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Books : Devil May Care (James Bond)
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Rating: 
- Great Bond story
If you like James Bond stories, this is a good one.
Forget whether it's Fleming or Gardiner, Connery or Moore, literarature or film. The Bond franchise now transcends all media formats but at it's heart is a good yarn and a number of expected ingredients-the megolamanic adversary, double agents, gadgets, women plus Leiter, Moneypenney etc.
But pay attention Bond. Faulks mixes film with facts and fiction. Q Section only appears here and in the films, and George the fifth apparently instigated the 'Entente Cordialle' (and not Edward the seventh).
But who cares? This is a just a classic Bond story , and as such a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
- A passable imitation of Ian Fleming
I suppose that Penguin, who publish the novels of the late Ian Fleming these days, had to do something to mark the centenary of his birth. And indeed they have - they've commissioned a modern-day author to write a brand new James Bond adventure.
They have chosen Sebastian Faulks - and rather than attempt to do what the movies have already done and relocate Fleming's spy to the modern day, Faulks has taken this achetypal 1950s fictional secret agent and only moved him on a few years - to the mid-60s, where we find him on leave while recovering from his last Fleming adventure, and feeling over the hill and generally past it.
Faulks does a reasonably good job of writing in the style of Ian Fleming -with all of the good and bad things that that implies. Be in no doubt that this is the Bond of the novels rather than the movies. There are some very Fleming-esque touches here - the villain with some sort of physical deformity and an irrational yet all-consuming hatred of Britain, a tennis match that is reminiscent of the golf episode in 'Goldfinger', a far-fetched plot in an exotic location (well, almost exotic - the action takes us from Paris to Iran over a decade before the fall of the Shah) and a love interest that verges on mere adolescent fantasy. What takes this beyond Fleming is that the love interest is more than mere window-dressing; no lesbian gangster waiting to be 'converted' to men here, but a stand-alone character who the reader is never quite sure about - whose side is she actually on? Far from me to spoil that little sub-plot.
In short, 'Devil May Care' emerges as being not a bad stab at all at writing the sort of Bond novel that Fleming himself was capable of writing when he was in good form; it's always worth remembering that, while some of his stories were very good, some were decidedly bad.
Faulks is of course not the first author to have a go at writing in the style of Ian Fleming - not that anyone remembers Kingsley Amis writing under the pen-name of Robert Markham these days. Like Amis, though Faulks does much better when he's writing as himself rather than imitating the style of someone else.
Rating:
- Painting by numbers.........
Devil May Care (James Bond)
Deeply disappointing. There is very little to recommend this book. Indeed it is so light on plot that not reading it means you will not have missed anything! The plot lifts from other Bond stories e.g. meeting the villian over a game of tennis is a lift from Goldfinger and golf and the beautiful girl seeking help to rescue her sister from the clutches of the baddie was the premise in Thunderball I seem to recall, and there are many other variants on well trodden Bond plots. In writing a new novel you would think coming up with a new twist or story line would be vital but not here. No wonder Hollywood has declined to take up the movies rights - there's nothing new here. What a wasted opportunity.
Rating: - Bond is Back
Ian Fleming's last James Bond adventure - a collection of short stories including Octopussy and The Living Daylights - was published posthumously in 1967.
That wasn't the end of 007's adventures in print. Kingsley Amis wrote a well received sequel in 1967 - `Colonel Sun' - and in 1981, Glidrose Publications hired thriller-writer John Gardner to reinvent Bond for the modern era.
What followed were 14 increasingly dreary and unbelievable books which saw an aging Bond gamely struggle through a litany of dumb adventures (the highlight being the rescue of Margaret Thatcher from a hijacked aircraft carrier in 1989's Win, Lose or Die.)
American thriller author Raymond Bensen was hired in 1996 to continue Gardner's legacy and the resultant products were even worse - the popularity of the revived film-franchise meant that Bensen cheerfully threw Fleming's cast of characters out of the window and adopted the movie ones - like an `M' based on Judi Dench's character.
Things looked a little brighter when British comedian Charlie Higson got the go-ahead to write a series of `Young Bond' books in 2005 - based on Bond's adventures when he was a teenager at Eton (although Bond was actually expelled from Eton and attended Fettes for the majority of his school career.)
Higson's books were true to Ian Fleming's timeline, set in the thirties, and marvelous reads that appealed to adults as much as boys. The start of a great revival?
Apparently so. In 2007, celebrated British author Sebastian Faulks was chosen by the estate of Ian Fleming to write a new Bond adventure to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth. The result? Devil May Care.
Devil May Care goes right back to Bond's roots. It's set in 1967, following immediately on from James Bond's adventures in Jamaica battling against murderous hitman Scaramanga - The Man with the Golden Gun.
