Liked it well enough. My favorite bit was that great chapter involving Bond and Sixteen having dinner at her place. That was all very good. Everything else was perfectly enjoyable if a bit bland. The ending was…interesting to say the least. Seemed a bit much but who am I to judge anyway? I wouldn’t mind if Horowitz cranked out one more.
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Agreed. He’s done the beginning (FAAD) and something near the middle (Trigger Mortis). Therefore I’d like a book near the end. I’d choose after Thunderball and before OHMSS.
That section was particularly well done. It had a great atmosphere, especially knowing it was the first and last proper meeting between the two before they both rushed towards the book’s conclusion.
That’s the night Bond would remember the most.
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There’s practically another cold war with Russia now isn’t there? Wait a bit longer and you can slot Fleming’s Bond right into modern day complete with Smersh and Russia as the bad guys.
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My copy has downloaded into my Kindle!!! Can’t wait to read it!
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Same for me! Starting tonight!
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Started this book last night and it already has a much better grounding in the Bond universe of Fleming than Trigger Mortis. Glidrose has found their best modern continuation author. Now if we the readers were only there to embrace it more and increase sales so we keep getting more.
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Glad you agree.
One of Horowitz’ greatest abilities is how he ends each chapter, making you want to read on.
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I don’t want Horowitz to continue. I recently caved in and bought Forever, and while Im enjoying it. Im just not a fan of his attitude towards Bond as a whole. I found Horowitz arrogant. After his comments about Skyfall and him saying more or less ‘it’s about time’ with him being asked by IFP to write, I completely skipped trigger mortis.
It’s only because of the prequel that I’ve picked up a Bond novel in…five/six years because Horowitrz and Boyd have been garbage in their attitudes regarding the properity.
But IF Horowitz has to carry on, them please make it a modern Bond. Its way more than time.
Tbh, I wouldn’t take too much notice of Bond book writers (both comic and prose) trotting out criticism of film Bond as they ALL do it in early interviews, which makes me think it’s an IFP thing. If you read a Horrowitz actual words (his twitter account, his two Bond novels) his love for a Bond in all its mediums shined through (he got all fan boy going to FRWL locations on a trip to Istanbul with Charlie Hinson and, in his FAAD afterword, he mentions how the Bond films got him through difficult stages of his life)
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I was more curious about the standard of Your writing than in trying to create any suitable riposte.
Suffice to say, Yawn.
No need to be snarky ‘Simon’ because I don’t like the author’s attitude. You don’t seem like a lit critic either so please go back to your lowly rock as well.
I personally don’t care about someone’s perceived tone if they’re bringing home the bacon.
Gently, my lovely.
I find that to be a red flag. That just tells me that even if the ‘author’ is an arrogant ass you’ll keep reading as long as he writes good material. I guess that’s fine. In a way it’s like Superman fans who keep saying that the new Death of Superman animated movies are ‘new and original’ when it’s been done twice before.
It’s not like we can hold Horowitz accountable anyway. Let him keep churning out book after book after book. William Boyd had a much more of a chip on his shoulder and his contribution was an absolute, stellar masterpiece wasn’t it?
I guess nothing to see here.
Awww c‘mon, 008. It’s not as if being the current continuation author is an easy task. Not with us fans and not with the general reading public. They are always measured against conflicting demands and they will always fall short of some expectations.
Just look at what we‘ve been served over the decades, a body of work so varying in quality and tone that it’s a mystery these things are still produced. I was one of those calling for William Boyd to have a go for years. And I‘m the first to admit Solo‘s been truly underwhelming and a missed opportunity.
However, in Horowitz‘ case we know for a fact he was such a great Bond fan that his Young Adult series was a reiteration of Fleming‘s classics and the way they morphed during their adaptations and since. I think the least we can agree on is that Horowitz worked with his heart on his take at the ‘genuine’ Bond novels.
These days I’m no longer searching for more of the same, just with different words on the cover, so after being disappointed by Trigger Morris I didn’t bother to pick up Horowitz’ second one. But I think if fans are happy with it - and evidently many are - then the thing achieved what it was meant to achieve.
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Proofreading errors, lots of 'em, in the UK edition…
Chapter 14: “…who had been prosecuted for treason fourteen months after the end of the trial.” Horowitz probably meant “…end of the war.”
