Ouch! Hey, I haven’t resigned, gone “off the reservation”, been killed or fired by the Admiral…Yet. And Jim’s regular attempts to give me an amusing death keep me on my toes.
Coming up on 20 years service to CBn and another 20+ before that. Admiral has the final say. 
75 is the new 45 - plenty of service still ahead of you!
Only 54 as of November, but when I turned 50, I was told it was the “new 30”.
I certainly felt like double 30.
I’m 46,so not sure what that makes me!
From my experience, it’s not. It’s more like a “second-hand 30”.
Now that we have a few more plot details, I wonder what the thread will be that connects the books of the trilogy.
This Paradise fellow doesn’t strike me as a three-book-villain kind of guy. Maybe there’s a larger menace behind him?
More likely, I think it will be the mystery of Bond’s whereabouts that is the unifying element.
I think Blofeld or a familiar villain will be behind it all.
I like that idea a lot. Perhaps Bond is locked up somewhere he simply cannot escape, and that rescue happens towards the end of the last book by the team that’s established in the first two stories.
All of this strikes me as an interesting time for the Bond character. He’s killed off on the big screen. He’s incapacitated or missing, or something, on the page. Granted, we have the next Horrowitz book coming out, but still, strange times for the Bond character.
Having the main character ‘disappear’, or be missing or otherwise ‘unavailable’ is actually pretty par for the course when it comes to spin-offs.
The fourth Jason Bourne movie, The Bourne Legacy, and the Treadstone TV show both focused on other agents while Jason Bourne’s whereabouts were unknown.
And from the Birds of Prey movie, to the Batwoman TV show, and more, there’s a precedent for Batman being missing in order for some other hero or heroes to take over as Gotham City’s protector.
The new Star Wars started with Luke Skywalker being missing so that the new heroes, particularly Rey, could take centre stage as the Jedi of the new era.
So it seems the same mantra is being applied to James Bond. 007 himself needs to be ‘missing’ in order for other 00’s to get focus…
The only question, which affects all these spin-offs, is how long can you go before you need to definitively address the fate of the original character and/or consider actually having them appear. Because there’s only so long that the other characters can talk about Bond, or get hints of his whereabouts, or tease his fate, before readers expect some concrete answers.
I suppose this being a trilogy possibly helps, since it implies that Sherwood has a plan in place - a three-book arc that will culminate in some answers to the mystery of Bond’s disappearance, as opposed to just dragging it on to have an excuse to keep mentioning 007.
Absolutely. It’s just interesting that it’s happening now when it happens to coincide with the big screen iteration of the character being dead. Nothing wrong with it necessarily, just an interesting time for the character, especially with Amazon poised to take over MGM. It will be very interesting to see where the Bond character goes, both on the big screen as well as the page, once Amazon officially acquires MGM and Horrowitz is done with his run at the helm of the literary franchise.
It’s interesting that people see Bond as being largely absent from the novel. I interpreted it as, yes Bond is missing in action, but we, as readers would still be privy to Bonds inner monologue, without being given many or any details as to where he is, perhaps he doesn’t even know, while the other double O agents search for him.
It’s interesting that people see Bond as being largely absent from the novel. I interpreted it as, yes Bond is missing in action, but we, as readers would still be privy to Bonds inner monologue, without being given many or any details as to where he is, perhaps he doesn’t even know, while the other double O agents search for him.
That’d be interesting.
I guess we’re just used to the idea of such spin-offs having the original character absent, and only alluded to, as in the examples I’d provided earlier.
To a certain extent, having the original character absent is an understandable choice. I mean, would we really want to spent too much time with the likes of 009 if Bond himself is in the book? I guess we would if the character of 009 is compelling enough, but usually the screenwriters/authors don’t have that level of faith in their new character.
I’ve talking to Kim Sherwood on Twitter, she said that From A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights are two of her favorite short stories. I noticed she went quiet when I asked her if any classic characters are coming back. She also never answered me if the trilogy that she’s writing is all connected. She’s hiding something from us… 
I wish the best on her recovery. It’s nice to see her being a true fan, as the last couple of writers seem like it’s just a job to them.
Really?
Anthony Horowitz seems also to be quite prolific in his online teasing and the like, no?
I’m sorry, I was too tired to include him. I like his work as well.
I take it you mean Sebastian Faulks and William Boyd?
Yes, but even Boyd said he was a Bond fan. It just doesn’t show in Solo.