The familiar setting is reassuring. This Bond is one you can believe in - young, vibrant and capable. Sebastian Faulks recaptures the voice and feel of Fleming's writing. Succinct, yet detailed (Faulks, like Fleming himself, was a broadsheet journalist) while confident and experienced in his tastes and personality (whereas Bensen and Gardner's Bond felt arrogant and opinionated.)
The plot is pure 007. James Bond is balanced on the knife-edge of resigning from the service (a theme examined by Fleming in several books) but is lured back when M needs him to investigate pharmaceuticals giant Dr Julius Gorner - a typical `Bond baddie' with a deformity known as `main de singe' (which means he has a monkey's paw in place of his left hand.)
Bond's investigation takes him first to Paris, then to Persia and finally deep into the heart of Soviet Russia as he foils Gorner's typical `Bond baddie' plan to spark off World War Three.
It's a solid little adventure story, similar in feel to Fleming's earlier, `better' books like Moonraker and From Russia with Love. Intentionally or not, Faulks also includes some of Fleming's trademark lazy errors - such as some glaring inaccuracies in his description of Paris and some rather shaky plot devices designed to move the story forward (although Gorner `recruiting' Bond isn't nearly as silly as the titular bad guy coercing Bond to do his paperwork in Goldfinger.)
It took Sebastian Faulks six weeks to write Devil May Care and it took me three days to read it. All in all, I was very satisfied - a wonderful (and long awaited) return to form for the Bond literary franchise and a welcome addition to my bookshelf. Now the only question that remains; will Faulks be writing a sequel?
Rating: - license suspended
The only excuse for writing another Bond book would be to do it brilliantly. This wasn't. It's a straight forward 'formula' piece of work with an eye to a film adaptation at some point in the future. The characters and situations cobbled together from Flemming's novels. It lacked any originality or excitement really. You could list the things you remember from the films - an 'Odd Job' character, a paranoid world domination egomaniac, a sports tournament where Bond stands to lose a lot of money, a suffocation sequence, something underwater, a factory somewhere with some weapon of mass destruction, a friendly middle eastern character who gets killed, taxis, dancing girls, etc etc - it's a list strung together and linked with a pretty thin sort of plot. I read all the Bond stuff when i was a teenager and i was thrilled. It was fresh and pacey at the time. This isn't. If it had been a straight attempt at a spy thriller without the 007 reference it would have sunk like a stone.
- Great Bond storyIf you like James Bond stories, this is a good one.
Forget whether it's Fleming or Gardiner, Connery or Moore, literarature or film. The Bond franchise now transcends all media formats but at it's heart is a good yarn and a number of expected ingredients-the megolamanic adversary, double agents, gadgets, women plus Leiter, Moneypenney etc.
But pay attention Bond. Faulks mixes film with facts and fiction. Q Section only appears here and in the films, and George the fifth apparently instigated the 'Entente Cordialle' (and not Edward the seventh).
But who cares? This is a just a classic Bond story , and as such a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
- A passable imitation of Ian FlemingI suppose that Penguin, who publish the novels of the late Ian Fleming these days, had to do something to mark the centenary of his birth. And indeed they have - they've commissioned a modern-day author to write a brand new James Bond adventure.
They have chosen Sebastian Faulks - and rather than attempt to do what the movies have already done and relocate Fleming's spy to the modern day, Faulks has taken this achetypal 1950s fictional secret agent and only moved him on a few years - to the mid-60s, where we find him on leave while recovering from his last Fleming adventure, and feeling over the hill and generally past it.
Faulks does a reasonably good job of writing in the style of Ian Fleming -with all of the good and bad things that that implies. Be in no doubt that this is the Bond of the novels rather than the movies. There are some very Fleming-esque touches here - the villain with some sort of physical deformity and an irrational yet all-consuming hatred of Britain, a tennis match that is reminiscent of the golf episode in 'Goldfinger', a far-fetched plot in an exotic location (well, almost exotic - the action takes us from Paris to Iran over a decade before the fall of the Shah) and a love interest that verges on mere adolescent fantasy. What takes this beyond Fleming is that the love interest is more than mere window-dressing; no lesbian gangster waiting to be 'converted' to men here, but a stand-alone character who the reader is never quite sure about - whose side is she actually on? Far from me to spoil that little sub-plot.
In short, 'Devil May Care' emerges as being not a bad stab at all at writing the sort of Bond novel that Fleming himself was capable of writing when he was in good form; it's always worth remembering that, while some of his stories were very good, some were decidedly bad.
Faulks is of course not the first author to have a go at writing in the style of Ian Fleming - not that anyone remembers Kingsley Amis writing under the pen-name of Robert Markham these days. Like Amis, though Faulks does much better when he's writing as himself rather than imitating the style of someone else.
