Customer Reviews
A passable imitation of Ian Fleming - By: N. Young, 01 Sep 2008 
I suppose that Penguin, who publish the novels of the late Ian Fleming these days, had to do something to mark the centenary of his birth. And indeed they have - they've commissioned a modern-day author to write a brand new James Bond adventure.
They have chosen Sebastian Faulks - & rather than attempt to do what the movies have already done & relocate Fleming's spy to the modern day, Faulks has taken this achetypal 1950s fictional secret agent & only moved him on a few years - to the mid-60s, where we find him on leave while recovering from his last Fleming adventure, & feeling over the hill & generally past it.
Faulks does a reasonably good job of writingin the style of Ian Fleming -with all of the good & bad things that that implies. Bein no doubt that this is the Bond of the novels rather than the movies. There are some very Fleming-esque touches here - the villain with some sort of physical deformity & an irrational yet all-consuming hatred of Britain, a tennis match that is reminiscent of the golf episodein 'Goldfinger', a far-fetched plotin an exotic location (well, almost exotic - the action takes us from Paris to Iran over a decade before the fall of the Shah) & a love interest that verges on mere adolescent fantasy. What takes this beyond Fleming is that the love interest is more than mere window-dressing; no lesbian gangster waiting to be 'converted' to men here, but a stand-alone character who the reader is never quite sure about - whose side is she actually on? Far from me to spoil that little sub-plot.
In short, 'Devil May Care' emerges as being not a bad stab at all at writing the sort of Bond novel that Fleming himself was capable of writing when he wasin good form; it's always worth remembering that, while some of his stories were very good, some were decidedly bad.
Faulks is of course not the first author to have a go at writingin the style of Ian Fleming - not that anyone remembers Kingsley Amis writing under the pen-name of Robert Markham these days. Like Amis, though Faulks does much better when he's writing as himself rather than imitating the style of someone else.
Painting by numbers......... - By: Peter Crofts, 30 Aug 2008 
Devil May Care (James Bond)
Deeply disappointing. There is very little to recommend this book. Indeed it is so light on plot that not reading it means you will not have missed anything! The plot lifts from other Bond stories e.g. meeting the villian over a game of tennis is a lift from Goldfinger & golf & the beautiful girl seeking help to rescue her sister from the clutches of the baddie was the premisein Thunderball I seem to recall, & there are many other variants on well trodden Bond plots. In writing a new novel you would think coming up with a new twist or story line would be vital but not here. No wonder Hollywood has declined to take up the movies rights - there's nothing new here. What a wasted opportunity.
Bond is Back - By: Roland Hulme, 19 Aug 2008 
Ian Fleming's last James Bond adventure - a collection of short stories including Octopussy & The Living Daylights - was published posthumouslyin 1967.
That wasn't the end of 007's adventuresin print. Kingsley Amis wrote a well received sequelin 1967 - `Colonel Sun' - &in 1981, Glidrose Publications hired thriller-writer John Gardner to reinvent Bond for the modern era.
What followed were 14 increasingly dreary & unbelievable books which saw an aging Bond gamely struggle through a litany of dumb adventures (the highlight being the rescue of Margaret Thatcher from a hijacked aircraft carrierin 1989's Win, Lose or Die.)
American thriller author Raymond Bensen was hiredin 1996 to continue Gardner's legacy & the resultant products were even worse - the popularity of the revived film-franchise meant that Bensen cheerfully threw Fleming's cast of characters out of the window & adopted the movie ones - like an `M' based on Judi Dench's character.
Things looked a little brighter when British comedian Charlie Higson got the go-ahead to write a series of `Young Bond' booksin 2005 - based on Bond's adventures when he was a teenager at Eton (although Bond was actually expelled from Eton & attended Fettes for the majority of his school career.)
Higson's books were true to Ian Fleming's timeline, setin the thirties, & marvelous reads that appealed to adults as much as boys. The start of a great revival?
Apparently so. In 2007, celebrated British author Sebastian Faulks was chosen by the estate of Ian Fleming to write a new Bond adventure to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth. The result? Devil May Care.
Devil May Care goes right back to Bond's roots. It's setin 1967, following immediately on from James Bond's adventuresin Jamaica battling against murderous hitman Scaramanga - The Man with the Golden Gun.
The familiar setting is reassuring. This Bond is one you can believein - young, vibrant & capable. Sebastian Faulks recaptures the voice & feel of Fleming's writing. Succinct, yet detailed (Faulks, like Fleming himself, was a broadsheet journalist) while confident & experiencedin his tastes & personality (whereas Bensen & Gardner's Bond felt arrogant & opinionated.)
The plot is pure 007. James Bond is balanced on the knife-edge of resigning from the service (a theme examined by Flemingin several books) but is lured back when M needs him to investigate pharmaceuticals giant Dr Julius Gorner - a typical `Bond baddie' with a deformity known as `main de singe' (which means he has a monkey's pawin place of his left hand.)
Bond's investigation takes him first to Paris, then to Persia & finally deep into the heart of Soviet Russia as he foils Gorner's typical `Bond baddie' plan to spark off World War Three.
It's a solid little adventure story, similarin feel to Fleming's earlier, `better' books like Moonraker & From Russia with Love. Intentionally or not, Faulks also includes some of Fleming's trademark lazy errors - such as some glaring inaccuraciesin his description of Paris & some rather shaky plot devices designed to move the story forward (although Gorner `recruiting' Bond isn't nearly as silly as the titular bad guy coercing Bond to do his paperworkin Goldfinger.)
It took Sebastian Faulks six weeks to write Devil May Care & it took me three days to read it. Allin all, I was very satisfied - a wonderful (and long awaited) return to form for the Bond literary franchise & a welcome addition to my bookshelf. Now the only question that remains; will Faulks be writing a sequel?
license suspended - By: limarian, 18 Aug 2008 The only excuse for writing another Bond book would be to do it brilliantly. This wasn't. It's a straight forward 'formula' piece of work with an eye to a film adaptation at some pointin the future. The characters & situations cobbled together from Flemming's novels. It lacked any originality or excitement really. You could list the things you remember from the films - an 'Odd Job' character, a paranoid world domination egomaniac, a sports tournament where Bond stands to lose a lot of money, a suffocation sequence, something underwater, a factory somewhere with some weapon of mass destruction, a friendly middle eastern character who gets killed, taxis, dancing girls, etc etc - it's a list strung together & linked with a pretty thin sort of plot. I read all the Bond stuff when i was a teenager & i was thrilled. It was fresh & pacey at the time. This isn't. If it had been a straight attempt at a spy thriller without the 007 reference it would have sunk like a stone.
Slick - By: Sunglasses, 18 Aug 2008 I thoroughly enjoyed Devil May Care & just did not want it to end. Having not read any other Bond Novel, I very much had the filmsin my mind & this definitely harks back to the Sixties feel of the Connery years & that's what makes it so slick - good old fashioned Secret Agent heroicsin a simple non-PC world. Well done Sebastian Faulks
