CommanderBond.net

Now on the CBn main page: courtesy of K1Bond007, sales and marketing plans, the first details on the cover, new hardback reprints of the Fleming novels...

Penguin's Massive Marketing & Sales Plans For Sebastian Faulks' 'Devil May Care'

Cover details; plus new hardback editions for all 14 of the Ian Fleming originals

Excited yet?

Oh yeah, going to be buying this AND buying the new Fleming hardback books too.

One question, is there anywhere we can see the cover?

This post has been edited by doubler83: 7 November 2007 - 20:51

Holy cripes...

Bond 23, anyone?

Sadly, it looks like unless you were one of those retailers in attendance...

Describing the novel, Faulks said he had retained about 80% of Fleming’s style and avoided deep psychological portraits. ‘It’s a period adventure in which I’ve tried to capture a playful spirit. This is not Bond meets Charlotte Gray… my Bond has no inner life.’

Wow. And there I was thinking I'd never see the day when someone involved with Bond would make the claim not to be Peeling Back the Layers™, Exploring Bond's Demons™, and so forth. Reminds me of that bit in BORAT that goes something along the lines of:

AZAMAT: She'll be taking part in a demonstration against cruelty to animals.

BORAT (in amazement): Against cruelty to animals?

Azamat gives a that's-Americans-for-you shrug and they fall about laughing at this latest in a long line of examples of unfathomable and wacky American behaviour.

On the other hand, I'm slightly disappointed by this news. The two Faulks novels I've read (A FOOL'S ALPHABET and ENGLEBY, both brilliant) convince me that if he did do "deep psychological portraits" in a Bond book they'd be superb. Faulks I'd more than trust with this sort of thing, and it kind of seems a shame that he's restrained himself from doing what seemingly every other Tom, Dick and Harry in the world of 007 loudly claims he's doing.

Oh, well. I'm sure DEVIL MAY CARE is magnificent, whatever approach Faulks has taken.

I love the sound of him not peeling back the layers- we get plenty of that everywhere else, thank you very much!

The cover sounds interesting- a real big brand relaunch from a pretty classy agency; sounds like we won't be getting the Chopping pastiche cover. I didn't mind if it was just this once, but I'm happy for it to be something very stylish and new.

Call me cynical but I'm expecting it to be a gunbarrel.... perhaps a stylish or retro gunbarrel... but a gunbarrel nevertheless. Boring.

I'm not heart-broken that he's avoiding onions altogether. If his intent is just to pen an exciting yarn in the best Thunderball tradition, then maybe that's not a bad thing. I think his intent is to for it fit seamlessy into the Fleming oeuvre, rather than writing a story that sticks out because goes into parts of Bond's psyche that perhaps Fleming had originally wanted left alone.

Not that anyone can claim to know what Fleming intended but imagine if it was Gardner who had Bond go doollaly in YOLT instead of Fleming - we might all be up in arms about a new author taking liberties with the character. I don't know if I'm making a lot of sense but maybe Faulks would rather be credited a fresh, exciting new story, than being accused of "mucking about" with the original character.

Can't be. The gun barrel is film iconic, not literary iconic. Besides I think the gun barrel might be trademarked by Danjaq, but I'm not too sure.

In order for it to truly be a celebration of the literary Bond, we need reprints of the continuation novels. Do we really need more copies of novels already available?

I'm 100% certain that's the one thing it won't be.

"Celebration of the literary Bond"? It's Fleming's Centenary. New covers for Fleming's novels seem pretty obvious.

Also, I hate to say it, but there's not much of a market for Bond novels written by John Gardner. Bensons are still pretty new. I think at best, we may see an omnibus in the future. Note: in the future...like years from now.

Yes, I would like the Gardner and Benson books to be re-released. They are Bond novels after all.

This DMC news is exciting and interesting. I'm wondering what this single iconic image could be....a bullet or something?