William Boyd To Write Official Novel (Page 1 of 2)

I'm glad to here another novel is in the works, but I am not sure about it being set back in the 60's.  I felt that Deaver's novel set in the present day worked better than Faulk's book which was also set back in the 1960's.

I've not read his stuff, not aware of it. He either has the Fleming voice, or not. I don't know what the point of Deaver's reboot was, as Boyd won't be following it (all that guff about his parents maybe being spies). The current team seem to lack any long-term plan or vision.

I'd third that.
I'm not familiar with William Boyd either. This jumping around back and forth shows no consideration to the 'fan' and would confuse the occasional reader. While I have some sympathy for Boyd's idea that Bond is essentially a Cold War character, I wasn't averse to a modern update; it was the nature of the update which rankled - a little too much back story, Deaver left no stone unturned. I'd enjoy a '60s Bond, but not how Faulks wrote it - six weeks of unedited slap-dash re-hash hit-and-hope rubbish.
Ah well. Roll on 2013.

I am terribly terribly disappointed with the new Bond novel being set in the 1960s. Sadly, Ian Fleming is dead and the 60s are gone, but James Bond lives… and it should be in the present As Fleming intended. Ian Fleming could have placed James Bond into the World  War II era but instead he placed him into his present time. Why have the Jason  Bourne novels been able to successfully transplant their character into the  present. Whereas Bond’s recent outings have been struggling, lacking the creative  cutting edge and contemporary narrative of the original. In my opinion it's because the Ian Fleming estate is asleep at the wheel, they appear more concerned with nostalgic tie-ends rather than a compelling vision for James Bond.

Personally I always welcome a new Bond novel -sure continuity is long lost but being able to escape into the Bondian world via a novel is always pleasurable - yes I may criticize at some things or feel that I may have written it a bit differently -but at the end of the day a new story/adventure/mission helps keep the thrills coming and a character that I admire available to the public. I welcome this new novel and the fact its set in the 60s.

The Independent ran rather a good article on him. They talked up his novel A Good Man in Africa, which of course was Sean Connery's bag when they made it into a movie, and I was relieved to see he has recently written some very well received espionage novels. I really must start reading more modern stuff, I feel I am missing out - if he's as good as the article suggests why am I not hearing more about him? I suggest it's because he doesn't sell as many copies as Deaver / Child / Larrson etc

Here he talks about his life and his writing process. Interesting, I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2D9tSNrVKo

I find this encouraging. He has studies Ian Fleming, but won't try to copy him like Foulks did. He has written suspense/espionage thrillers. He allways spends time researching before writing a novel, but is allready familiar with the cold war and the world of espionage. He doesn't rush his writing the way Fauks did. he knows the time period. I'm optimistic. Other than Vietnam and obviously the cold war, what interesting things occured in 1969?

- The space race is in full swing

- Richard M. Nixon succeeds Lyndon Baines Johnson as the 37th President of the United States of America.

- Fourteen men, nine of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel.

- In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted.

- Operation Breakfast, the secret bombing of Cambodia, begins.

- British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

- United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California.

- Serious border clashes occur between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

- Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

- The Piazza Fontana bombing in Italy (Strage di Piazza Fontana) takes place. A U.S. Navy officer and C.I.A. agent called David Carrett is later investigated for possible involvement.

Of cource, boyd could just simply write about a villan who wants to get very rich by commiting a horrible crime ....   

Last edited by Number24 (20th Apr 2012 17:55)

I have just finished reading "Restless", my first by William Boyd. He was completely unknown to me when it was annoced that he will write the next Bond novel. "Restless" was the only novel by Boyd in the local library, but luckily it was one of his spy novels. The plot alternates between 1939-41 and 1978. In the early years of the war Russian immigrant Eva Delectorskaya is recruited into British Secret Service. Her work focuses on propaganda and media manipultaion and sends her to Belgium and pre-Pearl Harbour America. In 1978 her daughter Ruth lives in Oxford where she teaches English to foreigners, including a charming Iranian.
I liked reading "Restless". I found the characters interesting and the plot solid. The descriptions of food and clothes reminded me of  Fleming. There were only a couple of outbursts of violence in the novel, but they were well written and the last one was both brutal and origional. My main complaint is that sense of danger and looming threath was weak or even sometimes lacking in the first half of the book.
In my opinion Restless is competently written, even good. Not a masterpiece, but no reason to worry about the upcomming Bond novel.
I will read his effort and I look forward to it, but my favourites are still Phillip Kerr and Alan Furst.

Last edited by Number24 (25th Apr 2012 16:29)

Beaten to the punch by Number24!

I am 50 pages into Restless, after one day's reading. It's a 300 page novel, so 50 pages a day and it's done in a week.

The writing immediately strikes one as superior to Deaver's, or Faulks' as far as the genre is concerned. That said, some of the descriptive passages in the first chapter get on my nerves a bit, like they're there for the sake of it. It's misplaced because the opening is in the first person, where lengthy descriptions don't feel right usually. Then it flits back to 1939, and the third person.

It won the Costa Award, like my last read, Pure by Andrew Miller. Good, but you feel the writing with each could be a bit better, a bit more dense. I will enjoy it, it's pacily written, but I'll feel no desire to re-read it for the sheer sensuality of the language.

Not sure the sex side of things will be adequately addressed - or undressed - either. It's not a turn-on read, no dark side to it in that sense.

Sounds good, if a bit less outrageous than I usually expect & enjoy from a Bond story. Still, I'm brimming with enthusiasm!!

Don't know how I feel about this; I'm torn.  Never read William Boyd, so perhaps I ought to look in on him.  Devil May Care was a sharp disappointment; I enjoyed Deaver a bit more, and could go for more present-day Bond.  This bouncing back and forth--- from period novels to present day, and back---essentially demands that Bond readers not entertain any notions of literary continuity, which rankles a bit.

But of course I'll read it