Chapter 18: Irwin Wolfe says, “I actually knew President Woodrow Wilson when he brought in the Neutrality Acts back in the thirties and they were meant to keep us out of exactly this sort of situation.” Beg pardon? Congress passed the Acts during the 1930s (1935, 1936, 1937, 1939), but Wilson had no say in the matter. He died in 1924.
Chapter 3: Bond says “I had an aunt who used to take me to a village by that name. Ponsonby in Cumbria.” At this time the village of Ponsonby was part of Cumberland, not Cumbria. The realignment occurred in 1974, per the Local Government Act 1972.
Chapter 18: “Now that they were at sea, there was something eerie about the cruise liner; a sense of the Marie Celeste.” Horowitz likely meant the Mary Celeste , the name of an American merchant brigantine that was found mysteriously adrift and abandoned off the coast of the Azores in 1872. The fictional Marie Celeste appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1884 short story, J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement .
Author, illustrator, editor (and ex-Royal Navy!) Rik Morton notes several errors at http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2018/07/book-review-forever-and-day.html
Repetition. On page 33 we’re told ‘Bill Tanner, M’s chief of staff and a man Bond knew well.’
Then on p35 we read: ‘The two men knew each other well.’ The editor should have spotted this, and a few other minor points below…
Clumsy wording: ‘Bond was holding the envelope that he had found in his right hand.’ (p49) At the bottom of p48 we know Bond is holding an envelope which he’d just found. Had he just found it in his right hand?
‘Then he slumped to the ground.’ (p49) This is in an apartment, so it should be ‘floor’ not ‘ground’.
‘… punctuated by a slither of silver moonlight.’ (p144) I’d reckon that should be ‘sliver’.
Consistency. At one point we have eyeglasses (p103), and at another spectacles (p54).
‘His ankles were also secured to the legs of the solid wooden chair…’ And yet further down the same page, ‘Bond hadn’t moved or opened his eyes. (p100) But he knows it’s a solid wooden chair…? Okay, just maybe…
As Bond is ex-Royal Navy, and it’s mostly his point of view, when he’s aboard Wolfe’s luxurious vessel, he wouldn’t note ‘submarine-style hatches’ but simply hatches. (p140). Again, ‘the letter R was printed on the wall one floor down.’ (243) But these are bulkheads and decks, even if in a luxury ship!
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Diligently noted. And I agree - that’s a sign of a bad or rushed editor who should have noticed all that.
I did not notice all those things, I must admit. Tells you a lot about readers today 
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It’s just a sign of the times. Today, an editor accompanies 30 books or more from outline to the finished product. Many many of those are utterly, spectacularly unfit for release. Anything that ends up on a screen and doesn’t show vast areas of red lines underneath the text is already considered a good deal nearer to publishing. Horowitz is a pro, he can write and his work has consistently shown itself as not merely readable but entertaining.
In that class his manuscript will only get the briefest once-over. If he doesn’t spot the bad parts himself - and as a writer you tend not to - then the thing is just released as is. Then there’s a set release date, other jobs he’s had on his plate and before you know it the thing is in print.
The sad thing about all this is not whether Horowitz’ Bond efforts are the worse for it, to the contrary. It’s that they could have been easily better with just some help from outside. And that’s by no means Horowitz’ fault.
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Not just our time.
This 1631 edition of the King James Bible included an accidental new twist on the 7th Commandment, informing readers that “Thou shalt commit adultery.” This managed to incense both King Charles I and the Archbishop of Canterbury—its publishers were hauled into court and fined £300 (a little over $57,000 in today’s U.S. dollars) for the oversight and they had their printing license revoked. Most of the copies were subsequently burned, and the book picked up the sobriquet “The Wicked Bible” or “The Sinners’ Bible.” Only about 10 copies remain today—one was put up for sale by British auction house Bonhams just last year.
In 2010, Penguin Group Australia had to ditch about 7000 copies of The Pasta Bible when it was discovered that a recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto told cooks to “add salt and freshly ground black people,” rather than pepper. The gaffe was blamed on a spellcheck error and the company’s head of publishing brushed it off as “a silly mistake,” but it ended up costing the company a not-silly 20,000 Australian dollars (about $14,900 USD in 2016).
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What a strange thing to do. So you read and enjoy a book rather than mark it like a school essay then fixate…weird…
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