James is an interesting character. I liked the camaraderie between him and his group of Eton friends. The whole Eton thing confuses me but it confuses James too so the explanations are straightforward. I love Charmian. Such an unconventional woman for the time but so strong and brave and resilient and intelligent. James reminds me a lot of Alex Rider. Friendly but not really having many friends. Strong and resourceful but kind of quiet and shy. Kelly is funny. The plot is interesting, although pretty disturbing - but I like how James goes about everything - he just takes everything in his stride.

First time through I rated four stars but it's really more a 3.5. Either way, they're a really great action packed tale. ( )

I have read the first three books in this series and unfortunately Silverfin is not a great start - the second book Blood fever and the third book Double or Die are much better. I think this is because (SPOILER ALERT) I think the evil scientist and rich bully intent on taking over the world trope has been done to death. But I digress....
In this first one we meet the young James Bond in the year after his parents' death being sent to Eton. He struggles a bit to settle but finds his place with his two Mess mates and the fact that he is an excellent runner. There are such vivid descriptions of Eton and all its quirky traditions that Higson must have either attended or done some serious research on the school. James is there in the early 1930s and is being brought up by his Aunt and his ailing uncle Max. James goes to stay at Max's cottage in the remote Scottish highlands and discovers the noxious bully he has been trying to avoid all term actually lives in a castle next to the village. On the train up, James also meets a boy called Red who thinks something sinister has happened to his cousin at the castle. (The readers know that something has happened because the opening passages are about Red's cousin illegally fishing on the castle estate). James and Red set out to investigate...cue the trope...

Boys will like this book because of the mystery and action and also because it shows the great James Bond started out just like every other school kid - feeling a bit like the odd one out . James starts to develop a risky side to his personality in this book which comes to the fore in the next. ( )

I read this with my ten-year-old son over the course of about a month. Every night or so, we'd read a chapter together. It's a good book for that kind of thing: it's readable, the dialogue is decent, the plot has a few surprises in it that made us laugh, and my son can get in on the cool of 007 now, while he's too young to watch Skyfall. It's clean as a church bulletin and Higson does a good job of presenting the young Bond with just enough irony to make us enjoy watching him as a kid. There's no child version of M., Moneypenny, or Q., he doesn't have ay gadgets, and he doesn't have the kind of understatement that would mark him as an adult. All that is to the good. My son wants to read the next one. ( )

I like to Scottish location but Higson is still finding his feet with this adventure so its not the best of the Young Bond series - that title would go to "Blood Fever" or "By Royal Command".
When the idea of a teenage James Bond was first raised (in an effort to capitalize on the Harry Potter success), the notion was met with a mixture of abject horror from some Bond fans and insatiable curiosity from others.
I fell squarely in the latter and so it was a no-brainer that I was going to order a copy of the UK paperback version that was released a whole two months earlier than the novels arrival in the US. I'm glad I did.
Taking his inspiration from the brief slivers into James Bonds formative years that Fleming alluded to in his original novels, and injecting some very sly references that offer a foreshadowing of his furure exploits, British author Charlie Higson gives us an entertaining and fast moving "boys own" adventure. The book, one of the longest of all the Bond books at well over 350 pages, bears more than a passing similarity to the kids adventure novels that Enid Blyton was writing over a half century ago.
The young Bond novels start with James arriving at Eton in the 1930s and, after a particularly horrifying prelude, for the first 100 pages we are treated to a selection of shooting, swimming and cross-country competitions. All that give early promise of Higsons ability to build up tension and keep us turning those pages one after the other. The first part of the novel also gives us an early glimpse at the main villain of the piece - a rich American arms dealer, some Scottish Laird - Lord Randolph Hellbore and his spoilt brute of a son George.
Following a fortuitous meeting with a young Irish street kid named Ned Kelly on the train up to London the second part of the novel deals with James arrival in Scotland, the introduction of the first "Bond girl" and James' aunt Charmian and Uncle Max. Then the third part of the novel details goings on at the villains castle lair on Loch Silverfin.
For the first time in a Bond novel our hero is referred to in the first-person and this book is a must-have for all self-respecting James Bond fans. One of the chapters of particular interest to Bond fans is the fleshing out of Bond's learning the news of parents death in a climbing accident. This is a well known piece of biographical data first revealed by Fleming (almost in passing) but here we get a whole chapter devoted to the flashback).
One thing that I really appreciate is that there is NO young Q or young M in this initial outing, Many feared after the inane James Bond Jr. that Higson would fall into this trap but he thankfully avoids it.
Higson proves to be an inspired choice to write the Young Bond series and its interesting that both he, and previous continuation novelist John Gardner, both chose a Scottish Laird for their main villain. ( )

It's easy to imagine how this young man became the dashing, fearless James Bond we all know so well. Typically for Bond, the plot was quite gruesome involving a very nasty group of villains. The story begins with Bond's introduction to Eton sometime after the Great War. It was interesting to read about the traditions at Eton. I enjoyed this YA book with its page-turning excitement and will follow up with another in the series. ( )