Double-Oh Trek
- Thread starter Tom Riker
- Start date
I believe that the New Frontier/Double Helix novel Double or Nothing by Peter David is a near straight Bond homage.
Zero Sum Game is very much a spy thriller, though it's a lot more morally ambiguous than a Bond movie (don't know about the Bond novels).
Really? I always thought "Our Man Bashir" was rather blatantly a Bond pastiche, what with the women with sexual-innuendo names, the elaborate deathtraps, the tuxedoes, the villain named Dr. Noah, and so on. Although the title is of course an homage to Our Man Flint, the 1966 Bond parody starring James Coburn.
Our Man Bashir did piss off MGM over its Bond similarities. They sent a "strongly worded letter" to Paramount over it.
Of the Section 31 novels, the TNG entry Rogue would be the one for espionage thrills.
Though it's not Star Trek (or even a spy novel), I'd also recommend Greg Cox's novelization of Underworld which has a very Ian Fleming-esque flavor. Even if you've seen the movie a couple of times, the novel's quite rewarding.
Yeah it's conceptually a Bond thing in intent, but it just has more of an MFU vibe to me - probably because Bashir and Garak make a pair, whereas Bond works alone in general
If we're broadening it beyond Trek, I'll throw in Wolverine: Road of Bones by David Mack, which is basically Wolverine as Bond.
Oh, yes, an excellent choice.
I'd say that Zero Sum Game is more John le Carré than it is Ian Fleming.
I'd say the Bond novels are rather amoral.
And for anyone that has not read them, they are among the best novels I have ever read - put aside any preconceptions you may have from the movies and try them.
And yes, I know Fleming is not exactly viewed as a great writer.
I didn't say amoral, I said morally ambiguous. Those are very different concepts. Ambiguity means uncertainty, lack of clarity, doubt about what the right answer is. If you're amoral, then you have no doubt or lack of clarity about a moral question; you just don't care.
That's what I was getting at. The literary Bond is a blunt instrument largely untroubled by what he does, which isn't very nice.
^And my point is that Zero Sum Game is not like that, because Bashir is anything but untroubled by the moral compromises he's forced to make.
True - he's not ideal for that sort of mission. I would be surprised if it didn't have some effect further down the line.
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Espionage thriller is certainly what I had in mind when I was writing Cast No Shadow, but I'd say it's much more in the mode of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels than Fleming's Bond.
Una's excellent Hollow Men is totally Trek through a John le Carré lens, though, and well worth a read.
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