The Book Bond

LICENCE RENEWED and FOR SPECIAL SERVICES now shipping

2012-01-31T08:44:00.000-08:00

The first of the new John Gardner UK paperback reprints, Licence Renewed and For Special Services, are now shipping from Amazon.co.uk.

Icebreaker was originally scheduled to be included in this first release, but it will instead be in the next batch of four books due out May 10. The plan is to reprint all the John Gardner James Bond paperbacks with new cover designs by Dan Mogford. The scheduling has been a little fluid, but here is the release schedule as it stands today:

OUT NOW:

Licence Renewed

For Special Services

May 10, 2012:
Icebreaker

Role of Honour

Nobody Lives For Ever
No Deals, Mr. Bond

August 2, 2012

Scorpius

Win Lose or Die
Licence To Kill
Brokenclaw
The Man From Barbarossa
Death Is Forever

November 8, 2012
Never Send Flowers
SeaFire
GoldenEye
COLD

Visit our special Gardner Renewed page for links and release date updates for all the Gardner-Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

Dan Mogford on designing the new JOHN GARDNER paperbacks

2012-01-30T09:15:00.000-08:00

Dan Mogford, the artist behind the new paperback cover art for the John Gardner James Bond reprints, has posted a blog about how he got the job and approached the new designs. He even gives us a first look at the full Licence Renewed cover art front and back.

Click to enlarge

Read "James Bond Series Designs" at Dan Mogford Design & Art Direction.

The first two John Gardner paperback reprints, Licence Renewed and For Special Services, are due for release in the UK on Thursday.

Check out our special Gardner Renewed page for links and the latest release dates for all the Gardner-Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

Thanks to Luke Freeman for the tip!

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART V

2012-01-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

In Command

In many ways, Young Bond 5 was always the book most anticipated by fans. Not only would it wrap up the loose ends of the series, but it promised to reveal the details behind the infamous "maid incident" referenced by Ian Fleming in James Bond's obituary in You Only Live Twice.

"When they first approached me and said they wanted a series of five books to deal with the Eton years, in studying Fleming and reading the obituary, I knew it would have to lead up to the incident with the maid," author Charlie Higson explained in 2008. "Obviously, the implication in Fleming’s original obituary was, basically, he shagged her and got thrown out of school. But I thought it would be fun to do a little bit more with it and say more was going on. It had to do with national security and protecting the Royal Family."

The author decided to name the maid Roan Power and make her Irish, a first for a Bond Girl. Higson, who is a quarter Irish himself, explained, "I wanted her to be closer to home, and I wanted there to be a reason for her to be threatening the English national security. I could have made her English, but by making her Irish, it gave her an automatic reason to hate the English and the whole kind of English upper class system."

Higson would also bring back a villain from SilverFin, Dr. Friend, whom he had first considered bringing back in Double or Die. "I knew I always wanted to bring him back at some point. He’s an interesting character, and because he was kind of secondary in the first book, it was nice to bring him back and put him into a starring role."

The working title for Young Bond 5 was The Shadow War, a title that found favor with the fans. However, publisher Puffin liked Diamond Heart and proposed an idea in which the hardback would have an inset diamond in each cover. The diamonds would be plastic or crystal, but one copy would have a real diamond. However, Higson put his foot down, feeling this was "purely marketing and cover design-lead title idea, and it really doesn't have anything to do with the contents of the book."

The title they settled on was revealed on March 6, 2008 -- the same day Higson completed the manuscript -- and was one the author considered very Flemingesque: By Royal Command. (The Shadow War would ultimately be used as the title of a Young Bond online RPG game launched to promote the release of the book.)

Originally Charlie Higson had planned his fourth book to be a snowbound adventure, but when he sent Young Bond to Mexico in Hurricane Gold, he decided to work his Alpine action into By Royal Command. The specter of World War II and the Cold War also loom large over this novel. By Royal Command is full of political and historical references. Bond even meets a young Queen Elizabeth -- a scene inspired by a real-life encounter involving Charlie Higson's father-in-law -- and encounters the Prince of Wales, a scene Higson reworked after a discussion with the Fleming family.

