As do I. They can sometimes add things to the film as they are often based on previous drafts. Case in point: James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me. I’m currently reading The World Is Not Enough novelization. It doesn’t deviate much, but there are some interesting things that are different from the film, such as a Bond and Elektra playing blackjack before meeting Zukovsky and more about Elektra’s mother.
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That’s very kind of you. It’s quite old and I like to think I’m better at writing these days, if only slightly, but here it is:
I wrote another article for them that I now regret, about wanting to make Bond 23 - what became Skyfall - the last film. This was when the MGM bankruptcy had threatened to end the franchise and I was considering the merits of Eon ending it on their own terms. I wanted history to remember Bond going out with a bang, and not risk it going with interminable legal issues. I’ve since realized that you can’t live life in fear of what might happen and that you have to carry on regardless.
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What did you think of the Christopher Woods ones? I’ve got Spy, but haven’t got round to it yet (I wonder why they haven’t been republished?). I did read his memoir on Bond, though, which I liked.
From what I recall of the TWINE book, Benson repeats the wording of M’s orders twice in a single page, but to be fair to the guy these things have to be written in haste.
I never fully understood the whole business at the beginning with Sir Robert King and the stolen dossier, so perhaps you can say if I’m right or not: Sir Robert King bought a black-market dossier on the dangers of running an oil pipeline in the Caucasus region. A 00 agent was killed for it. On reading it, however, King is dissatisfied and wants a refund. This, for some reason, is carried out by bankers in Bilbao, and his friend M gets Bond to retrieve it. The sum they give him is the precise figure of Electra’s ransom which King had rather recklessly refused to pay. The money was laced with an explosive of some description, which kills him. Electra’s behind it, along with her former captor and current lover Renard. Fittingly, I understand, Electra is a symbol of revenge in Greek mythology. Am I close, or a whole Thames boat chase away from it?
You’re pretty close. It is rather confusing and odd. The agent that is killed is 0012 and King’s lapel no longer sets off the bomb, but rather it’s the cigar girl activating the lapel that turns it into the trigger. Bond opens up far more to Elektra as well. I’m only about halfway through. I’ve never been a huge fan of Benson’s writing style and I do understand the difficulty with creating a novelization with a strict deadline.
To answer your other question, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me is not just the best novelization, but is one of the best Bond continuation novels overall. Christopher Wood does a great job in capturing the feel of a Fleming novel and the story is significantly different enough from the film to almost exist as it’s own story. James Bond and Moonraker is also a fun read, but much more closely follows the film. From what I remember there are 2 big differences in the story in that Corinne Dufour is an entirely different character and doesn’t meet the same gruesome end and James Bond takes a space walk that is very tense, but does not appear in the movie. I would highly recommend reading both of them if you can.
As for why they haven’t been republished, I don’t believe IFP has the publishing rights, but I could be wrong on that. On their website, the only continuation novels they list are Licence to Kill and GoldenEye. Which is odd as I know they have the publishing rights to TND, TWINE, and DAD.
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All very interesting. I wonder what was wrong with the dossier to make Robert King demand a refund? It’s an interesting set-up, but a bit ropey, for me at least.
Wood says in his memoir that he was hoping that IFP would hire him instead of going to Gardner. I suspect IFP didn’t ask him because of the connection his previous Bond books had to the films.
I say that because of a vague suspicion that Eon and IFP (or Glidrose) didn’t like each other. Michael G. Wilson made a couple of somewhat barbed comments concerning one of Gardner’s books (presumably For Special Services) and how they would never film them. I also read that Saltzman had banned Colonel Sun from being filmed as IFP hadn’t published Per Fine Ounce by author Geoffrey Jenkins (a friend of his).
From IFP’s perspective, it must be rather annoying when your relative created this character for a series of novels and yet most people just know of the films. They may also have looked askance at the frivolous nature of the Roger era. (Fleming himself was ribbed something rotten by friends and family who thought very little of his writing and the thriller genre in general).
And the IFP hire did the film novelisations for all Brosnan’s films for the lols?
The official website for the films also sell IFP owned material including this;
Which is IFP owned from pitch to publishing.
EoN might be keeping to their dads notice of only using Flemings books (mostly, as Die Another has intentional Col. Sun references) but both EON and IFP know how mutually beneficial having a friendly relationship is.
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Great read! Fascinating stuff and well written.
Interesting how the novelisation trade has moved away from movies towards telly. Any more thoughts on that now with hindsight?
