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

Wow, he's crabby. Still, interesting to see him not toeing the 'party line' about Skyfall even if I disagree with him.

Quote :

Bond is weak in it. He has doubts. That’s not Bond. 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.'

There goes all my hype for this novel. I really thought that he would catch Fleming's essence, but this quote proves he knows Bond less than any other continuation author.

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The mum and the dad are in there and their faces are missing because the picture has been burned in a fire.

Who's going to tell him he watched the wrong trailer?

I'm wondering if he took the gig because he's more familiar with the films than he is with the source material. The fact that he wanted to set this book after Goldfinger and have Pussy Galore return was always an odd choice, because Pussy Galore isn't really much of a standout in the books as she is in the films. Will she still be the character Fleming wrote or will it be the Honor Blackman variation people are more familiar with? Could go either way.

This part stood out: 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Has he even read a Bond novel?

Makeshift Python wrote:

This part stood out: 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Has he even read a Bond novel?

Good question - the Fleming novels are full of Bond's self-doubts. That's why Skyfall is so vivid to anyone familiar with the books.

Makeshift Python wrote:

This part stood out: 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Has he even read a Bond novel?

Sounds like he's writing a Bond novel for most of the members at Mi6 Community.

Control wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

This part stood out: 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Has he even read a Bond novel?

Sounds like he's writing a Bond novel for most of the members at Mi6 Community.

Full of text speak and a foreward, afterward and interlude by Dragonpol no doubt

Control wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

This part stood out: 'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Has he even read a Bond novel?

Sounds like he's writing a Bond novel for most of the members at Mi6 Community.

I hear CASINOROYALE will do a film adaptation of Trigger Mortis. Horowitz said the film should be a "hair raising" experience.

Guardian's review is in and what a surprise:

Quote :

Fleming was a sadist, a racist and a misogynist, and there is nothing covert about the viciousness that infuses Bond’s world. Women are bitches, anyone non-white and non-anglophone is definitively subhuman, and torture is lingering and explicitly erotic. A modern Bond-chronicler could copy these things and create a distinctively Flemingish fiction, but also one that would repulse all but the most unapologetic Ukipper.

[Horowitz's] Bond has qualms about killing – not the after-the-fact ruefulness on show at the beginning of Goldfinger, but a genuine respect for human life that intercedes in acts of violence. As revolting as Fleming’s hero is, I prefer the Bond who squirts Oddjob out of a plane window like toothpaste to this merciful, interior-monologuing shadow. Horowitz certainly comes closer than most to solving the Bond conundrum, but Trigger Mortis is in many ways inferior to the Alex Riders as Fleming fan service. The insoluble problem with Bond, in the end, is Bond.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/02/trigger-mortis-anthony-horowitz-review-bond

Well Ditum is a feminist who mostly writes for the New Statesman, so the odds of her writing a glowing review for a Bond novel were always remote.

Actually, having read it in its entirety now, she is not all that negative about Fleming's writing:

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Yet even with all his brutishness, Fleming was a gifted and striking prose stylist. Within the first three pages of Casino Royale, you know everything you need to know about Bond and his universe, a headrush-inducing gasp of smoke and sleaze and ambiguity that makes you long for another poisoned drag.

Salomé wrote:

Actually, having read it in its entirety now, she is not all that negative about Fleming's writing:

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Yet even with all his brutishness, Fleming was a gifted and striking prose stylist. Within the first three pages of Casino Royale, you know everything you need to know about Bond and his universe, a headrush-inducing gasp of smoke and sleaze and ambiguity that makes you long for another poisoned drag.

If someone said my writing was poisonous I wouldn't call it a positive review.