"I had [the Prince] being quite distant and awkward with James. Because he had no kids of his own, I’d written a character who couldn’t relate to kids. But then the Fleming family read it and, actually, there are members of the Fleming family who knew the Prince of Wales and they said, 'No, no, he wasn’t like that at all. He was actually very friendly with kids, he got on very well with us, he was a very friendly character.' So I had to rewrite it."

Higson admits he had to "tone down" a couple other scenes having to do with the Royal Family because their friendship with the Flemings. "I had to be a little bit careful about what I said. But I still think I’ve screwed up my chances for a knighthood."

With By Royal Command Higson brought the Young Bond series in for a picture perfect landing, touching down cleanly and evenly on every aspect of James Bond's past and future life. It's a surprisingly profound, introspective, and somewhat tragic book. At the same time, By Royal Command doesn't have the level of gruesome violence that had become a hallmark of the series, and even contains a love story.

"I have tried to give it some emotional depth," Higson explained before publication. "It’s a great way to finish off the series, and at the end of it we really feel that James is poised for the next phase of his life."

But as Higson was finishing up the manuscript, tragedy hit the Young Bond Team. Kate Jones, who had brought Charlie Higson to the attention of Ian Fleming Publications and had worked so hard launching the series, was again diagnosed with cancer. Charlie Higson recalls the details:

"Kate left IFP while I was still working on the series to take up a job as a literary agent at ICM. She was very happy there and quickly made her mark in this new field. Luckily she agreed to look at each new Bond manuscript and make her comments for which I was always very grateful, but then, while I was out of the country working on By Royal Command, I heard the devastating news that Kate's illness had returned out of the blue and that she had gone into hospital. By the time I got back to England she had sadly died. This was a huge shock to everyone and it was an enormous tragedy, not only for her family and many friends, but also for the literary world. Kate was a truly brilliant editor and I'm sure would have become one of our biggest literary agents. Some measure of her importance is the fact that all the major British newspapers ran obituaries (they are all still available online). Like many other authors I think I can say that I wouldn't be where I am today without Kate."

Kate Jones

By Royal Command was released in the UK on September 3, 2008. Charlie Higson launched the book during an appearance at the Edinburg Book Festival. Puffin had kept the cover art, which featured a wrap around Union Jack, a secret until publication. As part of a tie-in promotion with the Young Bond online RPG, The Shadow War, all copies of the book contained a secret hidden codeword, "Fastnet", concealed in one of the Young Bond logos on the back boards. However, 20 copies contained a different codeword that promised to unlock more game information. It might have been a little too well hidden, because to my knowledge, no-one ever came forward with the alternate word or revealed what it unlocked.

By Royal Command would share the spotlight in 2008 with the Centenary James Bond novel Devil May Care written by Sebastian Faulks. Devil May Care was released on May 28, 2008, the same day as the paperback edition of Hurricane Gold, and Higson found himself doing as much promotion for Devil May Care and the Centenary events as he did for his own books. Faulks returned the favor by acknowledging the Young Bond series when 007 visits the Paradise Club in Iran and is "reminded of a similar club from his childhood." This was a nod to Bond's adventure at the Paradice Club in Double or Die. "I was very touched by that," says Higson. "I didn’t know he was going to do that."

By 2008, The Young Bond series had sold over a million copies in the UK alone and had been translated into 24 languages. The series even found its footing in the U.S. under Disney-Hyperion, who reissued the books with fresh new cover art by Kev Walker (Owen Richardson would provide the final art for By Royal Command). And even though By Royal Command marked the end of Higson's planned Young Bond series, it was not the last Young Bond publication.

As early as 2004 it was announced that a graphic novel adaptation of SilverFin would be created by artist Kev Walker. Artwork was previewed in new editions of the Young Bond paperbacks, and in October 2008, SilverFin: The Graphic Novel finally appeared to excellent reviews. Charlie Higson and Kev Walker made joint signing appearances at Forbidden Planet in London and at the London MCM Expo. Disney Books would published SilverFin: The Graphic Novel as both a paperback and hardcover in 2010, where it was showcased at the mammoth San Diego Comic Con and aggressively advertised in Marvel comics.

