Non-Fleming Bond novels

[Jumpin' Jesse Walsh]

Reading through Dr. No right now and suddenly got curious about the books written post-Fleming like Carte Blanche and so on.

Are these any good? Any recommendations?

[Johnny B. Decent]

Are they as racist, misogynistic, homophobic and classist as Fleming's works?

[brackus]

Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis (written as Robert Markham) is a must read if you liked Fleming and want more. This story blends perfectly with Flemings works.

Gardners run (14 novels) is a mixed bag. Some of his stuff at the end of his run was very bad (COLD; Man from Barbarossa e.g.). His best works are (IMO) Licence Renewed and Icebreaker. LR was his first and IB his third. For Special Services was his second (which was okay/good). So you might start with those and decide if they were good enough for you to continue. Nobody Lives forever is good as well. There are lot of "meh" books like "Role of honour, Scorpius, Death is forever, Never Send Flowers, Seafire). Are his work like Flemings? Not really. Some of his adjustments (Bond driving a SAAB instead of an Aston MAartin or Bentley, a female Q called Qute; 00-section getting closed) is annoying. The books are written and set in the 80´s and 90´s, so a lot of feeling of Fleming´s works is lost. Gardner gets repetetive with evil organizations (SPECTRE rip offs) and turncoats/traitors. You have that in nearly every of his books. The turncoat-stuff is fun and suspensfull in Icebreaker, though. Gardner often has a brilliant, unique idea / generall plot but the way those stories unfold felt uninspired and the climaxes were sometimes very lackluster (e.g. Scorpius and "Win, Lose or Die").

I like Raymond Benson´s novel´s. His books are also contemporary (set in the late 90s and 2000s; having the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to China as a plot point e.g.) but he uses the Fleming continutity (like Garnder) with a lot of references and reacurring characters. Do his novel feel like a Fleming novel? No, they felt more like the Pierce Brosnan movies since they are action orientated. But they were written very suspensfull and were pageturners IMO.

Then there were a lot of authors who only wrote one novel (Carte Blanche, Devil May Care; Solo) ... it his been a while since I read those but I remember not liking them that much or even hating them, especially Solo and Carte Blanche.

Anthony Horowitz just finished his trilogy of Bond novels (Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day; With a Mind to Kill) and his novels were EXCELLENT and felt like Fleming (he uses unpublished notes of Fleming and fills some gaps/loose ends of Flemings run).

You might also want to check out Christopher Woods novelization of "The Spy who loved me" which is written as a part of the Fleming continuity and is very good (the Moonraker novelization isn´t that good). The Moneypenny Diaries are fun as well ... and the "Autorized Bioraphy of 007" is also a "meta-continuation" of Flemings work and enjoyable.

In short: Read Colonel Sun as well as the Horowitz trilogy! Benson books are good (but not in style with Fleming).

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Nov 17, 2022 11:45:15 GMT -5 brackus said:

Anthony Horowitz just finished his trilogy of Bond novels (Trigger Mortis, Forever and a Day; With a Mind to Kill) and his novels were EXCELLENT and felt like Fleming (he uses unpublished notes of Fleming and fills some gps/loose ends of Flemings run).
You might also want to check out Christopher Woods novelization of "The Spy who loved me" which is written as a part of the Fleming continuity and is very good (the Moonraker novelization isn´t that good). The Moneypenny Diaries are fun as well ... and the "Autorized Bioraphy of 007" is also a "meta-continuation" of Flemings work and enjoyable.

I had to re-read this to understand that they did in fact write novelizations of Bond films that were already based on novels

[dav]

I misread the thread title and assumed that we were going to be talking about Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang for a moment.

[brackus]

Nov 17, 2022 11:54:36 GMT -5 YAKMAN is ICHIBAN said:

I had to re-read this to understand that they did in fact write novelizations of Bond films that were already based on novels

Yes. This is the case for Chrisopher Woods TSWLM and MR .... HOWEVER the movies (TSWLM and MR) have NOTHING to do with the novels ( aside fro the baddy in MR being called Hugo Drax, the name "Moonraker" used for a rocket (or space shuttle in the movie), and henchmen that fit the description of Jaws and Shandor in TSWLM (with different names). So the novel and the novleizations of the same name deal with different stories.
Chrisopher Wood was also the screenwriter of both movies.
Some of the Bond movies, that use Fleming´s titles, have almost nothig to do with the novels. "You only live twice", the second half of ""Diamonds are forever", "Live and Let Die" and "The Man with the Golden Gun" have almost nothing in common with the novels. Some of the short storiy- elements (and elements for other Bond novels) can be found in the movies (Licence to Kill uses elements from "Live and Let Die" and "The Hildebrandt Rarity" e.g.).

John Gardner wrote the novleization for Licence to Kill (which tried to blend in with the continuity of the novels by stating that this was the second time that Leiter got fed to a shark and Leiters daughter (from For Special Services) is also mentioned) ans well as Goldeneye.
Benson wrote the novelizations for Tomorrow never dies, The World is not enough and Die another day.

I should also mention the Young-Bond series, which are fun to read. I read the ones by Charlie Higson and those were very good. Sure, they are like Harry Potter in some instances. But the stories are in continuity with Flemings works. I think another writer continued the Young-Bond novels but I haven´t read those.