Bond’s Literary News

[Tiin007]

@Dustin

At the time I used to be quite enthusiastic about the prospect of rebooted litBond. Fifteen years later I fail to see what this was supposed to accomplish and why it was even attempted in the first place.

I think sometimes when the back catalogue of adventures is so extensive (by 2011, there were 35-ish Bond novels), it can be creatively restricting to pen an entry that is supposed to (at least on a basic level) adhere to the established continuity. Yes, I know, the continuity was anyway quite loose and flexible by this point in time, and yes, Benson himself disregarded a number of things established by Gardner. But there was at least the veneer of a continuous, floating timeline. Beginning afresh could be liberating for new author(s) and could also open up many possibilities creatively, be they new spins on Fleming plot points/ characters or entirely new concepts that would not have gelled with the old timeline.

Relatedly, during the Benson years you could have still viewed Bond as “a relic of the Cold War.” By 2011 the backstory was essentially obsolete anyway, and once the films made the jump to a new continuity, I think it made sense for the novels to do the same.

Personally, I did then and still do continue to see the value in starting fresh. But if IFP are going to do that, then they really need to commit to it, rather than the “play it by ear” / “flavor of the week” approach they had going on until Horowitz settled things somewhat.

[Tiin007]

@dalton

What they should have done is hired a writer that they wanted and let him set up the rebooted world of Bond and then expand it out through at least a couple of more novels before handing the reigns off to someone else, who could then tweak it as needed and have things exist in the same kind of floating timeline that Gardner and Benson were working with when they took over for their respective tenures.

I agree with this 100%.

[Double-OhAgent]

Well, this is unexpected but great news! The cover looks great and the story sounds interesting. I am somewhat cautiously optimistic about the return of Charlie Higson for this adult story and am looking forward to seeing what he does here. He did a great job with the Young Bond series, but his On His Majesty’s Secret Service effort was a bit of a disappointment though it had its moments. Still, Bond is back!!! And that’s always a good thing.

[MaxZorin]

Could the big villain possibly be Blofeld? He wasn’t mentioned as a villain that Bond has faced in the press release.

[Double-OhAgent]

@Tiin007

Just to clarify: if it’s contemporary, does that mean that this is in fact within the same timeline as On His Majesty’s Secret Service?

Bonus question: what about Sherwood’s trilogy? Same continuity, or alternate universe?

And as it mentions Le Chiffre, Dr. No, and Goldfinger, I guess IFP is returning to the same floating timeline idea that was at play during the Gardner and Benson years?

Speaking of Gardner and Benson, I do miss the days before I needed to ask any of the above questions…

Regardless, I’m super excited by this. I’ve only read OHiMSS from Higson, but maybe this is a good motivator to give Young Bond a go before September.

To answer your questions from my perspective:

1. I would imagine that it is in the same timeline as On His Majesty’s Secret Service as Charlie Higson, himself, confirms that it is an adult contemporary (i.e. present time) Bond adventure. As a result, it would make no sense not to be in the same timeline as OHiMSS.

2. The Kim Sherwood trilogy is clearly in her own universe and is NOT part of ANY other authors’ works, timelines, or universes. (And for what it’s worth, I haven’t read Vaseem Khan’s Quantum Of Menace so I don’t know where that series should be placed, though I’m inclined to think it is also outside the regular Bond universe. But as for Raymond Benson’s Felix Leiter novel, The Hook And The Eye is clearly in Ian Fleming’s timeline.)

3. It would appear that IFP is returning to the same floating timeline idea that was at play during the John Gardner and Benson years. (Which I, for one, am in favor of. )

And yes, you should give the Young Bond series a go–both by Higson AND Steve Cole.

[Double-OhAgent]

@Tiin007

@sharpshooter

A series of five or so books could properly realise what Carte Blanche didn’t get the opportunity to.

Carte Blanche really became the biggest missed opportunity of the (literary) franchise and is now such a bizarre outlier. Had IFP realized at the time that the next few installments (Boyd / Horowitz) would stick to the Fleming timeline, I can’t imagine they’d have commissioned a total reboot which went nowhere. At least Sherwood’s efforts and the Q Mysteries are each part of a series, whereas Carte Blanche seems to exist solely in its own Neverland.

(Could the Bond of Carte Blanche technically be the same as that of OHiMSS and the Sherwood trilogy? I guess, but we haven’t gotten any real indication of that to my knowledge, although I haven’t yet read Sherwood.)

I don’t know that Carte Blanche was the biggest missed opportunity of the literary franchise per se, but it certainly turned out to be the most meaningless and wasteful decision to do a modern reboot and then abandon it immediately. The biggest part I didn’t like about it was the “mystery” surrounding James Bond’s parents’ deaths. It just seemed like stereotypical background mystery story stuff that goes on regularly this century. Other than that, the rest of the novel was solid, if unspectacular.

