SILVERFIN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (A James Bond Adventure #1) by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker

 


Published by Disney Hyperion Books in 2008

Silverfin is the first of 9 books in the Young Bond graphic novel series. Bond's parents are dead due to an accident during while exploring. His aunt and uncle (a former spy) have sent Bond to the super-elite boarding school Eton College (ages 13-18) which has long been known as a school for multiple royal families and future military and political leaders. 

One of James Bond's signature lines being used
as he arrives at Eton.

Bond makes one really good friend and also one really devoted enemy who really tries his best to be James Bond's bully. When the term is over, he goes home to the family manor in Scotland and, as happens so often in teen movies and TV shows, he finds out that his wannabe bully lives fairly close by. In this case, the wannabe bully's family just bought a manor in the area. That could be rough - but it turns out that this manor is thought to be the source of a lot of strange activities that have been going on in the area and Bond wants to check it out...

The only real problem that I have with this graphic novel is that it is incredibly fast-paced. Bond makes a friend at school - all we know about him is that he is smart, nice, a bit pudgy and from India. What else about his schooling at Eton? There seem to be a lot of physical contests. I assume that Eton had something to do with Bond's adult adventures.

I also assume that the writers of the first book wanted to emphasize the action and that required a Bond-type villain for Bond to fight and that required the plot to move very quickly in order to do some literary world-building to set the scene. It might have been better to build the world a bit more and then have a small confrontation at the end with the hint of an even larger confrontation to come. But, that's neither here nor there since this book was printed 13 years ago.

All that being said, it was an entertaining story. Notice my complaints with the story are only that it was paced too fast - the underlying story is solid and full of good characters. Kev Walker's illustrations are almost always clear and easy to follow and the multitude of new characters are easy to tell apart. 

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SILVERFIN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL (A James Bond Adventure #1) by Charlie Higson and Kev Walker.

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