didn't take this up at some point in the Craig run, though who knows, maybe it inspired 'that' scene in SKYFALL.

Most recent reread for me was actually reading QUANTUM OF SOLACE aloud to my wife, who found it pretty engaging, a lot more than 'the scent and smell' open in CR, which I also tried at one point with her.

All this talk of Bond in the office being less cinematic but I point to some of the briefing scenes in FRWL/OHMSS/SF whereby much exposition across desks and in armchairs make for some riveting entertainment. At least for me. I can take and leave much of the action in SF and watch Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes have it out professionally instead.

Moore wrote:

Thought that maybe as I get older and less picky as a Bond fan, I could get into them.

Less picky as you get older? I’m finding the contrary is true.

Trev wrote:

Most recent reread for me was actually reading QUANTUM OF SOLACE aloud to my wife, who found it pretty engaging,

You’ve got a keeper, there.

Quarter-century plus, I'd say you've got it spot on.

I am gretting obsessive about MOONRAKER's adaptability. Am thinking you could do a totally faithful adaptation but expand it slightly to make it fit with Bond film (traditional Bond film, not CraigTown) expectations. Could make the German rocket scientist a woman to fit the bad girl trope. To take it further back to tradition, could also open with Bond spending time w/ one of his married women, intercut with the shooting range stuff. (have been thinking about cutting patterns, detail stuff, like this was a movie I was actually going to get to make.)

All the crap about needing product placement money keeping it contemporary infuriates me, because geez, the KINGSMAN prequels don't seem to be hurting for cash, right?

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

All this talk of Bond in the office being less cinematic but I point to some of the briefing scenes in FRWL/OHMSS/SF whereby much exposition across desks and in armchairs make for some riveting entertainment. At least for me. I can take and leave much of the action in SF and watch Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes have it out professionally instead.

Moore wrote:

Thought that maybe as I get older and less picky as a Bond fan, I could get into them.

Less picky as you get older? I’m finding the contrary is true.

Trev wrote:

Most recent reread for me was actually reading QUANTUM OF SOLACE aloud to my wife, who found it pretty engaging,

You’ve got a keeper, there.

Older for you is, what, 25?



You're way too young to become a grumpy old man, although I will say that the world could do with more of them.

trevanian wrote:

Quarter-century plus, I'd say you've got it spot on.

I am gretting obsessive about MOONRAKER's adaptability. Am thinking you could do a totally faithful adaptation but expand it slightly to make it fit with Bond film (traditional Bond film, not CraigTown) expectations. Could make the German rocket scientist a woman to fit the bad girl trope. To take it further back to tradition, could also open with Bond spending time w/ one of his married women, intercut with the shooting range stuff. (have been thinking about cutting patterns, detail stuff, like this was a movie I was actually going to get to make.)

All the crap about needing product placement money keeping it contemporary infuriates me, because geez, the KINGSMAN prequels don't seem to be hurting for cash, right?

I would absolutely sign off on a faithful adaption of Moonraker. How is it that probably Fleming's greatest novel has never been faithfully transposed to the silver screen? Where there's a will there's a way, and it needs to happen.

I think the time to have done a proper MR adaptation would've been in the early 60's (i.e. in the first couple of Connery movies). By the time GF and TB hit the screens the scale and tone of the films had grown to something quite grandiose and exotic, so you'd struggle to sell a story set entirely in rainy Old Blighty.

I finally reread Carte Blanche which wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. While it's still a mess and WAY too long it is probably a better book overall than Devil May Care...and better than every film in the Craig era because it at least maintains Bond's spirit AND does a better job at projecting Bond into modern sensibilities while giving him a more obvious greater insight into the women around him.

Then I reread Solo which I remembered as being better. It spends much too long in Africa in the second act with little payoff and then goes back to the UK/US for the final act. The ending is woefully abrupt. However the period flavor of the late 60's and Bond himself comes across more naturally than it does in DMC so I rate it as better.

I think DMC may now take my worst continuation novel award. Sure it's more cohesive than the unfathomable Coldfall but it's also rarely interesting.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

All this talk of Bond in the office being less cinematic but I point to some of the briefing scenes in FRWL/OHMSS/SF whereby much exposition across desks and in armchairs make for some riveting entertainment. At least for me. I can take and leave much of the action in SF and watch Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes have it out professionally instead.

Moore wrote:

Thought that maybe as I get older and less picky as a Bond fan, I could get into them.

Less picky as you get older? I’m finding the contrary is true.

Trev wrote:

Most recent reread for me was actually reading QUANTUM OF SOLACE aloud to my wife, who found it pretty engaging,

You’ve got a keeper, there.

Older for you is, what, 25?



You're way too young to become a grumpy old man, although I will say that the world could do with more of them.

Ha, a little older than that, but I can understand why. Craig’s era brought out the best (or worst?) in me.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

trevanian wrote:

Quarter-century plus, I'd say you've got it spot on.

I am gretting obsessive about MOONRAKER's adaptability. Am thinking you could do a totally faithful adaptation but expand it slightly to make it fit with Bond film (traditional Bond film, not CraigTown) expectations. Could make the German rocket scientist a woman to fit the bad girl trope. To take it further back to tradition, could also open with Bond spending time w/ one of his married women, intercut with the shooting range stuff. (have been thinking about cutting patterns, detail stuff, like this was a movie I was actually going to get to make.)

All the crap about needing product placement money keeping it contemporary infuriates me, because geez, the KINGSMAN prequels don't seem to be hurting for cash, right?

I would absolutely sign off on a faithful adaption of Moonraker. How is it that probably Fleming's greatest novel has never been faithfully transposed to the silver screen? Where there's a will there's a way, and it needs to happen.

During this last reread of it, during the 'you great hairy-faced' part before Drax lays into Bond, I got a very unfortunate mental image of Drax as played by comedian and GONG SHOW regular Rip Taylor.

https://waldinadotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/rip-taylor-1.jpg

Haven't been able to shake that pic from mind since and desperately need to have some other actor in mind to overwrite my psyche before the Taylor visage takes over as a default. Any casting ideas (any era at all will do) for Drax?