Carte Blanche could have easily been continued as a rebooted series, but when it didn’t happen, it was left in “What was the point?” territory, and, as a result, would have been better off as a regular continuation novel. Officially, I know it is a modern reboot and its own series/timeline, but I kind of prefer to look at it now as more of a regular continuation novel and just ignore the reboot/new beginnings stuff to keep it with the rest of the series instead of leaving it as a sort of red-headed stepchild.

[Dustin]

I suspect Carte Blanche’s initial idea, on the publisher’s side at least, has been a similar move to repeated shifts of Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan/Executioner series of pulp/airport adventures. Had the book sold accordingly I don’t think the Deaver continuity would have been discarded so quickly. But you need a certain amount of market impact to go on and hire the next author for such a series - and the ones like Boyd, Horowitz and Higson wouldn’t have been available.

[Double-OhAgent]

@MaxZorin

Could the big villain possibly be Blofeld? He wasn’t mentioned as a villain that Bond has faced in the press release.

I seriously doubt that the big villain is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. For one, James Bond killed him in You Only Live Twice (and despite the limited information we’ve gotten so far, I get the sense that we are doing the John Gardner/Raymond Benson floating timelines thing that makes the main literary series all connected–which again I am in favor of–and which would then, obviously, rule out Blofeld as the villain). For two, the film series used Blofeld recently–and not very successfully–so he seems like he is a bit overused and not that exciting (or original) at the moment.

I think this is an entirely new villain that Charlie Higson has made up, and I, for one, hope so. As great a villain as Blofeld was with Ian Fleming, he’s dead now. Bond got his revenge. We’ve been there, done that. I hope we have a new villain.

[dalton]

@Double-OhAgent

I think this is an entirely new villain that Charlie Higson has made up, and I for one hope so

I hope so as well. A new villain, especially after how EON limped towards the finish line with two films featuring incredibly weak and rehashed villains, is the only direction that they should be moving in at this point.

[Tiin007]

@dalton

A new villain, especially after how EON limped towards the finish line with two films featuring incredibly weak and rehashed villains, is the only direction that they should be moving in at this point.

I’ll take your thoughts even further (even though I personally love NTTD) – I don’t think EON or IFP should EVER reimagine / resurrect iconic villains from the franchise’s past, even years from now. It feels lazy, derivative, and invariably invites comparisons to the series’ former glories. We should be moving forward rather than constantly looking backwards.

[Matt_13]

Completely agreed. Skyfall hinted at the franchise being on the cusp of a new age of iconography and then it all backslid immediately thereafter. Let’s forge ahead.

[dalton]

Skyfall was the film where they retreated back to the old iconography and ditched the new era that they started with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. They tweaked a lot of the checklist, jettisoned Q and Moneypenny completely out of the equation where they should have remained, and seemingly buried the trust issues by the end of QOS, only for SF to storm in and put all of that stuff back into place, literally destroy M’s office just so that they could bring back the office from the original films, and killed off the old M so that they could put a new M into place with a name that’s quite a bit similar to the original M’s name.

[Matt_13]

One of the challenges that every new Bond writer faces, both literary and cinematic, is how to incorporate the well-worn tropes like the MI6 staff in slightly new ways. CR dropped damn near everything we were used to and it worked spectacularly. QoS has a lot of issues but to its credit and to your point, it traversed the same new terrain CR had started along, albeit losing points for its unexpected brevity and being far too bleak (understandable given its nerve in being a direct sequel, but audiences responded poorly so it is what it is).

Skyfall was an understandable effort to have it both ways, and it’s pretty successful at the task. Something old, something new was Mendes’ stated approach. We can disagree on whether bringing Q and Moneypenny back was entirely necessary (same goes for the old office), but I think those two elements (and especially the performances from their respective actors) were among the films bright spots. “Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that anymore,” is still quite a good line and at the time, a refreshing twist on the Q scene. Even trotting out the DB5 to symbolically destroy it at the end worked, leading us to that glorious shot of Bond standing on the rooftops over London, the loyal sentry reborn and back at his post. The M scene at the end suggested we were off to new horizons with a respect for the past while facing the brave new world in front of us. Spectre, in my eyes, is where everyone got creatively stuck for some reason and fell back on what was comfortable. And the rest, as they say, ends with Bond getting blown up with missiles.

Higson has already proven adept at winking to the past while giving us stuff we’ve never seen before. The Young Bond books and even his novella show that he can hold on to the tropes of the past but as accents, rather than central features, to something we’ve never seen before. And I think that’s the right way to go about it. It’s already on display here. Like Goldfinger, Doctor No, and Colonel Sun, he’s presenting us with a book title that features an evocative villain name we’ve never seen before as its hook. Right on.

[MaxZorin]

Great write up @Matt_13 it is hard to write James Bond because everyone is going to compared to Ian Fleming, novelists, screenwriters and even video game writers know that everyone views James Bond differently. As I’ve said before, there’s still a number of projects that IFP hasn’t told us about. As I have to remind myself, the creative process takes time.

