Ian Fleming would have been 100 years old in May of this year, but he sadly passed away in 1964 at the age of 56. He published 11 different James Bond novels after creating the character in 1953’s Casino Royale, and also published two collections of James Bond short stories. However, his most famous character has lived on despite the death of the creator, and after 22 movies he shows no signs of slowing down. Here’s a look at the ways in which Bond has continued to exist in the book world through different several different writers, reboots, and reimaginings.
Comic Strips
Bond began living in other published forms while Fleming was still alive. In 1957 he was approached by the British newspaper The Daily Express, who wanted to collect the Bond novels into comic strips. Fleming initially felt that these wouldn’t reflect his writing very well, but eventually gave in and Casino Royale began appearing in the paper in 1958. They would eventually publish every Fleming Bond novel and the Kingsley Amis Bond novel Colonel Sun as a comic strip, and then began publishing original Bond stories.
Today Titan Publishing has collected all of the Fleming comic strips into the graphic novel format, and are now working on collecting the original Daily Express Bond strips into another collection.
The Kingsley Amis Bond novel: Colonel Sun
Kingsley Amis (father of Martin) was a popular British novelist and poet who wrote two books about James Bond, The James Bond Dossier which was a critique of the Fleming novels, and The Book of Bond or Every Man His Own 007, which was a humorous guide to being like James Bond. He published this latter book under the pseudonym Lt. Colonel William (”Bill”) Tanner, who was a character in the Bond novels. Amis was a longtime friend of Fleming’s, and wrote the Bond novel Colonel Sun after Fleming’s death (under another pseudonym, Robert Markham, which was meant to be used by the publishing house Glidrose Productions to author more Bond novels using different writers). It was the first officially published James Bond novel by a writer other than Fleming.
Oddly, Colonel Sun was blocked from becoming a Bond movie by Harry Saltzman, who was the co-producer of the Bond films. Saltzman had thrown his support behind Geoffrey Jenkins’ novel Per Fine Ounce to be published by Glidrose as a Bond book. When Glidrose rejected the book, Saltzman got his “revenge” by later blackballing Colonel Sun.
The Lost Bond Book: Per Fine Ounce
Speaking of Per Fine Ounce, it has an interesting history. To this date, no one knows what happened to the finished manuscript once it was rejected. The Ian Fleming Estate may have a copy in their archives, but no one seems to know where it is. The first four pages of the book where found in 2005, and they reveal that the 00 branch has been closed down, and that Bond is working on his own. However, not much else is known about this book. It may have been written in 1966, and possibly based on a story idea that Jenkins and Fleming may have worked on together. The world may never know what it held, if they haven’t found the full copy by now, it’s doubtful they ever will.
003 1/2: The Adventures of James Bond Junior
In 1967 Glidrose tried to create a spinoff book property about James Bond’s nephew, despite the fact that he’s an only child in the books and the movies. Inexplicably, his nephew is named James Bond, and is a junior at that, so how people thought this made any sense at all I’ll ever know. In the novel, young Bond and his girlfriend foil a plan by some bank robbers, and the local police captain takes all the credit for their work. It didn’t end up being successful, and thankfully James Bond Junior died a quiet and sad little death.
The John Gardner James Bond novels
In 1981, Glidrose Productions approached British author John Gardner and asked him to take over the Bond franchise as author, and he ended up writing 14 original Bond novels, as well as the novelisations of two of the movies, License to Kill and GoldenEye. It’s somewhat ironic that he wrote more Bond novels than Fleming ever did, although he was never that happy with writing books based on a character that wasn’t his own. Gardner’s novels were my first written exposure to the literary world of James Bond, and I loved his writing and his updated (for the 1980s) Bond. Icebreaker, his third Bond novel, is worth finding in paperback and checking out. Sadly, none of Gardner’s novels have been made into movies yet.
The Raymond Benson James Bond novels
In 1996, John Gardner announce that he was retiring from writing James Bond novels, and Glidrose Productions (later changing its name to Ian Fleming Publications during this next tenure) approached American author Raymond Benson to continue the series. Benson was a somewhat controversial choice because he was an American, and he also chose to ignore most of Gardner’s continuity and strike out on his own. He wrote six Bond novels and several short stores from 1997 to 2002, and also wrote novelisations of the other three Brosnan movies; Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day.
Benson came to the attention of the Fleming estate by writing a guidebook to the world of Bond (much like Amis did), and by writing a module for the James Bond roleplaying game. This should give hope to all of you writers of fanfic out there. An anthology containing three of Benson’s Bond novels and a Bond short story were just released last month.
Charlie Higson’s Young Bond novels
Since 2005, Charlie Higson has written five novels about “Young Bond,” aimed at young adults, and they follow Bond during his days at school as a teenager. These are period novels in-line with Fleming’s continuity, meaning that they take place in the 1930s. These novels have proven to be wildly successful, especially in the UK, and graphic novel versions of them just started coming out. Higson announced that By Royal Command, which came out in September of this year, would be his last Young Bond novel, and it remains to be seen if the series will continue with another writer. I’ve read the first novel, SilverFin, and it is a lot of fun.
Samantha Weinberg’s The Moneypenny Diaries
In 2005, the first of line of books based on the famous secretary Miss Monneypenny appeared. Written by Samantha Weinberg as Kate Westbrook, these novels followed Monneypenny’s own adventures and were set in-continuity with the Fleming novels. As a publicity stunt, the novel was published as a “true story” based on a diary discovered by the “real” Moneypenny’s niece after her death. There was so much confusion over whether this was true or not that The Sunday Times launched an investigation and eventually discovered the truth. Weinberg even revealed that she wore a wig and colored contact lenses at press conferences while in her role as Westbrook. James Bond would have been proud.
Three Moneypenny novels have been published so far, and Ian Fleming Publications now recognizes them as “official” James Bond books. We also get to learn Moneypenny’s first name finally: Jane.
The Sebastian Faulks / Ian Fleming novel Devil May Care
In 2007 Ian Fleming Publications announced that they had hired British author Sebastian Faulks to write a new book to be published in 2008 in honor of Ian Fleming’s centenary. The book is also the first novel since Colonel Sun to feature Fleming’s version of Bond, and is set in-continuity in 1967. Faulks has stated that the novel is “about 80% Fleming and about 20% me.” The book came out in May of this year, and was also issued in a special leather-bound Bentley edition, using the same leather tannery in Italy where they make seats for Bentleys. It came with a tiny pewter Bentley model car, Bond’s ride of choice in the books, and it could have been yours for a mere $1500. Sadly, it quickly sold out.
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