On October 29, 2009, Puffin released Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier, touted as "the complete and definitive guide to the world and adventures of Young Bond". The book contains sections on the characters, weapons, vehicles, etc., from all five books. But most exciting was that it contained a lengthy original Young Bond short story by Charlie Higson called, A Hard Man To Kill.

A Hard Man To Kill is a bridge story taking place between Hurricane Gold and By Royal Command and chronicles the adventures of Bond traveling back to England aboard the French Ocean Liner Colombie (a real ship of the time). Higson introduces an excellent new villain, Caiboche , and brings back Wilder Lawless from SilverFin who is transporting horses. A young Rene Mathis even makes an appearance. It's a terrific story, made even better with original illustrations by Kev Walker (the last work he did for the series). However, with no plans for a U.S. release of Danger Society, this could prove to be Young Bond's most elusive adventure for readers to find.

In 2009 The Herald Scotland reignited talk of a Young Bond movie in a brazen article by Brian Pendreigh that reported "secret discussions" where going on between the Fleming estate and Eon Productions ["James Bond set to go back to Scots roots… for his first kiss"]. Pendreigh stated that Wilder would be played by an unknown actress and that Higson had suggested actors Dougray Scott, Iain Glen or Timothy Dalton for Uncle Max. But Higson shot the story down as "Total bollocks. There is no film being discussed. I never made any casting suggestions."

However, while the topic may not have been films, there may have indeed been discussions going on between IFP and the Bond film producers that year. Keen-eyed fans noticed a change on the copyright page of new Young Bond publications. Now Danjaq LLC was shown as the "registered owner" of the individual book titles and the Young Bond logo, which were now being "used under license by Ian Fleming Publications." While I've never been able to get to the bottom of this, it appears Danjaq bought Young Bond outright, if for no other reason to control all incarnations of James Bond.

Even before the release of By Royal Command, talk had begun about the possibility of extending the series. Says Higson, "I always had a storyline that would run over five books and work as a complete series. But, you know, they say it’s done very well, done very well for IFP, done very well for Puffin, done very well for me, so obviously there is a great desire between the three camps to do more books."

Higson, who had embarked on a new series of horror novels for Puffin (currently up to four books: The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Sacrifice), shared his ideas during a book signing for the U.S. edition of By Royal Command in Washington D.C. on May 29, 2010. He confirmed a Young Bond Series II, should it ever happen, would be a trilogy of books set at Fettes, the school Bond attended after Eton, and for which Fleming provided tantalizing information in the same obituary that had guided the first series:

"Here the atmosphere was somewhat Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were rigorous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by nature, he established some firm friendships among the traditionally famous athletic circles, at the school. By the time he left, at the early age of seventeen, he had twice fought for the school as a light-weight and had, in addition, founded the first serious judo class at a British public school. - Ian Fleming, Chapter 21, Obit, You Only Live Twice"

On July 8, 2010 Charlie Higson revealed on Twitter that he was headed to a meeting "to discuss the future of Young Bond." As of this writing, the results of that meeting, and the future of Young Bond, is not yet known. But the series has not gone entirely quite. In 2011, SilverFin was republished in a new Special Edition with added material and all five Young Bond novel are set to be re-released in April 2012 with terrific new cover art (below).

The upcoming 2012 reissues

In 2011 IFP and Jeffery Deaver rebooted the literary James Bond as a 21st Century hero in Carte Blanche. So does this mean they have moved on from period Bond adventures, which was such a key part of the Young Bond concept?

I put the question that question to Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications, who sent back this encouraging response:

"Don’t worry we haven’t left the past behind entirely, but it’s nice to do something different – and keep everyone guessing!"

My guess is that Young Bond Will Return.

Click here to revisit all five parts of The Secret History of Young James Bond

The SILVER BEAST has been saved!

2012-01-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

According to our friends at From Sweden With Love, the promotional Saab 900 Turbo from the John Gardner era, "The Silver Beast", will remain in Trollhättan, Sweden as part of the intact Saab Museum collection. As we reported last week, the entire collection had been put up for auction as part of Saab's recent bankruptcy. But according to a post on the From Sweden With Love Facebook page...