Also, has anyone read that the book is 400 pages long? If true, this is one of the longest books in the series.

[Dustin]

I wouldn’t put too much thought on those 400 pages, that may be just one of Amazon‘s default settings for not yet released books. At one time Solo was expected to come in significantly longer than the finished version that was published. We‘ll likely only get the actual page count with the first review copies.

[CasinoKiller]

Well…this is some awesome news

Between this and Hurricane Room, litBond fans are gonna eat excellently this year

I haven’t read any of the Young Bond books. Would you’ll recommend I check those out, just to familiarize myself with Higson’s writing, even though they’re meant for kids/younger readers and are set in a different continuity? Or should I go into King Zero blind? (I’ll definitely try to get hold of a copy of On His Majesty’s Secret Service of course…)

@Tiin007

(Could the Bond of Carte Blanche technically be the same as that of OHiMSS and the Sherwood trilogy? I guess, but we haven’t gotten any real indication of that to my knowledge, although I haven’t yet read Sherwood.)

In the loosest possible sense…maybe?

I mean, that was a Millennial Bond born in the 1980’s who became 007 in the late 00’s/early ‘10’s. Assuming King Zero has a veteran Bond who’s fought all the iconic villains already, it makes sense for him to be in line with the above timeline. Ditto with Sherwood’s Bond as well.

Though I seriously doubt if Higson is going to follow on from the world-building/structure of MI6 that Deaver or Sherwood established. Like, I don’t think Bond is going to be part of an “Overseas Development Group”, or report to Moneypenny, who’s the chief of the 00 Section!

@Tiin007

Relatedly, during the Benson years you could have still viewed Bond as “a relic of the Cold War.” By 2011 the backstory was essentially obsolete anyway, and once the films made the jump to a new continuity, I think it made sense for the novels to do the same.

I haven’t read the Benson novels yet, sadly, but my understanding is that they’re a “soft reboot” for the books, kinda like how the Brosnan films were a “soft reboot” for the films. Bond is still a Cold War veteran and all the previous books/films still happened (albeit in the 80’s, rather than the 50’s-70’s). But he’s now in a bold new era with a bold new M.

@Tiin007

I’ll take your thoughts even further (even though I personally love NTTD) – I don’t think EON or IFP should EVER reimagine / resurrect iconic villains from the franchise’s past, even years from now. It feels lazy, derivative, and invariably invites comparisons to the series’ former glories. We should be moving forward rather than constantly looking backwards.

Agreed.

Bond, as a franchise, is structurally not about recurring villains as it is. It’s not Batman and Blofeld isn’t the Joker. Yes, Blofeld is an exception in that he’s been the main villain more than once, but he’s the exception that proves the rule, really, and even he has (or ought to have) a definitive end to his story.

[Matt_13]

Young Bond is definitely worth it. Despite being targeted at younger readers, Higson doesn’t talk down to his audience. Romantic entanglements are largely avoided given the ages of all involved, allowing for these to be straight up adventure novels that largely focus on Bond’s unfortunate magnetism to danger. They’re a lot of fun and very well written. Again, they’re broadly geared toward a younger audience but they touch on some mature themes and feature surprisingly graphic violence that’s conveyed with a refreshingly pulpy frankness. As I’ve mentioned, I’m nearly done rereading them myself (I was forty pages into book four when the news about King Zero dropped!) having picked them up assuming Hurricane Room was going to be it for this year. Do as you will, but you may want to wait until we’re in a bit of a lull before cracking them open. Never a bad idea to have something fun waiting in the wings for when things get too quiet!

[sharpshooter]

@Matt_13

Young Bond is definitely worth it. Despite being targeted at younger readers, Higson doesn’t talk down to his audience. Romantic entanglements are largely avoided given the ages of all involved, allowing for these to be straight up adventure novels that largely focus on Bond’s unfortunate magnetism to danger.

What I like, especially with Blood Fever and the Danger Society, is the thrill of sneaking around in a school environment and avoiding detection. It’s age appropriate for Higson’s books but also manages to capture the espionage/risk taking of Bond’s character.

[CasinoKiller]

Oh I’ve got plenty of Bond stuff I haven’t read, fortunately or unfortunately Half of Gardner’s run, all of Benson’s, and Colonel Sun!

Haven’t even read the new Q mystery novel yet…

[sharpshooter]

Let it be known there’s actually a lot of worthy Bond content to be enjoyed that isn’t Fleming. Colonel Sun is often called the best continuation novel and I think that historical reputation still has merit. I really like it, and personally have no problem adding it to the end of the Fleming run. So I definitely recommend that one.

I also rank The Authorised Biography of 007 highly. I don’t consider it canon but I don’t think that matters. It’s a solid read and an interesting concept unlike any of the other books. Horowitz didn’t put a foot wrong with his three - my only complaint is wanting With A Mind To Kill to be longer.