Who do you want IFP to pick as the next Bond author?

With the fan response to DEVIL MAY CARE and CARTE BLANCHE, mixed at best, a lot of us are a good deal less enthusiastic about the next release. I haven't read Deaver's novel yet, but everything I've heard is putting me off. Whereas at least Faulks made some attempt to inject his book some personality and Fleming's benign bizarre, Deaver's given us a pussified, lukewarm, North London, tofu eating, Guardian reading, 007. If Fleming called Bond a cypher, then this bloke's a Madame Tussauds waxwork. Apparently, that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Anyway, who do you want see write the next novel? My vote's with Jeremy Duns. FREE AGENT was a terrific read.

Martin Amis would be my unrealistic choice, but since he stated one would have to be mentally defective before considering writing for 007, on a BBC radio program with Charlie Higson, I'd doubt that would ever happen.

Lee Child would be excellent I think

Ian Rankin would be my pick. There's something to Rebus that reminds of Bond's cynism and weariness.

"Rebus wished the young couple well. They had made a commitment to living together. They had bought a house together and set up home. They seemed content. Yes, he wished them well with all his heart.

But his brain gave them two or three years at most."

Also Rankin is well versed in using absurd and bizarre elements. A female killer isn't really a woman, a guy is tortured in a medieval cellar, another murder seems to have a ritual background and so on. Rankin could fit the Bond mould. But I think he's not that well known in the USA.

Sharky wrote:

Deaver's given us a pussified, lukewarm, North London, tofu eating, Guardian reading, 007. If Fleming called Bond a cypher, then this bloke's a Madame Tussauds waxwork. Apparently, that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Yes. Weird. It's not Bond. Decent adventure but not Bond.

Agreed on Jeremy Duns although I'm not sure he's selling? A shame if he isn't - FA was exciting stuff, great twists.

RobDudley wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Deaver's given us a pussified, lukewarm, North London, tofu eating, Guardian reading, 007. If Fleming called Bond a cypher, then this bloke's a Madame Tussauds waxwork. Apparently, that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Yes. Weird. It's not Bond. Decent adventure but not Bond.

It takes a writer with a certain sensibility and take on the character, to pen a decent Bond continuation novel. Kingsley Amis had it, as did Christopher Wood (though strangely it never showed much in his two scripts). But everyone else? Meh.

RobDudley wrote:

Agreed on Jeremy Duns although I'm not sure he's selling? A shame if he isn't - FA was exciting stuff, great twists.

Agreed. FA was a rare breed of spy fiction in today's industry. Even on that alone, I put Jeremy Duns above Lee Child without a second thought. Very cleverly constructed, and harkens at times back to Deighton, Le Carré, and Greene. I haven't got round the sequel yet, but I bid Jeremy good luck with whatever stage he's at on FREE WORLD.

Kennon wrote:

Ian Rankin would be my pick. There's something to Rebus that reminds of Bond's cynism and weariness.

"Rebus wished the young couple well. They had made a commitment to living together. They had bought a house together and set up home. They seemed content. Yes, he wished them well with all his heart.

But his brain gave them two or three years at most."

Also Rankin is well versed in using absurd and bizarre elements. A female killer isn't really a woman, a guy is tortured in a medieval cellar, another murder seems to have a ritual background and so on. Rankin could fit the Bond mould. But I think he's not that well known in the USA.

Sounds promising. I'll give REBUS a go.

Charlie Higson or Jeremy Duns.

I've read a lot of REBUS and I've really enjoyed it. I think Rankin would be a fine choice.

On the other hand Martin Amis would be a rotten choice. His politics are so far away from Bond's or Fleming's and his authorial devices so removed from the standard style of the novels that if he agreed it would only be so he could skewer the whole series with a carboard satire so mean-spirited it would make Faulks' efforts seem genuine. But I can see why Sharky would like him.

The continuation books need shaking up, and Amis would be just the guy to do that. I would pay for it, even if it meant no more Bond novels. Better to have one flawed, but highly ambitious po-mo spin on Bond, than a series of poxy, half-arsed efforts.

Charlie Higson would be my first choice based on his Young-Bond work, but Duns is certainly a good choice as well based on his Bond blogging.

I've haven't read any of his fiction but if you guys are recommending, I'll put in an order to Amazon.

Yes, Free Agent was a great little read. I recommend.

I just imagine that in a Martin Amis Bond novel there would be a scene where Martin Amis emerges from behind a curtain and berates Bond for being a dog of the old world imperialist state or somesuch.

I don't know what you're on about, Sykes. Amis ain't exactly your bien pensant Grauniad type. His views have been very controversial over here, and was given the title "Blitcon" (British literary neoconservative) by the New Statesman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7066573/Martin-Amis-calls-for-euthanasia-booths-to-deal-with-silver-tsunami.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1223636/Shes-just-bags-silicone--Martin-Amis-attacks-fellow-author-Katie-Price.html
http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/2006/09/17/the-voice-of-experience/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/18/martin-amis-england-moral-decrepitude
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/23/ian-jack-martin-amis-john-osborne-england
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/11/martin-amis-brain-injury-write-children

Methinks you need to read more Martin Amis.

If nothing else, Amis would bring a much needed edge back to Bond literature, as opposed to giving us some glorified international social worker.

Granted, but sometimes it seems to me like his main agenda is simply to be critical of whatever his topic is, so if he were to write Bond, I suspect it would be to find some fault in the worldview of the generation of which Fleming and his father belonged.

Knowing Amis, he'd probably find both fault and praise in that generation. I can't imagine him using Bond as a framework to write some hateful tome on his dad and Fleming, He'd present both sides of the argument, or more likely, write about an aging 007. Viagra, Bibi Dahls and all.

Now that, might actually be interesting. Looking at Bond in a modern setting but within the context of that generation.

Of course that would make him like 80-something now.

Sean's 81, and Roger's 83. It could work pretty well.

At least it's an idea for the fan fiction writers out there.

Nooooooooo! If I want to hear about old people I'll visit my parents. Bond is young and virile.

Nah. I want to see something different. Octogenarian Bond sounds right.

I've just finished FREE COUNTRY, a fun rollercoaster. Yep, Duns would be fine, too.

Charles Cumming would be my pick. Rankin's also good but a bit too much into crime. Both are introspective, but Cumming is closer to the spy genre.

I liked CARTE BLANCHE. Maybe I'm not sophisticated enough to know that I shouldn't like it, but I thought it was a very good first-start and gave the book series a highly needed injection of adrenaline. I'd like to see Deaver come back with a few more books and see what he could do if given the chance to really get into it and let loose.

The idea of Deaver or Forster being "let loose on Bond" gives me the shivers.

Sharky wrote:

Nah. I want to see something different. Octogenarian Bond sounds right.

If done well, I could dig it.

David Stone, the author of The Echelon Vendetta and three other very tough thrillers. There's absolutely nothing pussified or tofu-consuming about his work.

Barry Eisler would be another one, has written some great thrillers. He's also a bestseller in the States, makes him a good call for the gig. What I've read from Eisler was ten times more captivating than that Deaver book.