Devil May Care (The New James Bond Novel )
by Sebastian Faulks
|
List Price: Our Price: $0.75 You Save: $24.20 (97%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Devil May Care (The New James Bond Novel )
Book Review: Fleming's ghost guides Faulks' hand
Summary: 4 Stars
It has been a long wait, but finally the LITERARY James Bond is back. While John Gardner and Raymond Benson were very good writers and storytellers, they were definitely carrying on the adventures of the MOVIE Bond between movies! Good yarns, but hardly Bond.
This does not mean that Sebastian Faulks is definitely the new Ian Fleming ... but he comes close. Faulks states that he went back to the original Fleming books to study the style and it shows. He has resurrected Bond with all his cynicism, faults, habits and prejudices; Bond even hates Q-Branch gadgets!
The villain, unfortunately, is not as larger-than-life as Goldfinger, Blofeld and Scaramanga were. He is even overshadowed by his privileged henchman, Chagrin. Faulks spent more time developing Chagrin than he did Gorner and I felt that I knew Chagrin as a person better than I did Gorner. The one element that was missing was the villain's biographical chapter.
The Bond girl was a strange character and she seemed more adept at handling the situations, she found herself in, than the international banker that she was. If bankers are really as skilled as she turned out to be, how does Faulks account for the occurrences of bank robberies around the real world?
Other familiar elements are the obligatory sacrificial lamb and the Bond allies. Nice to see Felix Leiter and Rene Mathis back in the novels. Last time these two were seen in books, Leiter was hooning around on a electric wheelchair and Mathis was blinded from constant torture. You know a British writer is responsible for the story when the Americans are shown to be opinionated and self-interested. Since Bond's mission does not benefit the USA, then the CIA don't help Bond. Benson would never have written such a thing.
Congratulations, Mr. Faulks. You have written a superb James Bond novel and kept the Fleming legend alive. Please write another adventure soon.
Book Review: Not a pastiche - more a cute review of the past
Summary: 4 Stars
SPOILER WARNING
- Plot ending not revealed - but the raison d'etre of the book is
Remember the 20th movie with Pierce Brosnan where they worked in a "gadget" or a "scene" from the previous 19? Well Devil May Care is a book version of the same working in scenes or elements which mimic parts of the original books.
Bond damaged by his last mission and back from a sabattical and not quite trusted, May the "Scottish treasure" still fusses over him, the three ring Morelands are consumed and M gets bees in his bonnet and sends the staff off on his latest health kick. It is all there - though the Sea Island cotton clothing is there at least three times I recall and rather over sets the scene. It is all fun to look out for. But it is a little over played and by half way you are beginning to wonder if the mission will actually get going.
Just at the point I was about to give up - it does get going and it is a page turner to the end. Though I think at least two of the twists or baddy reappearances at the end could have been dropped to get to the final denouement quicker! (but then we wouldn't have made all the flashbacks needed from each Fleming book).
So where does that leave us?
Not all Fleming's Bond novels were top notch and a couple were not that good. Fleming struggled to avoid being formulaic.
Well it is like a better than middling good Fleming but not his best. It IS formulaic - but not overly so. If you liked Fleming's writing and are keen on Bond - you should like this addition to the canon and will have fun looking out for the throwbacks to all the other books. If you are new to Fleming's Bond - try the some of Fleming's originals first before you try this one. If nothing else - it will help you "get it" when you read it.
Book Review: A devil of an engaging read
Summary: 4 Stars
A fun, fast read, and a definite treat for Bond fans, "Devil May Care" nails Fleming's unique, entertaining combination of sex, sadism, and civility. This one really feels like Fleming himself sat down to write one more Bond novel after "The Man With The Golden Gun", the original series' swan song (not counting a short-story compilation or two that appeared shortly after that final book).
The main plot, involving an eccentric villain seeking to trick Western and Communist powers into starting a war with each other, will be either satisfyingly familiar or disappointingly familiar to Bond fans (myself, I felt a little of both sentiments), but everything moves along at a nice clip, with lots of danger, action, and women. And it's all laced with Bond's cynical yet ultimately optimistic take on things.
