Recently, I discussed metafiction in works by Ian Fleming, Alan Moore and Poul Anderson. Having quoted from You Only Live Twice, I then reread the opening chapter of this eleventh of Fleming's twelve James Bond novels.
"The lights of Yokohama glowed a deep orange along the horizon, and a slight smell of the harbour and the sea came in through the wide-open partition leading on to the garden."
-Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (London, 1966), p. 18.
I quote that sentence because Poul Anderson fans will recognize that it could easily have been written by Anderson. I make some comparisons between this novel and Anderson's second last Dominic Flandry novel, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. (Flandry cameos in The Game Of Empire but that novel is about his daughter.)
(i) Both Bond and Flandry are secret agents.
(ii) Flandry serves the Terran Empire whereas Bond serves what had been the British Empire.
(iii) Fleming's description of Japan is like Anderson's descriptions of other planets.
(iv) Bond's wife had been murdered; Flandry's fiancee is murdered.
(v) Bond has his showdown with Blofeld; Flandry has his showdown with Aycharaych.
(vi) Both series approach their conclusions.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And the first Flandry stories were written and pub. before the first of the James Bond books.
Sean
Post a Comment