Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Australia and New Zealand will get Carte Blanche May 26
Monday, April 4, 2011
New Gardner paperbacks hit Amazon...including Licence To Kill!
IFP announced last week that "all fourteen" John Gardner books would be reprinted, meaning his original work. But Gardner also penned two novelizations, Licence To Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995), and while not confirmed, it certainly appears at least LTK will be included in the set. It's logicial that GoldenEye will be released as well, but so far the Amazon listings only go up to 1990s Brokenclaw.
These new paperbacks will feature all new cover art. Here's the release schedule as it currently shows on Amazon (but know this is subject to change):
February 4, 2012:
Licence Renewed
For Special Services
May 19, 2012:
Icebreaker
Role of Honour
August 2, 2012:
Nobody Lives For Ever
No Deals, Mr. Bond
November 8, 2012:
Scorpius
Win Lose or Die
January 3, 2013:
Licence To Kill
Brokenclaw
CLICK HERE for more information on the upcoming John Gardner James Bond reprints in both the UK an U.S.
UPDATE: Licence To Kill and GoldenEye now confirmed.
RUMOR: Carte Blanche super special edition in the works?
"I asked at my local bookshop a couple of weeks ago. They didn't know for sure, but suspected that a version - possibly signed by a JB actor - might appear for about £1,000. They also seemed to think that something like that was more likely to end up with one of the "chain" bookshops, such as Waterstones, rather than a local independent book seller."
We all remember that Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care had several special editions, including the spectacular Bentley Limited Edition which sold for $1,500, so a super special edition of Carte Blanche would not be out of the question.
Carte Blanche
by Jeffery Deaver will be released in the UK on May 26 and in the U.S. on June 14, 2011.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
30TH ANNIVERSARY OF LICENSE RENEWED
In April of 1981 James Bond returned in John Gardner's License Renewed. The book was first published in the U.S. by Merek (a division of Putnam). It would be published in May in the UK by Jonathan Cape. The novel saw James Bond updated and transported, un-aged into the 1980s. It became a New York Times Bestseller and spawned a series of 14 original books by Gardner (click here for details on new reprints of all 14 books).
License Renewed proved that James Bond could have a literary life beyond his creator, Ian Fleming. That legacy continues today with the soon-to-be-released Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver. But today we look back and remember the first James Bond continuation novel and novelist to launch a successful new series. It was Gardner, John Gardner, and the book was...
The James Bond novels by John Gardner:
License Renewed proved that James Bond could have a literary life beyond his creator, Ian Fleming. That legacy continues today with the soon-to-be-released Carte Blanche
by Jeffery Deaver. But today we look back and remember the first James Bond continuation novel and novelist to launch a successful new series. It was Gardner, John Gardner, and the book was...- Licence Renewed (1981)
- For Special Services (1982)
- Icebreaker (1983)
- Role of Honor (1984)
- Nobody Lives Forever (1986)
- No Deals, Mr. Bond (1987)
- Scorpius (1988)
- Win Lose or Die (1989)
- Licence To Kill (1989) - novelization
- Brokenclaw (1990)
- The Man From Barbarossa (1991)
- Death Is Forever (1992)
- Never Send Flowers (1993)
- SeaFire (1994)
- GoldenEye (1995) - novelization
- Cold Fall (1996)
Friday, April 1, 2011
The return of Charlie Higson
Looks like taking a break has put Charlie Higson back in the mood to talk about James Bond. Charlie recently gave a terrific interview to the blog ARRRG! in which he talks exclusively about 007. There's some really wonderful stuff here that I've never heard before. A sampling:
"It was understood from quite early on that I wasn’t going to try to ape Fleming’s style. I was going to tell the same type of story that he told, using the same types of character, the same structure and occasionally some of the same vocabulary. When you look closely at his books these things jump out at you. He loved, for instance, to use the word crouching to describe things like mountains, and for some reason he was obsessed with the colour violet, so, really for my own amusement, I used some of his vocab in my books. I knew, though, that I couldn’t copy Fleming’s style, and it is that style which in many ways gives the books their immense readability and their charm and character. Bond is fairly basic and blunt, there’s not a lot of depth to him, all the character of the books comes from Fleming’s narrative voice. “That smoky Fleet Street drawl” as it has been described, and so in some ways Bond takes on the character of Fleming. I wanted my books to be Charlie Higson books in the spirit of Fleming but not the style. It would have been too hard to maintain over five books, and might have alienated kids. I wanted my books to speak to a contemporary young reader and I wrote them in my normal style – stripped back, ‘hard-boiled’, unfussy – which I think works well for kids. That being said, they were James Bond books and I knew they had to have the all the adventure and the romance of James Bond, so, to get me in the mood, I played a lot of John Barry music when I was writing. It really helps with a nice action sequence."
Click to read the entire interview at ARRRG!
Charlie also recently tackled the controversy over Hollywood's plans to reboot Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the guise of...Jennifer Garner? Charlie gets a great joke off in the this one -- made all the more funny because it's absolutely true. Give that a listen at the BBC News website.
Charlie is currently finishing up the second draft of his new Enemy series book, The Fear (cover right). It's due for release in September and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.co.uk.The paperback edition of his second book, The Dead, will be released in the UK next week. The U.S. edition
of The Dead will hit stores in hardcover on June 14 (same day as Carte Blanche).Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any immediate plans for him to pen more Young Bond novels.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)