The Best of BOND; Let's get this over with

Finished up WITH A MIND TO KILL.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty compelling read. It is 100% Ian Fleming’s Bond, and though the prose is not completely the same (obviously), Horowitz takes great care to present a very plausible version of the character immediately following the events of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

Bond’s inner life is presented well, particularly during a lengthy section in the middle of the story where he’s psychologically brutalized at the hands of a Soviet mad doctor (the one who brainwashed him to kill M before GOLDEN GUN starts). Yet none of this ever reads like a bummer, or like wallowing in misery; it’s a fast-paced journey through Bond’s psyche that works incredibly well.

Toss in a couple very good setpieces (an early one, where Bond is “rescued” by the Soviets in London, is particularly vivid), and you’ve got a very enjoyable yarn.

I was surprised when Horowitz announced that this would be his last.

I'm sure he doesn't want to get burned out on the character, but it's a little bit of shame, because he really gets Fleming's Bond.

I just hope they find another steady author to use for a handful of books. The one-offs they did with Faulks, Boyd, and Deaver were interesting, but on the whole I'd rather have an on-going run.

I'm super curious about the spin-off trilogy that kicks off this fall too.

This is the ideal way CGI should be used in Bond where it’s about working on the details rather that making it the center of a set piece like DIE ANOTHER DAY mistakenly did. Sort of like how older films replaced backgrounds with matte paintings/plates. As a kid, I never realized the shot of the Monterey Bay Aquarium was a special effects shot just so they could fill in water and have the San Francisco skyline in the background.

According to this tweet by MI6-HQ, the Dalton rereleases have done very well at the UK box office, ranking #5 (TLD) and #6 (LTK). The top four being GF, TSWLM, OHMSS, and LALD.

Nice to see Dalton, and OHMSS, being held in high esteem after all these years, at least as far as the UK is concerned.

https://twitter.com/jamesbondlive/status/1554949901363990528

From the same guys that did Goldfinger 64.