The first kindle came out around 2007, which must’ve been a kick in teeth for those buying these books for their collections.
Add to that twitter exacerbating adhd and you can see why hard copy struggles. I believe recently there’s been a slight upsurge in hard copy demand, but not to the dizzy heights it had once been.
Here’s an irony: this Hicks video says it better…
On the other hand: last week I found lots of reissued novelizations from classic 80‘s movies available for kindle.
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That’s great for the content lovers. Not so much for the merchandise souvenir hunters, which I’d wager were a hefty part of the sales.
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At least for the German kindle I found these:
- Battlestar Galactica
- Buck Rogers
- The Thing
- Outland
- Clash of the Titans
- The Black Hole
- Escape from New York
And those are only the ones I had found with a quick search.
Kind of annoying only that I owned all of these when I was a young teenager - and then I threw them out when I got older and thought I would not read such drivel anymore. Hah! Pretentious young adult me.
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You’re very kind.
The death of the novelization (though a pulse is sometimes found), is a strange one. DVD might be to blame - but why wasn’t the same true for video? Video was just as big in the '90s, yet so were the novelizations of those same films. Notably, I think, the ones you find now tend to be based on sci-fi or superhero films, which suggests fans of those properties, who are typically enthusiastic and inquisitive about the “world” in which they are set, are more likely to delve deeper into the stories by reading the book. Conversely, fans of, say, Fast and the Furious are less likely to do that, while such kinetic action scenes wouldn’t be as satisfying when rendered in prose.
As for TV tie-ins, that too is a curio. You would think, with twenty four episodes a year, fans of these shows would have their fill just by watching it (not knocking such fans at all - I’m one of them!). Most tie-ins are based on detective shows like Murder, She Wrote and Monk, and that genre lends itself to the novel anyway as that’s where it started out (a House novel, by contrast, would be very difficult to pitch, though I’ll admit this doesn’t explain why 24 and Burn Notice got books too). I’d imagine most publishers prefer tie-ins with original stories as they are offering something new and therefore more tantalizing to the consumer.
Funnily enough, these things have been around at least since the '60s, with Man from U.N.C.L.E. (even Girl from U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers, and even The Monkees getting original novels (which meant, of course, they couldn’t play their own instruments here either, because books don’t have sound!).
Anyway, please forgive my rambling 
P.S.
That’s a funny Bill Hicks routine. Haven’t seen much of him before. Recall reading how his work was ripped off by Denis Leary (so amazing, honestly, in Thomas Crown Affair, that I checked out more of his films on the back of it), who used stand-up as a way of getting into acting).
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Strangely, of all mediums, video game novelizations are now a thing. That’s not to say they are particularly great. I read a Tomb Raider tie in novel that was very poorly written. Raymond Benson has been prolific in writing video game novels. His 2 Splinter Cell books are actually pretty good. Though I haven’t read it, his adaptation of Metal Gear Solid is apparently very Bondian, but because of that (from the general consensus I’ve gotten from reading both critical and user reviews) it pretty much ruins the story. Also, Hideo Kojima apparently hated it.
You have to watch more Bill Hicks, he was a comedy god, a profit genius!
As for Leary, if you haven’t seen it check out Judgement Night 1993…
It’s a great cult movie. Makes a superb double feature with Trespass 1992 by the truly great Walter Hill and scored by Ry Cooder (who also collaborated on Southern Comfort, an all time fave of mine)
Great, thanks! I’m literally always on the look out for new thrillers. I’ve bookmarked the films’ Wiki pages so I’ll remember.
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For all the talk of the comedian Bill Hicks, it made me think of Bill Hickman, Hollywood stunt driver and Steve McQueen buddy. So here’s a playlist of films I own that all feature Bill Hick…man.
Bullitt (Bill Hickman drove the Charger)
The French Connection (Bill Hickman did a lot of the driving in the car-subway train chase and played the federal agent that Popeye Doyle tussles with)
The Seven-Ups (so so cop movie but a terrific car chase).
Way off-topic I know, but I’m quarantined and bored…
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I think you actually got things back on topic 
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Very much the point of the topic.
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On that note , because of Jimmy Cagney collection and the Burt Reynolds stash I have quite a lot of Pat O’Brien performances in my collection. @Orion this is a great lockdown pastime, I thank you.
The End
Angels With Dirty Faces
The fighting 69th
Some Like It Hot
The Irish In Us
Boy Meets Girl
The Last Hurrah
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Just a little bit of Cagney for you all.
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