SFSD-X

Round 5 - Notes

I read James Bond when I was at school, after seeing Dr No on the TV. A friend of mine was reading one of the non-Flemming novels (Licence Reviewed, as I recall) and I wanted to read the 'genuine' books, partly to get one up on him, if I'm honest :)

They were all scifi, of course, although the books were very much more grounded in 'reality' than the films. I liked Len Deighton and Robert Ludlem too, but the Bond books were a lot more exciting in terms of action, and of course Bond's drinking and womanising....

The title I was given was a real inspiration. Having to use the song titles, though - that was tough! I really wanted to incorporate them into the story properly, but it was too difficult for me to do it thoroughly. I managed to get one of them in ok, but the others are mostly something of a running bit of humour... The baddies in my story are a well-to-do English couple, and so they encounter these heavy metal tunes during the story and find them irritating. As does Bond and his love interest...

The scifi aspect is a virus that is to be injected into Bond, who will then unwittingly infect the victims by gaining access to an otherwise impenetrable event. The virus only becomes active after a period of time, but then suddenly comes to life, passing between members of the Royal Family and attending dignitaries at a Garden Party, where they will all succumb and die before sundown.

I wanted to have a couple of twists, like all the Bond stories do. So Bond's love interest betrays him half way through, but in the end it turns out she's on his side all along. And this one, Bond is just being used as a pawn in a bigger game. He thinks he's in control, but he's just being played by his own side. And at the same time, the baddies think they are playing him, but it's a trap for them all along.

Bella swaps the hypodermic for something harmless, but Moneypenny gives him a cup of tea that's drugged so when Charles and Patricia watch him from the roof he is staggering around, as he would have been from the virus. They trick him into going to the food stalls, where everyone else will visit and contract the virus from the stall-holders.

There was supposed to be a clue that everyone he met was 'white' - the nurse at the hospital, the receptionist at the Maslow Hotel, the guy at the table, etc. I forgot to make that clear enough, I think, but it was quite a subtle clue anyway.

I was planning on having Bella do something clever with computers at some point later on, but didn't have enough words in the end to work that in. And I wanted to leave a clue about her mother being killed in one of the terrorist attacks but that didn't work out either.

It was really difficult as well to have the scenes change between Bond and  the other parties. I learned a lot trying to do that - the difficulty is getting the timing right, because some of them are happening simultaneously. I don't know if that's confusing on a first reading; I suspect it is.

The biggest plot-hole, I think, is how Charles and Patricia end up choosing Bond for their plan. Did they already know he was an Agent, and if so, how did they engineer him meeting them at the cafe? It probably would have been better for him to meet Bella in the bar before going to the cafe, and she steers him there. Or maybe for them to follow him to the cafe and join him after he sat down.

I don't know if it works - I needed more words really, but at least I tried!

Great fun to write, lucky again that it was a prompt that I was going to enjoy writing! I think my writing in this is probably better than the other stories in the challenge. I gave myself a lot more time as well, so it's a bit more polished, with fewer typos and so on...

Influences? Well it's the whole Bond franchise of course! There's not much room for anything else!

Only one more to go - boo hoo!!