What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
Der Gigant
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
>
SOLVED. Adult Fantasy, Thriller. A Spy, Secret Agent is friend of James Bond, trapped on an island during mission, gets transformed magically, maybe Bermuda Triangle or/and maybe Atlantis - read late 1980ies to mid 1995 so published surely before 1996. [s]
Serendi wrote: "Maybe something from this list?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_..."
Checked the list again, no, sorry, but thanks for trying. While it has satirical elements, it is not a parody - I hope I am using these words right, not to muddle the matter further... A lot of books in the Wiki sound like a parody.
Trying to find it with a search engine ( mostly Google ) and going through lots of lists ( even based only on publisher ) did not work for me. The classification of the genre is difficult, today I would say Fantasy, but then it was published it was something like Thriller, Mystery or SF.
Might put that on my TBR-list, but major plot-points are missing. And I know Dirk Pitt, having read at least one or two books by Cussler, he fits the hero type and in fact during searching for my book Cussler popped up a few times, not sure which books.But genre is correct, mixing normal fiction-mystery with SF/Fantasy, so you are not far off, the direction is good.
Sorry, but this is not the book I am searching for.
A bit early, but BUMP nonetheless.I will bump this a second time in 30 days, if I remember, then switch to 90 days.
Oh, and I really, really like to do a database search or go through lists, but so far nothing popped. But if someone finds a good list or different search terms or a better (public) Database, I am all for it, to learn it. And I know the basics of SQL.
Mod
Google search by site using "site:amazon.com" or "site:goodreads.com", for example
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Search...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Search-B...
http://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch
https://www.librarything.com/tag/keyw...
http://books.google.com/
Other sites I've used or heard about:
http://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/searchAd...
http://www.oldchildrensbooks.com/book...
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Searc...
Novelist Plus
http://www.fictiondb.com/search/searc...
http://www.coverbrowser.com/
@Kris, I've never seen oldchildrensbooks site before. Looks like a great resource. Ingo, do you know if the book was part of the James Bond canon/world? Maybe a spin-off or something?
Remember anything about the cover?
Ingo, do you know if the book was part of the James Bond canon/world? Maybe a spin-off or something? No, I am not quite sure, but I think I would have found it if was listed as belonging to the world. It was not on the two wiki-lists mentioned in the other messages. Basically I thought that someone else would mention it as a nice read to other spy-novel-readers.
Same could be said of a spin-off. I went through a lot of hits with "Bond", but stopped somewhere as most where the better known Bond-books/films again and again.
And I tried to drill down the search with lesbos, Amazon (women) or Bemuda-triangle, no success.
Remember anything about the cover?
No, sorry. The edition I read was a cheap paper-back, as mentioned in German and yellow cover, but the pictures or sometimes art on the front these kind of books (Ross Thomas was published like this in Germany, during the same time-frame, when I read him) had not much if anything to do with the story, usually some guy with a pistol or gun in his hand, sometimes flagged by stunning woman, but that description would fit to a lot of books I read during that time. And it might not even be true for this book, I can honestly not remember that cover.
It also just a guess, that the book might be written originally in English (or if not, translated to English), I may be wrong there and
was only published in German, although for some reason I am quite sure that was not the original language.
(edited) Forgot to say thank you: Thank You!
Kris wrote: "Ingo, here are some sites and searches that I useThanks, I will look into it and try the searches, probably during the weekend. I will report back.
Kris:Still going through the searches, have not tried all yet.
As I have one more book I am searching for, I am using search terms for both books (the other one I will put up for search here later in the year or then this one is solved).
One problem when finding too many hits, I see no good way to set a "from - to" time period for publishing.
And for anyone in the developing business: it would really help for a search with a lot of hits, if there where ways to sort after all fields in a 2-3-stage way:
Fields - 1st Author, 2nd Publisher, 3d Title to give an example
And if I a search with many hits can be drilled with a second search, searching only through the hits from the first search.
Bump! Next Bump will be in ca. 90 days, I do not think this will be solved soon. I will try to search actively for it during these 90 days, and report back.
