Bond is back in "Devil May Care"

[Jeff]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080528/...t/james_bond_2

(see link for full article... highlights posted below)

"Ah, Mr. Bond," said the world's book publishers. "So good to have you back."

Britain's most famous secret agent returns to the page in the novel "Devil May Care," released around the world in 21 languages Wednesday amid a blaze of publicity not seen since the last Harry Potter book.
Publishers are hoping the thriller, already topping Internet retailer Amazon's best-seller list in Britain, proves a fitting centenary tribute to James Bond's late creator, Ian Fleming — and a lucrative new chapter for a franchise that has sold 100 million copies since the suave spy first appeared in "Casino Royale" in 1952.

...

Faulks has kept most of the key ingredients for "Devil May Care." There is a glamorous, colorfully named woman — Scarlett Papava — and a memorably disfigured villain, Julius Gorner, who has an oversized monkey's paw for a hand.
Set in 1967, the book is a Cold War tale of the international drug trade that takes Bond to Iran, the Caspian Sea and Russia — locations and issues that are "still alive to us today," Faulks said. Along the way, 007 experiences sex, vivid violence and implausible escapes from almost certain death.

I'll probably get this after I finish reading the Fleming novels (and maybe Col. Sun) if I can find a used one for cheap... otherwise I may have to wait on the paperback. Sounds like it should be good though.

Anyone else planning to read it?

[Dirk Gently]

...the novel "Devil May Care," released around the world in 21 languages Wednesday amid a blaze of publicity not seen since the last Harry Potter book.

This is the first I've heard of it.

[Carol Baynes]

I knew. But I'm Double-o-Baynes.

[Rob McCow]

There are posters in Victoria station. If that's not a publicity blitz I don't know what is!

[Si Hunt]

It's odd that he's writing AS Ian Fleming. We must surely one day get a Doctor Who book with someone writing AS Terrance Dicks.

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

But Terrance Dicks has been doing that for - oh

Once I've finished the book I'm reading now...

[Lissa]

I've got the book and will start it at some point soon. I wonder though how much he'll "be" like Ian Fleming? I've only read two of Fleming's novels but at times he is quite racist and more than a little sexist. I'll be interested to see whether he carries those fairly significant parts of the Bond novels over to his homage or if he'll ignore them and ignore most of what made Bond a pretty unlikeable character until Sean Connery came along.

[Kaybee Bailey]

I'll read it at some point, mostly because I like Faulks (by coincidence I'm just reading Charlotte Gray). Although I read an interview where he said he approached this novel as a 'technical exercise', which is an interesting term in many ways. It implied to me that he really was trying to go for Fleming's voice and tone... and 'writing as' is a great way to dissociate yourself from any implied views which aren't particularly acceptable now. Incidently, he also said he wouldn't have written a Bond novel set outside the 1960s, so that's an interesting little sidenote given where the films are heading at the moment.

[Stuart Wallis]

Link contains spoilers!

Devil May Care is the thirty-sixth James Bond novel. Written by Sebastian Faulks ("writing as Ian Fleming"), it was published on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of Bond creator Ian Fleming's birth.

The popular novelist, famous for Charlotte Gray and Birdsong, was selected by the estate of the late 007-author in 2006, though his identity was not revealed to the public until July 2007 when a publishing date for the work was officially announced along with its title.

The novel is set in the Cold War in 1967 (and in Ian Fleming's original continuity, following The Man With The Golden Gun) and the action is played out "across two continents, exotic locations and some of the world's most thrilling cities" U.S. publisher Doubleday confirmed one of the locations will be Paris.

Many online and print sources erroneously stated that Devil May Care will be the first new James Bond novel published since 1966. In fact, dozens of full-length Bond novels were published, officially, between 1968 and 2002 by the authors Kingsley Amis (as "Robert Markham"), John Pearson, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, and Raymond Benson. In addition, Charlie Higson and Samantha Weinberg (as "Kate Westbrook") have been publishing Bond-related novels since 2005. Faulks' book is, however, the first novel to focus on the adult James Bond, as conceived by Fleming, since 2002 and, as noted above, it takes place in the time-frame of Fleming's original novels, the first such book since Amis' Colonel Sun (discounting the spin-off Young Bond and The Moneypenny Diaries lines).

[MacNimon]

Has anyone read any of these novels by other authors? If so, what are your thoughts about them? I remember reading the Christopher Wood ones a long time ago, which were simply novelisations of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker...they were readable, but disposable. I threw them out decades ago. John Gardner...I enjoyed his first novel, Licence Renewed, which portrayed an older Bond, in his fifties, and it's sequel (the name of which I forget) which iirc featured Blofeld's daughter as the villain. I never read any more of Gardner's efforts, though. And finally, I've got a copy of Kingsley Amis/Robert Markham's Colonel Sun, which somehow I've never got round to reading. I'll get round to it one of these days...

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm very slowly going through the John Gardner books. Devil May Care reads more like the Fleming books than his do; they're alright in their own way, but very much of their time (ie 1980s).

Colonel Sun is as hard-nosed as the Flemings, and slightly more racy. And you're right about the Wood books, good film adaptations but not much more than that.

[Jeff]

I finally ordered a used copy of this last week. Hopefully it will arrive today.

[Jeff]

I finished this up last week.

I've read through all of Fleming's books this year, and started this one within about a month or two of finishing Golden Gun. To me this feels just like a Fleming Bond book; it has the same structure and style of prose. One small exception is that Faulks has thrown in more references to past books than what you would expect from Fleming. Fleming often recalled past adventures, but Faulks has Bond reminiscing throughout the novel. I've heard criticisms as well of him putting in Mathis and Leiter for the sake of having them; while the story didn't really need them, I didn't feel like they detracted from the novel at all.

I really enjoyed this novel, and if they were somehow able to convince Faulks to continue writing 'as Ian Fleming' (not that they plan to AFAIK) I would continue reading them.