 SILVERFIN. "Young Bond" Book One. Charlie Higson. Hyperion Books for Children; 2005. This is the first in a projected
series of novels for young adults about James Bond as a teenager. Here he is a pre-World War Two schoolboy at Eton who comes
afoul of a nasty American boy and his even nastier father, Lord Hellebore. It turns out Hellebore is a madman who hopes to
create a master race of artificially strengthened superhumans. A by-product of his research is a bunch of killer eels who
attack one poor boy in the prologue and create the mystery that sends a vacationing James and his friend Kelly (the brother
of the missing boy) on a mission to infiltrate Hellebore's sinister castle. The story, while well-written, seems cobbled together
at times from comic book and mad Nazi cliches but it will probably entertain the teenage reader. Adults will find the book
not quite as juvenile as expected, although not nearly as good as the original books for grown-ups. To be fair, however, Higson
doesn't deprive the reader of the harrowing sequences that Bond readers have come to expect: an excellent sequence has young
Bond trying to escape from an underwater enclosure as his breath rapidly runs out and the eels begin to draw closer... Good
show! [It must be said, however, that the book doesn't have the thrills or pacing of, say, an above average Hardy Boys adventure.]
Higson explains how Bond got his scar and “begins” the tradition of women characters with odd monikers by introducing
an independent-minded filly named “Wilder Lawless.” One applauds the publisher for having the courage to set the
series in the long-ago past, remaining faithful to Ian Fleming's vision. One problem is that the series is aimed at teenage
readers, yet it's during the teenage years that most people begin reading the regular books, so this series, while welcome,
may be redundant. Future volumes would be welcome, but let's hope there will be new editions of the adult 007's adventures
as well.
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