Bump!I must admit, and feel deeply sorry for that, that due to some other things (like reading books and a computer problem which costs me 2 weeks to resolve) I did not manage to actively search for this book, also because I feel I looked deeply in a lot of lists, and without another hint I cannot narrow it down.
Bump! I will probably switch again back to 30 day bumping.
Not the exact date, but nearly 30 days, so nonetheless: bump.
Xmas bump! Merry Xmas to all. I will probably use the time between Xmas and New Year to update my read books (have 20-22 not yet entered / reviewed in Goodreads) and try again to search deep in the tangled Interwebs for this one. Still following this group, and I still hope to solve this sometime or get it solved with your help.
Thanks to this group for lots of additions to my TBR-pile.
Merry Christmas to you as well. Here's a little extra bump for your search. Good luck with it in 2016.
I am still hanging on with you. Hopefully an answer will arrive soon.
Last bump was late, so this is a few days early, sorry for that but in a few days it is Easter and I dare not forget the bump during the feast.Happy Easter for those who celebrate.
Mod
The men (both James Bond and the MC) became women. Not sure how, I think it was just happening without explanation, like magic.And I think in the end they decided to stay on that island, a bit like HEA. For this I think I would say it is genre-crossover, part spy-novel, part fantasy (paranormal).
Not sure, how long the transformation men to women takes, but it was not from one second to other, more like days or weeks.It may be that first, the MC did not recognize James Bond in female form.
Guessing, I would recognize the author name when I see it, I searched again through lists (Wikipedia writers for a few countries).No hit, or rather too many (and I guess most being wrong genre).
If someone has an idea how to narrow the search, probably with additional information, I would like something like the following idea and tried this at one of the links (Library of Congress), but without success, although different books popped I had not seen before (James Bond Jr.):
Search information I would like to have to narrow it down:
- Country of the author (from a list to avoid mistakes)
- Timeframe from 1978 to 1996 published
- Genre (from a list to avoid mistakes)
The results should list all books or a clickable author to list all books by that author. A short description or keywords would also be of help if the title is not enough or too generic.
If something like this exists without registration and/or paying for it, I have not found it yet, a pointer in the direction or a search example would help me a lot.
Being patient by nature I do not mind that the two year anniversary is coming up in two months and I am willing to spend a few hours searching, drilling down in lists, but all I see is more Bond, which does not really help.
Bump for the two years anniversary, a few days late.
Was the James Bond character having that exact name?I searched for this in Google Books using words in Russian and I came across: www.worldcat.org/title/ostrov-bezmiat... ("Остров безмятежных: политический гротеск-фантазия" "Виктор Скорняков" in Cyrillic).
It is probably not your book (given that I can't find any translations in English or German and it's 95 pages), but just in case:
В порту Сьюдад Буэна Суэртэ, столице и единственном городе острова Таракании, было шумно и людно. В толпе, заполнявшей тротуары и мостовые, громко перекликались, гоготали, жестикулировали. Публика здесь ходила не...
In the port of Ciudad Buena Suerte, the capital and only city of the island of Tarakan(?), it was noisy and crowded. In the crowd that filled the sidewalks and roadways, echoed loud, cackle, gesticulating. The audience went here not)
Во-вторых, не забывайте, что вы теперь состоите на службе у Ее Величества Королевы Великогренландии и. значитесь у нас как тайный агент АйАйАй, - Джемс Бом, с опознавательным номером 0-5-25. О-Пять-Двадцать пять..
Secondly, do not forget that you are now in the service of Her Majesty the Queen and Velikogrenlandii. So we have a secret agent ayayay - James Bong, with identification number 0-5-25. O-Five-Twenty-five ..
(I translated these excerpts with Google translate so it's probably not perfectly correct).
@Ayshe:This looks promising, as far as I can see from the translation with google, but I cannot find a book in English nor German, but I guess they may have changed the authors name a little. Will go to bed now and do a deeper search and report back in a day or so.
@Shonari:
basic idea from the blurb is ok, and timeframe fits, and it was published in German translation. Bought the ebook in english and will look into it, it seems like a nice read. So thanks, and I will report back, wether it is the book - though I guess not.
