This could be forgiven if the hero at the heart of these scenes were at all interesting. But Deaver’s take on Bond manages to be both overly reverent and overly generic. Bond is the world’s ultimate man: He showers every morning in scalding hot water until his skin peels, then shaves using a razor made with “a handle of light buffalo horn.” Out on the job, Bond is always in perfect control of the situation; any mistake that he makes is quickly justified as either intentional or forgivable. But this perfection is precisely the problem. You can be in awe of Deaver’s Bond, but you can never really relate to him, and because of this, he comes off as unconvincing and one-dimensional.

Despite removing many interesting elements of the classic Bond, “Carte Blanche” has, unfortunately, kept some of the more unpleasant aspects of the original series intact. The book is astoundingly condescending toward women, portraying female characters only in relation to how attractive they are. Even the strong women in the novel come off rather poorly, as their strength only matters in terms of how it looks against Bond’s. In a characteristic scene, Bond notes that a charity leader’s “cool, efficient handling of the incident … made her all the more attractive.” And of course, no matter what, all of the women are at least a little in love with the super-spy.

But perhaps this insensitivity is the necessary consequence of the novel’s funneling everything and everyone in its world to focus on Bond. The book speeds from scene to scene, puffing up Bond while his spectators stare in awe. And in this race to capture the glory of Fleming’s hero, “Carte Blanche” fails to realize what made the original Bond so memorable in the first place: his humanity. Bond was always interesting because he was not just some sort of demigod. He made mistakes, was forced to rely on assumptions that often turned out to be false, and at times, even blew entire missions. Without this humanity, the novel loses its ground and drifts into an overlong, overexcited fantasy.