"We have just received the good news that all cars in the SAAB museum (incl. "Silver Beast", the SAAB 900 Turbo as driven by James Bond in John Gardners first three novels) will remain in Trollhättan, Sweden. 500 offers from all over the world came in but thanks to the local community, Saab AB (the defense and security company) and the Wallenberg family (who used to own the car factory), the museum will be intact. The entities mentioned paid 28 Million SEK for the entire lot and rescued a piece of Swedish industrial history from being departed all over the world."

Great news for Bond fans, Saab fans, and the city of Trollhättan!

CARTE BLANCHE paperback released today in the USA

2012-01-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

The U.S. mass market paperback edition of Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver is released today by Pocket Star. Cover art is similar to what was used on the U.S. hardcover. The book can be purchased for $9.99 on Amazon.com.

Amazon.co.uk also shows a Carte Blanche paperback with a release date today in the UK by Hodder and Stoughton, but I admit I'm totally confused about what's happening with the UK Carte Blanche paperback. Amazon showed a release in November (and I was told it was in stores), yet this appears to be the same book. There's also another UK paperback set for May.

No word yet on any new Bond novel, although I'm hoping that we'll see at least a Skyfall novelization in November.

Click here to read my review of Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver.

Happy New Year Competition from John-Gardner.com

2012-01-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

The official John Gardner website john-gardner.com is holding a "New Year Competition" offering fans a chance to win the first five hardcover editions of the recent John Gardner James Bond reprints from Orion. Just answer 10 (pretty challenging) questions about the books, and you'll be entered into a random drawing for one of three sets. The competition closes January 31.

CLICK HERE and good luck!

JAMES BOND UK first edition paperbacks 1955-1979

2012-01-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

Here are the James Bond UK first edition paperbacks spanning 1955 (Casino Royale) to 1979 (James Bond and Moonraker). These are all from my own collection. I thought it might be nice to not only show to the covers of these book, but the backs as well. Notice that the back of Moonraker refers to the filming of Casino Royale? Click on each image to enlarge.

It might surprise you to know that the rarest and most valuable book is actually On Her Majesty's Secret Service (followed by Octopussy). For whatever reason, the later books are very hard to find as true UK paperback firsts. The key is to find copies without a price on the cover. Check out page 122 of Bond Bound and you'll see that even their OHMSS -- which is captioned as a first edition -- has a price on the cover.

I should also point out that my You Only Live Twice, which is noted on the copyright page as a first edition, came with a wrap-around dust-jacket featuring the UK tie-in movie art and says on the back "Not for Sale in the UK", so I'm not sure what the story is with this edition. Also, my Live and Let Die is from 1957, but I've never seen an earlier edition so it's possible it was published out of order and this was the true first.

I'll take us into the 1980s and '90s next.

James Bond's SILVER BEAST is for sale

2012-01-17T07:57:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: It appears the city of Trollhättan has prevailed and the collection, including The Silver Beast, has been saved!

The promotional replica of James Bond's famous Saab -- the "Silver Beast" -- is going on the auction block along with the contents of Saabs motor museum in Trollhättan, Sweden. The sale is part of Saab's recent bankruptcy.

James Bond drove the Saab in the first three John Gardner continuation novels, License Renewed, For Special Services, and Icebreaker. It's always been a favorite Bond vehicle of mine (check out my overview of the car here), especially as I had my own "Saab 007" in the '80s. Wish I could buy it!

Click to enlarge

The car is noted as being as being "a little rusty, will not start, not in a good condition." Mileage is 60,417. However, it does come equipped with the original bulletproof glass, smokescreen equipment, and digital head-ups instrument display from the Saab 37 Viggen fighter and attack aircraft.

Bids are being accepted until this Friday. However, my tipster tells me there's a chance that the collection and museum could be purchased and saved by the City of Trollhättan and the local municipality.

You can find details of the sale and full auction catalog here.

Thanks to Rikard Andersson for bringing me the news and translation.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART IV

2012-01-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

Unused Kev Walker cover art

Gold Standard

In early 2007, right on the heels of the release of Double or Die, Bond fans were surprised to learn that the next Young Bond novel would be released in the summer of that same year. Until then, the series had been on a one book per year schedule.

