well, it feels like quite some time since i last gone done one of these posts. as in, a post about reading some novels, look you see. not just one, or as many as three, to give the usual statement. rather two (2) i have read, and thus feel compelled to give comment on them here. calling this any sort of word that would mean review feels plain wrong.
so, to do this as i usually would, an image (yes, in this instance provided by the forum or means of my new vhs camcorder thing) of those novels that i have read, followed by a brief overview.
and in starting from the left, Licence Renewed is a 1980(ish) "official" James Bond novel off of John Gardner. this was bought off of nostalgia for a different Bond novel by the same writer. alas, i can find no post about it, which is quite odd as i seem to recall waffling on. no matter, it was all right, even if it did put me off reading another Bond straight away, as was intended. eventually i ended up reading (to the right of picture) The Bullet That Missed, being the third Thursday Murder Club off of that tall one formerly appearing in Pointless and occasional backing dancer for Sonia. quite frankly a superb novel, and if you have not done so already please read the first two (2) so you can enjoy this.
i am unaware if this is really required for the ten or dozen or so people who(m) read this (and thank you for doing so), but to err on the safer side of safe, please take as a given, or otherwise assume, that one of them fancy *** SPOILER WARNING *** things exists from here on out.
plot? well, it's a James Bond novel. actually, or as it happens, it is now a fair few months since i read it. from what i recall usual Bond stuff. it was all to do with some eccentric billionaire nuclear physicist (of which there are more in the world you might think) who had obtained some sort of Scottish title of "Laird" by dubious means and had some sort of plan or other to blackmail the world into his new, quite class way of making nuclear power. as one might suspect or even expect, various authorities around the world do not view this as quite class, and so Bond is sent off to go and sort it all out.
wish i could remember where and when i wrote of it, but this (of course) did not have the nostalgia appeal of a different John Gardner Bond novel, Role Of Honour, or Role Of Honor if American. that book i commenced reading on holiday (Portugal, i think) in the 80s, didn't finish it, was delighted to find a copy of it at some stage in the 2010s. blimey. in comparison Licence Renewed all felt a bit pedestrian and not as enjoyable, but it was far from bad. should you be enthusiastic about reading novels what have got James Bond in them, well, go for it with this one. and that's probably all i can say of it, since i jettisoned most information with the (lavish) plot summary. see, told you that one can't really call these reviews. unless you like rubbish reviews.
my lack of enthusiasm for Licence Renewed and my insistence on finishing novels what i start to read, no matter how long it may take, is probably behind my lack of reading much of late. that and an unexpected decision i made so casually i didn't notice it to be somewhat more sociable with my verk colleagues, who(m) i often end up staying in the same places as. my intention was to read a new Bond off of Anthony Horowitz, so as to make a "double Bond" review thing, but ultimately i was no longer in the mood for such. perhaps i will read it soon.
now, then, exactly where the shelf was where i saw it has become ever so slightly a forgotten thing. which, of course, makes declaring the provenance of it somewhat tricky. i would imagine that i got it off of Tesco, since there are no stickers, and perhaps as one of their "book of the week" things, with it being at some discount or other. yet there remains every chance, or possibility, that it was somewhere else. not Morrisons, but oddly with this third one they have now started selling all Osman novels, when they (for whatever reason) declined to stock the first two on release (hardback or paperback).
plot? even with a spoiler warning in place i am reluctant (reticent, even) to give much away. but yes, the usual gang of four what make up the Thursday Murder Club, along with an ever expanding set of friends, set about solving another "cold case" murder. from the past, for they have not got the skill to sort out future ones just yet. but some matters from the previous one (The Man Who Died Twice i think it was called) linger...........
just brilliant, really. if the first novel took me by surprise (i expected little from yet another celebrity writing stint) and the second felt perhaps not quite as good, this one is quite the fun read.as it happens, it makes that second one, with recollections and some follow up, feel a lot better than it perhaps did at the time. if that makes sense. probably not. a rather nice touch was some landmarks in that there London (innit) place what i had been to, and it seems had spoken to some of the same people what the writer did as he gone done research. bring on book number four, please.
right, that would be about that. oh, as for the "40th anniversary edition" business which you can kind of see on the cover of Licence Renewed, i think it amounted to a forward by someone or other that i skipped over. two (2) novels that i have no regrets about reading.
off i go to the next books to read, then. i am sort of hoping to get through another two (2) in the next six weeks, give or take, which is to say finish the second in such time. after that i will in all likelihood be using my fancy "ebook" thing for a brief period, but more on that later. rather than earlier.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment