They’d do well to learn from this and have Bond being Bond and introducing new characters which break from the white male stereotype. La trama principal es muy atractiva, el mundo está en peligro, y algunas secundarias también muy interesantes. The villain is more recognisable: a Moore-era megalomaniac for the era of climate crisis and disaster capitalism.

Now Ian Fleming Publications Ltd has licensed a series of three books expanding the canon universe of Bond and the Double O section of MI6 and Kim Sherwood has taken on the tasking of brining these operatives to life. I didn't know Bond would not turn up and waited patiently page after page, but there are just uninteresting 00s in this book.

There is an appropriately megalomaniacal villain here as well as an organization of evil that rivals SMERSH. It’s tradition at the end of an actor’s run as James Bond for speculation to begin about who will be cast in the role next and how to update the series with the times. Ondanks de kwaliteiten van dit boek denk ik eerder dat Kim Sherwood de perfecte kandidaat is om het James Bond-universum de doodsteek te geven. Based on the 422 pages, we're looking at either 1,200 pages to find him or perhaps approximately 800 to find him and another 400 of vengeance with Bond and the team? Troppi personaggi e trama confusa: la dote di sintesi di Ian Fleming è lontana mille luci nelle troppe parole inutili e nei momenti d'azione banali da film di genere anni Settanta.

The James Bond continuation series has had quite a run since Ian Fleming's first novel Casino Royale in 1953. The start of a brand-new trilogy following MI6’s Double O agents with a license to kill, that blows the world of James Bond wide open! In Double or Nothing there’s a little less jet-setting and glamor and a little more tactical spec-ops. The prose is overly "flowery" and some of the similes and metaphors are nonsensical, a notable example of which is when a tiger's footfalls (pawfalls? She draws characters and names, plot tropes, back story and plants 'easter eggs' from the entire 70 years of Bond history.The story focuses on three 00 agents and on the staff back at headquarters (some of whom will be familiar, in name at least, while others are new). There’s easter eggs, wisecracks worthy of the man himself and clever nods to the franchise throughout – all in all, it’s a 004 read. He changing perspective from the various 00 agents does more than one occasion muddle the water and makes the story flows less than wanted I am sure. I assume Sherwood thought this was clever, so we have satellites named Icarus (Die Another Day), a celloist assassin (The Living Daylights), a casino in Macau (Skyfall) and on and on.

Given the advertised premise of this series, "Bond is missing and the other 00s must find him" I was predisposed to dislike this book. Bashir is introduced in an action-packed opening sequence as he attempts to extract a female scientist from the hands of a shadowy organisation, Rattenfänger Private Military Company, a posh description for a bunch of ruthless mercenaries who come complete with full bureaucracy and death benefits. The most recent M is now head of MI-6, but they are not the same as Vice-Admiral Miles Messervy who was the first M that Bond reported to in the original canon. Self-reflexivity is almost the default for James Bond these days (and he was always a reflective sort – a poet even, as someone here notes), but Sherwood utilises those concerns about the character (his bravado, his loneliness, his position as a champion of a lost empire) in the construction of a real mystery around his disappearance. Lastly, "pulling the taffy" (to quote the American idiom) - 007 is not recovered at the end of the book.

After all, no Bond book – original or spin off – would be complete without an absurdly rich, morally challenged, over-the-top antagonist, with a strange taste in household pets. I was trepidatious that a large cast of characters and intersecting plot lines would overwhelm the story, but it all works and makes for a story richer than just one man’s adventure. Even though James Bond was missing throughout the book, his shadow still looms over all the characters.