"Actually, what happened was Book Four was not meant to be out until next year," author Charlie Higson explained in 2007. "I had various other writing jobs, so I delivered Book Four early to Puffin, and pushed it through to make sure it was finished well in advance so that I could clear the decks to get on with other writing before I started on Book Five. But, of course, publishers being publishers, they got the book early and said 'Well, we’ll publish it early!' So they brought publication forward by about four or five months, which basically means that I’m four or five months behind on Book Five."

This time Puffin couldn’t keep the title under wraps, which leaked on Amazon a few days before the official announcement on April 24, 2007 of Young Bond 4: Hurricane Gold.

"Well, as with all the other titles, it came very late in the day after many, many different titles," says Higson. "In fact, my working title for the book was Lagrimas Negras, which was very quickly rejected by the publishers as being incomprehensible to English readers. But the publishers had got very excited about the idea of gold and they said 'we'd love to have gold in the title somewhere' because they were working on this concept of making a gold book."

Original press release

As the book featured Bond struggling amid the ravages of a hurricane, Higson suggested a combination of these two major themes. "It’s quite a nice combination for a title. So I suggested [Hurricane Gold] to them and they jumped at it, at which point, as with SilverFin, I had to go back and work it into the book a bit."

The all-gold hardcover (a first for the series) would also have a wrap around banner with the title. Along with the original press release came a photo of Charlie Higson holding the book. But on this photo we see a banner with the silhouette of a crocodile, which continued the creepy critter themes of the other covers. However, it was soon decided this spoiled a surprise in the book, so the crocodile was eliminated come publication. (Happily, the crocodile would return with a vengeance on the paperback edition.)

Another surprise was the book's location. Higson had previously said that Book 4 would be set in the Alps. But the teaser announced Book 4 would feature "A treacherous road trip in Mexico."

Higson explained the reason for the change. "After Double or Die which was cold, grey England at Christmas, I really thought it was important to send him off somewhere hot and glamorous for the next one. And in fact, that was kind of the reaction Ian Fleming got after Moonraker. He got lots of letters from people saying 'We don’t want to see Bond in Kent. We want to see him somewhere nice and sunny.'"

For his "sunny" locale, Higson was initially torn between Mexico and North Africa. But then he discovered that Ian Fleming dismissed North Africa as a location for Bond.

"I don’t know what his objections were but he didn’t like the idea of North Africa," says Higson. "So I thought well, Mexico. And then I can start in Mexico and end up in the Caribbean. Geographically it makes sense. I thought I really had to have something in the books of the Caribbean because it was such a big deal for Fleming."

Feeling that the structure of the books were becoming "a little bit obvious that you’d have the first third of the story in Eton, and then he’d go off, out for a big adventure," Higson decided to shake up the formula in his fourth book. In Hurricane Gold there would be no scenes set at Eton. The change allowed Higson to create a faster, more action-packed novel. "I thought, yeah, let’s switch it around a bit and just launch him straight in at the beginning fully into the adventure," says Higson.

Launch he did. Hurricane Gold has a relentless pace and some truly spectacular set pieces. The book finds Bond on vacation with his Aunt Charmain in Mexico, where he quickly becomes involved with a gang of brutal American gangsters led by the villainous, Mrs. Glass.

A female villain is a rarity in a Bond novel, and, in fact, the character started out as male. But Higson decided a woman worked better and made the change. "Not during the book," he quipped. "Although perhaps he should. It’s about time we had a sex-changing Bond villain."

Another one of Higson's most colorful characters in the book is the brain damaged henchman, "Manny the Girl." In the novel it's explained that Manny received his nicknamed because his M.O. of robbing banks dressed as a woman. But in reality the name is rooted in Fleming. Higson discovered the name in an unpublished Ian Fleming notebook, among other unused gems like Betty Freshette, Pearl Dazzle, Pelikan Strat, and Doctor Thong.

The Bond Girl also sports one of the more Bondian names of the series, Precious Stone. "Actually in the first draft of the book she wasn’t called Precious, she was called Amaryllis Stone," says Higson. "I like the name Amaryllis and, obviously, there was a Fleming connection. A cousin, I think she was a cello player, who is alluded to in From A View To A Kill rather cheekily by Fleming."

