Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Chris Moore's little known novelizations of OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL

Pop quiz, hot-shot! Name two novelizations of Roger Moore James Bond films written by an author named Chris?

If you answered The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker by Christopher Wood...okay, you're not wrong. But did you know another Chris -- Chris Moore -- wrote novelizations of Octopussy and A View To A Kill!?

These were Dutch novelizations written in the '80s and released with their respective films. They were never published in English. Both books are profusely illustrated with color photos from the films. While Octopussy is somewhat slight at 95 pages, A View To A Kill is a nice trade paperback coming in at 175 pages.

I've long had a copy of Octopussy, but I've never been able to score a copy of A View To A Kill. But now Edwin de Jonge, a reader from The Netherlands, has hooked me up with that elusive second Moore novelization.

So now I can share with you images these two largely unknown James Bond novelizations. Enjoy.


Thank you again, Edwin!

21 comments:

  1. I guess there was an English-language novelization of sorts for A View to a Kill - the 'James Bond storybook of the movie' written by Judy Alexander. Even then, I think it was only available in North America.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yeah, i got this storybook. nice to include it in as part of the 007 novels collection.

      Delete
    2. I mentioned the storybook in my post about U.S. tie-ins: http://www.thebookbond.com/2011/11/us-james-bond-movie-tie-in-editions.html

      Delete
  2. There was also a series of four "Find your Fate" books (knock offs of Choose Your Own Adventure) based on A View to a Kill: Win, Place, or Die; Programmed for Danger; Strike it Deadly; and Barracuda Run. http://www.amazon.com/James-Bond-Place-Find-Your/dp/0345324048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358377637&sr=8-1&keywords=james+bond+find+your+fate

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, did a post on those a while back: http://www.thebookbond.com/2009/04/find-your-fate-with-james-bond.html

      Delete
  3. Glidrose should authorise the translating of these Dutch film tie-ins for the literary Bond aficionados who collect every book ever published in English.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are they aimed at the adult market? Or are they more along the lines of the A View to a Kill storybook, aimed at kids or teens? At that length and with such profuse illustration, it sounds more like the latter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These books are aimed at the adult market
      The Octopussy one was published as a "Zwarte Beertje"
      This is the series of pocketbooks in wich all the Dutch James Bond Books were published.

      Delete
    2. "Zwarte Beertje" = "Black Bear". Interesting title.

      Delete
  5. There was even a novelization of "The living daylights" in a dutch newspaper called "De Telegraaf". There were four or five parts. I don't remember it exactly, but I own some parts in a box in my cellar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoa, really? First I've heard of this. Wonder if it was written by Moore?

      Delete
    2. Can you fish them out Andy? It'd be good to find out for sure. Maybe scan them for this blog?

      Delete
    3. There were also adaptions/novelizations in "de Telegraaf" voor FYEO,Octo,Avtak and LTK. The only name i found was Martin Mensing on LTK, the other ones i couldn't retreive the name of the writers.
      And TLD was in 9 parts

      Delete
  6. The Living Daylights (the movie) was also 'novelised' in english in The Sun newspaper in 1987.

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you know the exact date of the newspaper ?

      Delete
  7. Cool, I had these for years and never realised they had only been published in Dutch. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hello together. With big luck i found an online archive of "De Telegraaf" and could read the novelisations. But I did not found the one of " Licence to Kill". Does anyone know the issius in wich that was?

    ReplyDelete
  9. There is an serialisation of tswlm by Chris Moore too in five parts in English. I have I guess a proof or early copy in script form not book so don't know if it was printed in English or Moore wrote it in English then they translated it to the language they wanted

    ReplyDelete

Legal Disclosure

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Translate