As for the oft-repeated notion – particularly in Bond forums, oddly enough – that Fleming was racist and misogynist, it's largely unfounded. If anything his views were enlightened compared to many of his contemporaries even those on the left such as Eric Ambler.  For instance, anyone with a real interest in Fleming knows that Blanche Lindo, his mistress of many years, was a Sephardi Jew and a quick read through the Bond books shows how much Fleming loved Jamaica; even his minor Jamaican characters such as Quarrel and Tiffy are well-drawn and memorable.

Well it is obviously not a positive review, but she seems to have respect for his craft, just not for her perception of his person.

Salomé wrote:

Well it is obviously not a positive review, but she seems to have respect for his craft, just not for her perception of his person.

She doesn't let the facts get in the way of her prejudices. Bond's comradeship and self-identification with Kerim, Draco and Quarrel transcend nationality and race, but then it's clear that many English women find male friendships and loyalty both disturbing and intimidating hence their obsession with criminalising gentlemen's clubs. (There's was a lot of that female resentment on display in the recent Top Gear self-destruction.)

Δ

She's suggesting that Fleming's writing is carcinogenic.

Erica Ambler wrote:

She's suggesting that Fleming's writing is carcinogenic.

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Fleming was a gifted and striking prose stylist.

Somewhat undone by what follows, but this bit is surely a compliment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/trigger-mortis-by-anthony-horowitz-book-review-so-what-became-of-pussy-galore-10463837.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/trigger-mortis-by-anthony-horowitz-and-ian-fleming-review-a2926741.html

Positive reviews from the Indpendent and Evening Standard.

I'm reading Trigger Mortis now, and will comment on Bond's brutishness, bigotry and misogyny later, after I've finished this cracking great read.

(Sarah Ditum is a feminist wring for the New Statesman? How could she? Class traitor!)

Very glad I resisted buying the softback edition of Trigger Mortis for £12 in Waterstones, considering it was £9 for the hardback edition in Tesco.

Hurrah for corporate behemoths!

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Hurrah for corporate behemoths!

The next title?

Hmm ... 'Lacks punch, don't you think?' to quote Carver.

"Hurrah for Corporate Behemoths" as a title, yes.

Trigger Mortis as a Bond novel, no.

That is certainly what the bulk of the reviews have led me to believe.

Probably the highest praise paid to Trigger Mortis is that it's apparently impossible to 'see the join' at the point where Horowitz includes the previously unused Fleming material.

Andrew Lycett in the Times gave it a fairly glowing review along the lines of most I suspect. As he wrote about Fleming I assume he knows a little. How little will be seen when I wait until the book is either in the library (if it's open) or an affordable price.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Hororwitz sounds like he could be a poster here.

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‘Daniel Craig is a terrific Bond. Casino Royale is probably my favourite. Of the films after Connery, it is easily the best. Fantastic. A total return to the gritty seriousness of it.’

However, he is spectacularly rude about the follow-ups.

‘Quantum Of Solace just went wrong. Skyfall is my least favourite. I know it is heresy to say so, but it is the one Bond film I have never liked.’

Why? ‘How much time do you have? Bond is weak in it. He has doubts. That’s not Bond.

‘Secondly, the villain wins. The villain sets out to kill M – the film finishes with the villain killing M. So why have I watched it?

‘And if you have to protect the Head of MI6 from a madman, do you take her to a Scottish farmhouse with no weapons? And tell your bad guy where you are, so he will arrive with six people to kill her? And then M escapes and stands on top of a hill waving a torch to tell them where she is! It’s that sort of thing that made me angry.’

And he is just as unimpressed with the trailer for the new film, Spectre.

‘I’m looking at the trailer and I am seeing a photograph of Bond’s family. The mum and the dad are in there and their faces are missing because the picture has been burned in a fire.

'This is going to be to do with his family background, and I know the fans are all terribly excited to know more, but I’m saying, “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

'I don’t want to know about his doubts, his insecurities or weaknesses. I just want to see him act, kill, win.’

Trigger Mortis is all about the things he ditches. There are references to Bond's childhood and his parents, and he constately has doubts and is not sure about what to do.