However, because the character starts off as somewhat unpleasant and spoiled, IFP were a worried that it might upset the Fleming family, so Higson went searching for another name and decided Precious worked just as well.

"It’s quite good for the character, this kind of southern belle who lives with her father who absolutely dotes on, and so he's called her 'Precious' and she's lived up to her name." (Higson would later use Amaryllis as the name of yacht in his Young Bond short story, A Hard Man To Kill.)

Another nod to Fleming came in the form of the books climatic "Avenue of Death", an endurance test that recalled Doctor No's climatic maze of death. Says Higson, "To a certain extent the whole book is structured like that when James starts off, and he’s got to work his way through these series of disasters and problems, and eventually he arrives at the island and then he has to do the whole thing again in miniature in the Avenue Of Death."

Charlie Higson signing the 1500 copies of Hurricane Gold

After the success of Double or Die’s "name the book" promotion, the publishers decided to go all out for Hurricane Gold. The book itself would be solid gold in color, even down to the page edges. A selection of 1500 copies would be signed and numbered by Charlie Higson and distributed to independent bookstores with the promise that somewhere in the batch would be the desirable "007" edition. (It was ultimately discovered in a small bookshop in Lytham St Ann's in Lancashire, and sold on eBay for a tidy £156.50...to me.)

The gold book

Furthermore, the publisher commissioned "jeweler to the stars" Theo Fennell to create a 24-caret solid gold copy of the book, which opened up to reveal an inner compartment with an inlay of ebonized wood containing a secret message from Charlie Higson. This special Gold Book would be displayed at the Ian Fleming Centenary exhibition at the National War Museum in 2008.

The Hurricane Gold launch event would even out shine the Double or Die launch. Once again Waterston's Piccadilly would host the event dubbed "Gold Thursday." For a day leading up to the launch, actors dressed in gold costumes and face paint were planted around London with copies of the book in hand. Things kicked off behind closed doors with a photocall where Higson posed with the golden actors and members of Puffin's Young Bond publishing team.

Then, approximately 100 Young Bond fans, many dressed in gold clothes and cowboy hats, arrived to be greeted by the golden actors while Mariachi music played and hors d'oeuvres of tortilla chips and golden cupcakes where served. Charlie Higson made his entrance dressed in a gold jacket and tie, then read an excerpt from the book in which Young Bond attempts to negotiate the flooding streets of a Mexican village behind the wheel of a super-charged 1933 Duesenberg SJ, truly one of the novel's most exciting sequences. After a Q&A, during which Charlie teased the possibility of a Young Bond short story and also delivered a Book 5 bombshell (video below), he signed copies of Hurricane Gold in gold pen.

Hurricane Gold shot to #2 on the UK bestsellers chart, but was held at bay by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which kept a strangle hold on the #1 spot. Still, Hurricane Gold sold an impressive 6056 copies in only a half week of sales and proved another monster hit for Puffin.

The backlist was also proving to be gold, with Puffin releasing the first four books as hardcover "Limited Collectors Editions" signed and numbered by Charlie Higson and housed in attractive slipcases. A signed Collectors Box Set of the first three paperbacks was released exclusively through Borders, and all the titles were released as audiobooks with Charlie Higson reading the abridged versions and actor Nathaniel Parker doing the unabridged versions. There was also talk of releasing the series in Adult Editions, a plan which, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

The success of the series was also having a liberating effect on Charlie Higson himself. "It’s interesting, as the books go on, I’m less worried about pleasing the kind of James Bond purists," Higson told me in an interview on CommanderBond.net shortly after the UK release of Hurricane Gold. "Over here in England, Young Bond is very much seen by the kids as character in his own right. They’re not constantly relating it back to James Bond and the adult Bond and all that. They enjoy the books for what they are, and the character in the books for who he is. And that sort of gives me a little bit more freedom."

But then Higson gave a taste of what was to come next. "That being said, book number five probably will be the most similar in themes and plot elements to a Fleming book. And it certainly moves much more into the world of the Secret Service."

