Here's part of the press release. If the links aren't working, you can find larger images HERE.
I had planned on getting the whole set when the books were released on Oct. 3. Then I could toss out my mismatched, ragtag collection of Fleming books for a more elegant set with matched trade dress. That happy result would overcome my disappointment that this version of the books are abridged for modern sensibilities. (No, I do not enjoy reading racist material. But I prize originals over bowdlerized versions for historical accuracy.) And there would be supplemental material, too!
But now the covers are revealed and ... eh. Dr. No in particular looks just plain juvenile. The Casino Royale cover is virtually generic, when the book offers a profusion of images specific to that story. And the cover of For Your Eyes Only is ... an eye? Five stories to choose from, and the image represents none of them, and instead lazily chooses from the generic title? Meh.
Will that dissuade me from getting my long-desired HC set? Probably not. I'm too old to wait for the next iteration, and the completist disease rages unabated within me. But it has taken the wind out of my sails, and my intent to order the books now is crushed. I'll have to get used to the idea. Or maybe I'll just save that money for retirement.
What say you, my fellow agents?
Memorandum sent 12/08/2024
Classification: Gold level (For Your Eyes Only)
To our agents in the field,
Today, August the twelfth, marks precisely 60 years since the death of Ian Lancaster Fleming – journalist, father, ‘the world’s worst stockbroker’, and of course author of the beloved stories detailing the exploits of our very own James Bond.
To mark this date, and celebrate Fleming’s legacy, Ian Fleming Publications are pleased to reveal the covers for their new hardback editions of all fourteen of Fleming’s original Bond adventures, created by legendary designer Michael Gillette.
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Out on October 3rd, the new hardbacks will all include not only brand new cover art but also exquisite endpapers, also by Agent Gillette, and a range of specially-selected archival material relating to Ian and his time writing his 007 adventures. Pre-order your copies via ianfleming.com, and do remember to clear some space on your shelves.
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Replies
If I was just now discovering James Bond, I would read them all via my public library, but none of those covers thrill me. While my paperbacks are mismatched too, I've hung on to them since the 1970s and see no reason to replace them. Besides, there have been several times when the e-books were sold for only 99 cents each on Amazon, so I got a complete set circa pre-2020s; along with Flemings' The Diamond Smugglers, Thrilling Cities and Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang to read and reread when the urge hits me.
What say you, my fellow agents?
Eh. I feel pretty much the same as you. I won't be buying them, however. I'm not even tempted.
Several years ago there was a new set of James Bond paperbacks I admired, but I did the "responsible" thing and gave them a pass. I was going to recommend buying those over the new HCs, but after a minutes-long search I couldn't find the set I remembered. I did find a few others sets, though, some of them crazy expensive, some of them stupid expensive. I honestly think you'll be happier if you give them a pass.
You offer words of wisdom, my friends.
I think the current paperback cover designs are better looking than the hardcovers. I have thought about buying the paperbacks but even those are pretty darn expensive.
Oh if only I hadn't sold off my complete set of Sixties/Seventies vintage Signet paperbacks at a garage sale!
"Oh if only I hadn't sold off ..." Man, the number of times I've said that to myself.
Amazon has three paperback sets available. There's this one at $165:
There's this one at $450 (boxed set):
And there's this series, selling indivdually at wildly different prices:
I rather like these covers -- the design is consistent on all, with action scenes in the zeroes on an otherwise monochrome cover. I haven't looked up all 14 books and priced them, but the few I've seen run about $15. I would estimate a full set to cost around $200.
If I was just now discovering James Bond, I would read them all via my public library.
When I was growing up, there was a public library within bike distance of my house (about two miles, I'd guess), and it just never occurred to me to pedal over there and read all the Bond books, or all the Tarzan books, or all the Jules Verne books, or whatever they had.
There are plenty of reasons for that. For one thing, I had no internet to guide me as to what all books had been written, and what order to read them in. I could go the library and read A Princess of Mars, and see in the card catalogue that ERB had written other Mars books, but the catalog would only list the books that library had on the shelves. Is that all of them? What comes next? Are these "Pellucidar" things related? I would have no way of knowing, and it's not like any of the adults in my orbit had any knowledge (or interest) in fiction of any kind.
Plus, I was a pretty active kid who looked to join whatever "the gang" was doing on Saturdays and it wouldn't have occurred to me sit inside and read when the sun was out. Further, when I had spare time to read prose -- I made time for comic books! -- I had plenty of school assigments I was always behind on. I was a quick reader, but books like Moby Dick were slow going, with all the unfamiliar terms, and every other chapter devoted to "how to whale" and breaking the narrative flow. I practically had to go to the library for Shakespeare, to find an Oxford dictionary with all his Early Modern English terms in it.
That being said, in retrospect I should have gone to the library for the Nerd Canon, instead of laboriously scouring bookstores for the next chapter in whatever series I was reading and buying the paperback. I'd have caught up on Fleming, Lieber, Moorcock, Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, ERB, REH and others much sooner, and saved myself a lot of money and time. It's not like I kept any of those books. (I did read the Poe ouevre in the school library, as well as the Norse Eddas and some other material found there.)
If I could have seen the future 50 years ago, that's what I would have done. Alas.
I think that first set (@ $165) is the one I searched for, unsuccessfully, yesterday. That's less than 12 bucks each. You should buy that set if you want to own them.
I have all the books already in some form, and what I wanted was a handsome HC set that would replace all that crap (some of which is so old and so poorly stored by its first owner that it actually smells bad) and I could display. I was really looking forward to this set, and was broken-hearted when I finally saw the covers. I'd have happily shelled out whatever it took if they had just used the latest paperback covers again, which are very nice. But I'm not inclined to pay similar money for NOT what I want. So I'll probably just stick with the crap I have.
Yes, I am grumpy today. I feel like throwing it all away rather than sparing the room for it.