Taking on one of fiction’s all-time greatest heroes is no easy task, but Anthony Horowitz has proven to be the man for the job. Seeing this inexperienced side to Bond is refreshing and finally provides the true origin story that was always missing ... Horowitz has crafted an authentic, action-packed Bond novel that even the Fleming faithful will devour.
Horowitz has...come up with an excellent villain: a tremendously corpulent Corsican drug-dealer named Scipio ... Horowitz is good at action scenes, which he helps along with emotive adjectives ... Inevitably, the prose throughout is more verbose and cliched than the brutal efficiencies of Fleming, but Forever and a Day is still an enjoyably compact thriller, with an absolutely killer last line. Scattered throughout the book, too, are some pleasingly echt Bond moments, as when he tells one of his captors: 'It would be nice to know your name when I kill you.'
Sadly it’s very formulaic. Anyone who has read more than a couple of the post-Fleming Bond novels knows that we are going to get references to his knitted tie, love of scrambled eggs and heather honey, Scottish housekeeper, scarred cheek, moccasin shoes… There’s (much, much) more but that’s enough. Then there’s the customary sequence of scenes ... Exposition is clunkingly shovelled in ... There are moments so clunsy, you groan ... Still, if you can put all that behind you, it is a fun read—the well-worked-out plot is nicely twisting, even managing a surprise at the end, and there’s also some original, unpublished Fleming material in one chapter. Horowitz excels at action sequences and more than a third of the novel is taken up with car chases, shoot-outs, fights and explosions, so it’s by no means all bad.
There is a splendid plot twist at the end. It's all great fun, but of course it is not Fleming ... There are several wince-inducing one-liners of the sort that made Sean Connery a star ... Horowitz has put together a fast-paced, skilfully written derivation on a theme so familiar most of us could hum it in our sleep. It is briefly intoxicating and unsatisfying, leaves you wanting more, and for serious Bond junkies is the next fix in a long tale of addiction.
Forever and a Day pushes all the Bond buttons. The requisite staccato sentences, the larger-than-life characters, the vivid details of geography, and the action-packed chase episodes ... In Scipio, Horowitz has created a proper Bond villain ... Like most Bond novels, Forever and a Day is heavily plot driven, with dollops of character, and hefty action sequences. Reading any of Fleming’s novels underscores how closely Horowitz adheres to the sense and the style of the original texts ... Forever and a Day is true to the Bond character — not the Bond of the movies but the Bond of the books. You don’t know Bond until you’ve read Horowitz’s highly imaginative manifestation. This is Bond 1.0. Accept no facsimiles.
...a bold move ... This explosive adventure is Horowitz’s second Bond book, after Trigger Mortis (2015), and marks him as fully worthy to carry on the Bond tradition. Fleming would be pleased.
... of all the Bond books that have come out since Fleming’s death, this one may hew closest to the originals. The racy English sports cars, check. The sultry femme fatale, check. The oversize (both in girth and in ego) villain, check. Oh, and here’s a bonus: For those who have ever wondered why Bond drinks his martinis shaken, not stirred, this book is where you will find the answer.
... a shrewd and thoroughly entertaining yarn ... Horowitz sticks close to old-school Bond, and overall the spy remains a two-fisted force of nature — utterly suave, worldly and able to bounce back from even the most brutal of beatings. Nonetheless, the author has great fun occasionally subverting classic Bond tropes.
Horowitz draws on well-established facets of Bond's image: his gambling, his fondness for women and alcohol, his ability to keep a cool head under pressure ... The narrative slows down at times to provide exposition, though the last several chapters—involving an American tycoon, a sumptuous yacht and a Corsican mobster who speaks only via his translator—barrel along at a breakneck pace. Longtime Bond fans or those who simply enjoy a good thriller will find much to enjoy here, including a martini or two (shaken, not stirred).
Horowitz unfolds this tale in prose as knowingly workmanlike as Ian Fleming’s, and readers hungry for details of Bond’s origin story will find out why he demands his martinis shaken, not stirred. But although he conscientiously hits all the obligatory notes, taking care not to outshine his master, there’s nothing here that would make the unwary suspect how fiendishly inventive Horowitz can be when he’s not laboring in Bond’s shadow ... Crisp, unpretentious, and bound to please the legion of fans for whom a world of Bond is never enough.