Continue to Part V

Charlie Higson delivers his Book 5 bombshell

First official image from SKYFALL (updated)

2012-01-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

Here's the first official photograph from the new James Bond film Skyfall. The English papers are all a tither that Daniel Craig is back in his baby blue "speedos". Remember back when it was the Bond girls who wore the bathing suits? Nevertheless, it's a nice atmospheric pic and a good tease.

No word yet on a Skyfall novelization, but I'm keeping my ear to the ground.

UPDATE: So it appears the above photo was not technically the first official photo, at least not in the mind of Eon Productions who today have unveiled the photo below as the "first official picture from Skyfall" at 007.com. Nice!

EXCLUSIVE: The inside story of the two DR. NO covers

2012-01-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Recently I was thrilled to get an email from Stewart Larking, the man who designed the UK cover art for the Ian Fleming reprints and John Gardner titles in the 1990s. Larking took over the Bond series from Art Director Ian Hughes after his idea of using the hardcover artwork on the Never Send Flowers paperback was rejected. Stewart was then asked to revamp the entire backlist, so he bought in artists David Scutt and Larry Rostant to work on the new cover designs. I covered the spectacular results of their work HERE -- which is how Stewart discovered this blog.

In our correspondence, Stewart was able to clear up one of the great mysteries of this series; why there are two covers for Ian Fleming's Dr. No. Stewart explains:

"As for the the Dr No cover, this was originally the spider artwork. The idea and the rough had been approved at the cover meeting. The final artwork was supplied by David, and we proofed up the cover. Then the sales director (Amanda, later to be MD of Headline) decided she did not like the spider. This was a last minute thing, and we then had to get another artist to produce the knife illustration as David was busy working on other illustrations. The knife artwork came in and we again proofed up a cover. But! The James bond trust and a few of the sales reps took against it and we then put the spider back on the book. I must admit I prefer the spider myself."

As to the knife art mysteriously appearing on the 9th edition of Dr. No:

"I think that could of been a reprint muck up. The files were proofed and approved, both covers. It was only a last minute save for the spider art after Amanda going 'Yuck! I hate spiders!' The cover film (yes it was back in the good old days) would of been held at a printer. When a reprint was put out to that printer they must of used the wrong film. So really a clerical error caused the one off."

Thank you Stewart Larking for getting in touch and for sharing with us the inside story of the dueling Doctors!

THE OFFICIAL JAMES BOND 50TH ANNIVERSARY POSTER

2012-01-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

Click to enlarge

The official poster celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the cinematic James Bond was reveled today along with the news that all 22 films will be released on Blu-Ray in October (Amazon).

UK JAMES BOND movie tie-in editions

2012-01-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

I know people have been waiting patiently for this, so I thought I'd put it up even though I don't have the time to write as much about these as I'd like. These are the UK paperback tie-in editions of the James Bond novels and novelizations.

I've included the Triad Granada's Octopussy here even though I think a case can be made that this isn't a tie-in as it makes no reference to the film, and what movie art it uses on the cover is not from Octopussy (those girls are from a For Your Eyes Only publicity still). However, it was released along with the film in 1983 and it works well as a companion to Triad Granada's For Your Eyes Only, which definitely was a tie-in.

Also, that rather unspectacular Coronet Octopussy and The Living Daylights is indeed a tie-in as it references the 1987 film The Living Daylights on the back (you can see that here). Likewise Quantum of Solace. There is also a version of the The Spy Who Loved Me novelization with a brown title (this might be Canadian). There is also a rare varient of Tomorrow Never Dies that includes Nicholas Meyer, David Campbell Wilson, and Daniel Petrie Jr. in the screenplay credits on the title page. Most editions only cite Bruce Fierstein.

The films Never Say Never Again (1983) and A View To A Kill (1985) did not receive any tie-in treatment that I'm aware of.

Click here to see the U.S. James Bond tie-in editions.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART III

2011-12-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

Name Game

Charlie Higson's third Young Bond novel would be somewhat of an experiment. First off, the book would be confined in time and space, taking place entirely in London over the course of a few days in December. It would also play host to a bold promotional idea that would excite fans, challenge the publishers, and bring some criticism from the press.