I will say that the long chapter featuring Bond playing tennis with the villain was a bit of a haul to get through. But then again, so was Fleming's chapter in "Goldfinger" featuring Bond's golf match with that villain. So, author Faulks was even good at emulating Fleming's occasional dry indulgences!
And for my fellow "Kindlers" out there, "Devil May Care" reads extremely well on the Amazon Kindle. My favorite moment was when I was reading a passage involving Bond, a prisoner aboard an airliner at the time, reminiscing about how he usually enjoyed air travel: the quiet time to relax it afforded, the peaceful cloudscapes going by, how he would usually sip a Bloody Mary and eventually open an engaging adventure novel to pass the time, that sort of thing. It was a favorite moment because, as I read that passage- no lie- I was sitting on a plane, reading my Bond adventure on my Kindle, and sipping a Bloody Mary. I had to smile. I guess we all have a little bit of James Bond in us!
Book Review: Bond back in the era he belongs
Summary: 4 Stars
After John Gardner's and Raymond Benson's turns as Bond authors placed 007 in a current-day setting, Sebastian Faulks (as "Ian Fleming") wisely returned the British secret agent to the 1960s, where Fleming left off before his death. This die-hard fan of Fleming's Bond prefers him back in those days as opposed to 007 dealing with our modern-day world with its politics and technology.
Faulks does a good job of picking up the baton. It's not quite as seamless as it would have been had Fleming lived and continued the series, e.g., one doesn't get the feeling that this is the same Bond who tried to kill his boss, M, after being brainwashed by SMERSH (in the novel before this - the last one penned by Fleming, "The Man with the Golden Gun").
Speaking of that, in "Devil May Care", 007 notes that he's in Russia for the "first time", while taking a break on a cross-country train trip with "Bond girl" Scarlett Papava. Yet, in "Golden Gun", that's exactly where Bond is explained to have been - where he was brainwashed. It would have been nice for Faulks to remember that and include something about it.
Still, he does a nice job of emulating the "Fleming Sweep", the style by 007's creator that kept his stories moving along, both from a geographic and plot standpoint. And he manages to conjure up a formidable enemy in Julius Gorner, deformity and all.
It's a shame that Faulks has indicated that this will likely be his one and only Bond novel. "Devil May Care" might have been the (re)start of something grand for the secret agent introduced in 1953. Maybe if the book is a hit, Faulks will be inclined to follow with more. Once can only hope.
Book Review: The devil may care for this watery martini. I didn't.
Summary: 2 Stars
James Bond--or a pale imposter thereof--returns to action in the Cold War/Vietnam War era, venturing to the Middle East to take on a villain with a deformed hand who hopes to destroy England with drugs and bombs, as well as his lieutenant who has a scarred head and feels little pain. I think we've seen this one before.
The story has all the elements of a Bond tale (the villain and lieutenant, secret lair, Bond's capture and escape, and a "Bond girl" or two), but just as with an Aston Martin, all the parts have to work to enable a thrilling ride. Minor problems include the author's addiction to exotic/foreign words and info-dumps (long sequences of dialogue to give backgrounds about people or places or else to explain what actually happened after an event). (I did note that the quality of the writing dropped in the middle of the story--was the author rushing to beat a deadline?) The major problem, however, is simply the unremarkable and skimpy plot (including some fight scenes that simply strain disbelief, even for a Bond story). The novel is only 278 pages, but it contains the aforementioned info-dumps as well as the longest tennis match I've ever read about and an overly long account of Bond and his girl escaping from Russia via hitchhiking and robbery. (The girl, Scarlett, is likeable enough but borders on a male's fantasy caricature of a simultaneously empowered and submissive '60s lass. I can't even guess how many times she's called "good girl.")
Recommended as a library loan for Bond fans in need of light reading for the airport or beach. Two tarnished cufflinks.