Rating:
- Painting by numbers.........Devil May Care (James Bond)
Deeply disappointing. There is very little to recommend this book. Indeed it is so light on plot that not reading it means you will not have missed anything! The plot lifts from other Bond stories e.g. meeting the villian over a game of tennis is a lift from Goldfinger and golf and the beautiful girl seeking help to rescue her sister from the clutches of the baddie was the premise in Thunderball I seem to recall, and there are many other variants on well trodden Bond plots. In writing a new novel you would think coming up with a new twist or story line would be vital but not here. No wonder Hollywood has declined to take up the movies rights - there's nothing new here. What a wasted opportunity.
Rating:
- Bond is BackIan Fleming's last James Bond adventure - a collection of short stories including Octopussy and The Living Daylights - was published posthumously in 1967.
That wasn't the end of 007's adventures in print. Kingsley Amis wrote a well received sequel in 1967 - `Colonel Sun' - and in 1981, Glidrose Publications hired thriller-writer John Gardner to reinvent Bond for the modern era.
What followed were 14 increasingly dreary and unbelievable books which saw an aging Bond gamely struggle through a litany of dumb adventures (the highlight being the rescue of Margaret Thatcher from a hijacked aircraft carrier in 1989's Win, Lose or Die.)
American thriller author Raymond Bensen was hired in 1996 to continue Gardner's legacy and the resultant products were even worse - the popularity of the revived film-franchise meant that Bensen cheerfully threw Fleming's cast of characters out of the window and adopted the movie ones - like an `M' based on Judi Dench's character.
Things looked a little brighter when British comedian Charlie Higson got the go-ahead to write a series of `Young Bond' books in 2005 - based on Bond's adventures when he was a teenager at Eton (although Bond was actually expelled from Eton and attended Fettes for the majority of his school career.)
Higson's books were true to Ian Fleming's timeline, set in the thirties, and marvelous reads that appealed to adults as much as boys. The start of a great revival?
Apparently so. In 2007, celebrated British author Sebastian Faulks was chosen by the estate of Ian Fleming to write a new Bond adventure to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth. The result? Devil May Care.
Devil May Care goes right back to Bond's roots. It's set in 1967, following immediately on from James Bond's adventures in Jamaica battling against murderous hitman Scaramanga - The Man with the Golden Gun.
The familiar setting is reassuring. This Bond is one you can believe in - young, vibrant and capable. Sebastian Faulks recaptures the voice and feel of Fleming's writing. Succinct, yet detailed (Faulks, like Fleming himself, was a broadsheet journalist) while confident and experienced in his tastes and personality (whereas Bensen and Gardner's Bond felt arrogant and opinionated.)
The plot is pure 007. James Bond is balanced on the knife-edge of resigning from the service (a theme examined by Fleming in several books) but is lured back when M needs him to investigate pharmaceuticals giant Dr Julius Gorner - a typical `Bond baddie' with a deformity known as `main de singe' (which means he has a monkey's paw in place of his left hand.)
Bond's investigation takes him first to Paris, then to Persia and finally deep into the heart of Soviet Russia as he foils Gorner's typical `Bond baddie' plan to spark off World War Three.
It's a solid little adventure story, similar in feel to Fleming's earlier, `better' books like Moonraker and From Russia with Love. Intentionally or not, Faulks also includes some of Fleming's trademark lazy errors - such as some glaring inaccuracies in his description of Paris and some rather shaky plot devices designed to move the story forward (although Gorner `recruiting' Bond isn't nearly as silly as the titular bad guy coercing Bond to do his paperwork in Goldfinger.)
It took Sebastian Faulks six weeks to write Devil May Care and it took me three days to read it. All in all, I was very satisfied - a wonderful (and long awaited) return to form for the Bond literary franchise and a welcome addition to my bookshelf. Now the only question that remains; will Faulks be writing a sequel?
Rating:
- license suspendedThe only excuse for writing another Bond book would be to do it brilliantly. This wasn't. It's a straight forward 'formula' piece of work with an eye to a film adaptation at some point in the future. The characters and situations cobbled together from Flemming's novels. It lacked any originality or excitement really. You could list the things you remember from the films - an 'Odd Job' character, a paranoid world domination egomaniac, a sports tournament where Bond stands to lose a lot of money, a suffocation sequence, something underwater, a factory somewhere with some weapon of mass destruction, a friendly middle eastern character who gets killed, taxis, dancing girls, etc etc - it's a list strung together and linked with a pretty thin sort of plot. I read all the Bond stuff when i was a teenager and i was thrilled. It was fresh and pacey at the time. This isn't. If it had been a straight attempt at a spy thriller without the 007 reference it would have sunk like a stone.