Trigger Mortis (2015) - Anthony Horowitz's New James Bond Novel

http://www.thebookbond.com/2015/05/the-new-bond-is-trigger-mortis.html

What do we think of the title, revealed today?

"Pun".

Bit naff.

When I saw the thread title on the forum's homepage, I assumed it was someone's fanfic.

Presumably this will be written with Steven Seagal as James Bond in mind.

So it'll be set a two weeks after Goldfinger, the first time a novel is set between Fleming's books. I'm curious about how Pussy Galore will be handled on this. She's really not much of a presence in the novel like she is on the film, so I wouldn't be surprised if the film's interpretation of the character will have more influence than the Harlem based character in the book. My guess is that she'll be part of that first segment in the book that's based on the original Fleming material (the pre-title equivalent?), then the rest of the novel being Horowitz's adventure will move onto new characters and settings.

I'm guessing Bond will be struck with a bout of erectile dysfunction, causing Pussy to return to lesbianism.

Boyd's Solo was set in 1969, and now this is set in '57. Am wondering if the IFF thought that the modern-day setting of Deaver's Carte Blanche ultimately wasn't a great idea.

Quietly looking forward to it. Can't be as bad as Carte Blanche or Devil May Care. Though the title made me think of Joan Sims in Doctor in the House, ol' Rigour Mortis.

Shit title. This isn't a fucking young adult book series. Er, well, maybe it is now.

Could be promising, as it's based on Fleming's material.

I thought it was a Young Bond title when I saw it. It sound like a bad fan fiction title. It sounds interesting enough though, so I'll still give it a shot.

Apparently CASINOROYALE got a job making titles for novels.

I should probably get onto reading these continuation novels…

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Boyd's Solo was set in 1969, and now this is set in '57. Am wondering if the IFF thought that the modern-day setting of Deaver's Carte Blanche ultimately wasn't a great idea.  

SKYFALL is proof enough that a modern-day setting can work. Since DEVIL MAY CARE, it seems that the books have been all over the place because IFF doesn't seem to have an idea of where they want to go. None of the books since 2008 has made much of an impact on literary Bond, so IFF keeps looking for different writers probably to see which one sticks. That's what kind of depresses me a bit about what I've heard of the series in its current state, there doesn't seem to be major confidence in where the books should go. I was actually more supportive of the idea that Deaver went for rebooting the series to freshen it up. I haven't read the book, but I kinda wish they continued that route just to make something of that worthwhile.

Was the Deaver novel so bad that there was no way for the reboot to recover with a better novel, with or without Deaver? I never actually read CARTE BLANCHE, but that sounds pretty damning.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. Deaver turned Bond into a sensitive, Guardian-reading liberal devoid of any charm, personality, or ruthlessness. Given another shot at the gig, Deaver would probably have New Age Bond uploading filtered photos of his soy mocha (#nomoremartinis #sohealthy #mi6lyfe).

CJB wrote:

Presumably this will be written with Steven Seagal as James Bond in mind.

The title does make it sound like the first direct to video Bond film co-starring Wesley Snipes as Felix Leiter and Gary Busey as M.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Boyd's Solo was set in 1969, and now this is set in '57. Am wondering if the IFF thought that the modern-day setting of Deaver's Carte Blanche ultimately wasn't a great idea.  

SKYFALL is proof enough that a modern-day setting can work. Since DEVIL MAY CARE, it seems that the books have been all over the place because IFF doesn't seem to have an idea of where they want to go. None of the books since 2008 has made much of an impact on literary Bond, so IFF keeps looking for different writers probably to see which one sticks. That's what kind of depresses me a bit about what I've heard of the series in its current state, there doesn't seem to be major confidence in where the books should go. I was actually more supportive of the idea that Deaver went for rebooting the series to freshen it up. I haven't read the book, but I kinda wish they continued that route just to make something of that worthwhile.

Was the Deaver novel so bad that there was no way for the reboot to recover with a better novel, with or without Deaver? I never actually read CARTE BLANCHE, but that sounds pretty damning.

Oh, I wasn't slighting modern-day onscreen Bond (my love for Skyfall is documented within threads elsewhere on this board) ... I was referring purely to the fact that Carte Blanche was set nowadays, but both Solo and Trigger Mortis (and indeed Devil May Care) are set either just after or during the timeline of the Fleming novels. Just musing on the fact that 1 out of 4 possibly doesn't suggest that the IFF are THAT keen on a modern-day setting for the continuation novels.

CJB wrote:

Deaver turned Bond into a sensitive, Guardian-reading liberal devoid of any charm, personality, or ruthlessness.

Only half right, I'm afraid. Deaver's Bond didn't have any charm, personality or ruthlessness, but to suggest that he was a "sensitive, Guardian-reading liberal" is patently wrong since that would require crediting Deaver with actual characterisation. Deaver's Bond was only ever successful because every other character was inept or irrational.

Trigger Mortis??? Oh my, let's hope that's not an omen. I think I'll wait for the reviews before I invest into this.

Δ

Largo's Shark wrote:

A glowing review from Simon Schama in The Financial Times. No major spoilers, thankfully.

Quote :

Anthony Horowitz has written a humdinger of a Bond story, so cunningly crafted and thrillingly paced that 007’s creator would have been happy to have owned it. The screenwriter and novelist, a life-long fan, knows that, when he wanted to, Ian Fleming could turn on the literary juice with the best of them. The French beach scene that opens On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a brilliant piece of atmospheric writing, at once innocent and sinister like Fleming’s whole project, and the ending of You Only Live Twice, with its debt to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fable “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, is so unexpectedly off-kilter that, in the film, producers Saltzman and Broccoli had to replace it with the psycho-ferret Donald Pleasence version of Blofeld whizzing through his fake volcano on — the latest thing! — a monorail. But from his brilliant first chapter on, Horowitz is a pitch-perfect mimic of the Fleming one-line punch: “Rain swept into London like an angry bride.” “Silence sat in the room, an uninvited guest.” He even gets the clichés spot on. “Just he and the Maserati, plunging into the green hell.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c22564d0-4a66-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html#axzz3kAzWcKyg

Good ... from the recent continuation novels, I've found Devil May Care reasonably enjoyable (but the 'writing as Ian Fleming' thing was a MAJOR misjudgement), and Carte Blanche and Solo pretty mediocre. This sounds much more like it.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

I've found Devil May Care reasonably enjoyable (but the 'writing as Ian Fleming' thing was a MAJOR misjudgement)

But that's how Sebastian Faulks got the gig. His party trick was to imitate Ian Fleming's writing style at literature festivals. It wasn't necessarily a compliment, but pretty funny.

If one didn't know that before picking up Devil May Care however, wouldn't it be fair to say that having that on the cover sets up unreasonable expectations for the reader?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-3212827/James-Bond-new-book-Trigger-Mortis-written-Anthony-Horowitz-wanted-life.html

Another article on the novel, full of Horowitz blowing his own horn.

Expect another PC Bond novel. Boring.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

If one didn't know that before picking up Devil May Care however, wouldn't it be fair to say that having that on the cover sets up unreasonable expectations for the reader?

That could have been avoided by having Faulks follow Kingsley Amis' example and write as Robert Markham.

Δ

Jigger my nurglers.

You know Horowitz could be a poster here. We'll know when we read the book.

So much misreading about SKYFALL. Why is it hard for some to understand the context of M's death?