Scaramanga already was in the Spang’s gang, chances would have been he might have recognised Bond.
Awesome news. Super excited for a third Horowitz Bond.
Bunt was dealt with in a Benson short story. While Horowitz is presumably not obligated to honor that (indeed, Benson has been open about the fact that IFP allowed him to use or disregard anything from the Gardner years), I’d rather the villain be someone else. I like the Colonel Boris idea.
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I haven’t read Trigger Mortis in a while. I’ll have to remedy that. Good to see the praise Anthony is getting on Twitter, too. I concur with the James Bond Radio guys about Forever and a Day being one of the best novels since Fleming. It really clicked with me.
@Dustin’s idea has real potential. It would present Horowitz with the opportunity to fully flesh out an existing character and mould it to his liking. Such a character would have the benefit of being even more immediate in the timeline in comparison to someone earlier in Bond’s life, such as Bunt.
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I cannot wait for this! Loved his first two books and his two Holmes novels. I got the first few books in the Alex Ryder series for my son and hope to start reading them with him soon. I also purchased his recent mystery novels, but haven’t begun them yet. Even if this pandemic continues and NTTD is bumped further down the line, this new Bond book will arrive on time and put a nice balm on the sore spot created by all this waiting for fresh Bond material.
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The book is starting out in Jamaica, like No Time To Die. Not to dismiss The Man With The Golden Gun too much, given Fleming’s health at the time. But following Dustin’s idea, imagine if we get a version of that book but ‘done right’, as it were. Focusing on the brainwashing, which isn’t really explained, and the continued rehabilitation of Bond in the aftermath. That could be something special.
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That didn’t occur to me when I read that detail, but in hindsight, of course it is, where else would Bond retire to given Fleming’s love for the country.
It’ll be great to have Horowitz bring Jamaica to life in one of his own Bond novels.
Not news, but I like Horowitz respect for Fleming’s writing
Begins in Jamaica, but isn’t set there.
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This is really excellent news. I absolutely flew through Trigger Mortis and Forever And A Day. I hope his third novel is just as enjoyable.
It is exciting that we seem to have another cemented continuation author after the ‘one and done’ authors post Benson.
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To that point, I’d be thrilled if Horowitz continued at a faster pace-- given his rate of output (of his books more generally), he can very well produce a new Bond novel every couple years. I hope he does at least five, but for now I’m thrilled that he’s been able to do three.
Well, Horowitz seems to be the first since 2002 to have been asked - or allowed - back. Cemented though… I’m not sure about that. I suspect Horowitz may be happy having written three Bonds received largely positively by readers. Unless they throw a ton of money at him I expect him to move on after his third. Let’s not forget he has got a number of original works and series to care for.
The pace seems to have been on IFP, but I agree with @Dustin on this, Horowitz currently has 3 ongoing works of his own, he’s likely to be happy with a trilogy of one during, one before and one after.
This is awesome. Horowitz’s novels have been the best continuations since James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me. A new novel continuing from the end of TMWTGG sounds great. I wonder if it will also connect to Colonel Sun at its conclusion?
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I did not hate nor love his contributions. And I don’t think that writing books that fit in the timeline before the first and after the last is really a good idea since that definitely assumes Horowitz’ creation is a decisive part of Fleming‘s Bond.
But I just love the idea of getting a new Bond novel. I don’t think I will completely enjoy it though.
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I kinda take the opposite from it, you can only really judge yourself as a Bond writer via Fleming, so everything needs to neatly fit his timeline and rules. He is assuming Fleming’s word is gospel.
Given Fleming is contradictory in his writing, that is a whole can of worms, but that’s a rant for someone very slightly more obsessed than me.
Step up and give it a shot.
The most insignificant of outcomes is minor disagreement.
If it ends at three that’s a good number, and having them spaced out between Bond’s career is neat. I’ll be paying attention to how he psychologically differentiates this Bond as a result.
The other two books had original material by Ian Fleming. It doesn’t look like that will happen here, unless something is announced later.
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I wouldn’t mind if he did 5, but I don’t want to wait until 2028 for the fifth.