@AysheStill searching. The 95 pages listed for the russian book does not feel right, but I would like to see more of the plot in english or german before ruling it out. As it has been between 25-35 years most I remember is guesswork and not too reliable, it may be that the first secret agent is not named James Bond but a variant of that, like the mentioned James Bong. It may not even be the Bermuda Triangle. But the search for the missing male agent and then (view spoiler) stayed in my memory, so I think this really was the main part of the plot.
Also check out the Death Merchant series by Joseph RosenbergerAnd maybe this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Ingo, it occurred to me that if the James Bond was present with that name, the James Bond novels copyright holders should have been contacted before publishing it, and maybe you could try contacting them? (I don't know how and this may not be useful idea either, but again just in case).It may happen to be a book for which no plot details are available online, but either way don't lose hope.
Thanks for the idea, but as I am not entirely sure about the name I will try that when all other roads are closed - given that this is now a search more than 2 years old, it might be anther 2 or 3 years before I consider that. And thanks for the hope, yes, I am rather patient: the last book I searched for without Goodreads was And to my nephew Albert I leave the island what I won off Fatty Hagan in a poker game ... and after finding it, it took me another a few years till I found one which was cheap enough under Us$ 20. So I am used to waiting.
Took some time to read (try to read, then FF skimming) the Matt Helm Book The Intimidators is not the right book, some elements are there, Bermuda, parts of the plot, but the style is not gripping enough, sorry to say so, even though it was a long shot, I really tried to like it. Also, as I have seen some German translations, which where abridged (Ross Thomas, and even Bram Stokers Dracula), I took that into account then skimming through the book.
Thanks for the suggestion.
As for the russian suggestion, I could not find more in German nor English, so I am reasonably sure, this is not it. Maybe part of plot was copied.
Bump late, still searching.
Last XMas Bump (cue Wham), last bump for 2016. During the XMas holidays I hope to search again deeper.
2017 first bump.Searched a bit today and stumbled over another author, Chingiz Abdullayev (Azerbaijani writer) who (to me) is unpronounceable, and while he should have been translated (that info is somewhere, with 17 languages mentioned, maybe here on Goodreads), I could find neither German nor English translations (again!). And no descriptions, except that he was on lists with secret agents / spy literature, possible Bond connection, but maybe very lose - same job, trade etc. . So nothing definitive, again a long shot into the fog with an unseen target.
What's the Name of That Book???
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When did I read this? During possible late 1980ies to mid 1995 (sorry cannot be more precise).
It was a german translation of a book by an author with a complicated name, hungarian/russian/czech-sounding. It is a guess that it was cheap bestseller, maybe a one off for the author, I cannot remember having read more than this book from him.
It was a yellow paperback, from one of this three German publishers:
Goldmann, Heyne, Ullstein.
As it was translated into German, I guess it could have been written and published in English or maybe translated in English. I would guess that it may be a cheap mass-market paperback found at an airport for reading during vacation. It was not thick, I would guess 200 pages, rather less.
The main character is in the same business as his friend James Bond.
Not sure, if it is the same service (Secret Service, now better known as Mi6) or the CIA. It is written in a style similar to Ian Fleming. but crossing over to Fantasy / SF.
The mission where he gets lost or kidnapped may be that James Bond is missing and mets the same fate as the hero of the book. As there are some explicit sex-scenes, it is targeted to an adult audience.
It may be more satirical in tone than a gritty spy-novel, a hint of Douglas Adams Dirk Gently Tones is what I remember, but there are some deaths, I think and may be some disturbing killing scenes.
(view spoiler)[The island where the hero gets lost on may be Lesbos and/or lying in the Bermuda Triangle, it has magical powers so the hero is trapped there. It may be that both James Bond and the hero have been kidnapped and brought to the island by a group of women, an Amazon-like Warrior-group (some former secret agents). After staying on the island for a certain time, both get transformed one after another. (hide spoiler)]
If I remember anything else, I will add it to the comments.