Higson explained his approach to his third book in a Q&A with fans on the official Young Bond website. "I wanted to send James to a big city, as the first two books had mostly taken place in the countryside. I chose London because I live in London, I know it well and I love it. There are some fascinating unknown corners, and I wanted to do a sort of Da Vinci Code about the city, in which James has to follow a series of cryptic clues to find out what’s going on and save the day."

Technology would also play a major role in the book, as Higson continued, "I wanted to write about computers and code-breaking, so this is at the heart of the book. Proper computers weren't built until the Second World War, but people were thinking about them in the thirties. I also wanted to bring back a character from an earlier book [Red Kelly]. It’s as different to Blood Fever as that book was to SilverFin."

Higson's working title was Shoot The Moon. "That idea of shooting the moon, of risking everything in order to win everything, seemed to me to sum up James Bond's character," he explained in 2006. "He’s willing to take risks like that and go out on a limb. I thought the title Shoot the Moon was very appropriate, but it was felt that it sounds a little bit wet. There’s something about the 'moon' sound that's a bit soppy, so that was rejected. That means that we’re now stuck in the position where we don’t know what the book will be called."

Six Days in December (referencing the compressed time frame), and The Big Smoke (slang for London), were also rejected. It was then that Puffin came on the idea to open up the title selection to fans.

The idea was proposed by marketing officer, Justin Renard, who explains, "As I was developing plans to promote the yet untitled book, there was a lot of correspondence discussing what to name it. It occurred to me that since fans of Young Bond consider him just as much a British Icon as they do James Bond, that it would be an original ploy to give them the chance to decide instead of us. I think my exact words are why should it just be to us who decide. Bond belongs to everyone. And once I pitched that initial idea, more great ideas started rolling in and the rest just sort of fell into place."

The competition was announced on the official Young Bond website on October 3, 2006. Fans could vote online for one of three possible titles: Double or Die, N.E.M.I.S.I.S. or The Deadlock Cipher. To help them decide, the site included an extract from the book and a note from Charlie Higson about the three titles. The winning title and cover art would be kept secret until the day of publication. Even the proof edition was jacketed only as "Young Bond 3" (which now makes for a nice collectible). The challenge was keeping the winning title a secret.

"Well as a matter of fact, the entire campaign timing was a challenge," says Renard. "The book was scheduled for publication just after the winter holidays and normally in book publishing all the advanced information for books—their title, jacket, spec, etc—are not only released to the public months in advance of publication, but the books themselves are printed well in advance. In fact book jackets can be printed as many as 6 months before the book goes out. We couldn't afford to do that and pull off this campaign, so we decided to throw all the old rules out the window."

Penguin assembled a task force to oversee the entire operation to ensure that not a single book would appear in advance of publication. Confidentiality agreements had to be signed to keep the outsourced marketing materials and distribution under wraps. All delivery staff were sworn to secrecy, and the factory workers who would do the individual book wrapping had to sign non disclosure agreements.

Still, Renard says, "There were so many close calls."

To facilitate the printing process, three different covers were designed with the three titles, all featuring the same skull and cross bones image. At the moment the votes were tallied, Puffin would call up the printer and tell them which one to proceed with.

(Interestingly, German publisher Arena Verlag went ahead and selected their own title, GoldenBoy, and used cover art featuring poker chips, a motif that actually seemed to fit the book better than the UK's ultimate skull and crossbones cover.)

But not everyone was a fan of the poll idea. Under the headline "Poor Show Puffin", UK newspaper The Observer published a stuffy criticism, calling the idea "an unprecedented and quite shameful failure of imagination. [...] The whole exercise does make the Browser despair at the sort of creatives publishers employ these days."

Puffin's Rebecca McNally fired back in a letter to the editor: "The Browser somewhat missed the point of our nationwide vote to decide the title of Charlie Higson's third Young Bond book. This is an initiative designed to encourage young fans to interact very directly with their favorite book brand in ways that they are wholly accustomed to doing with brands outside the book world - text voting, e-flyers and on-line polls are very much part of our readers' lives, and a natural way for them to express their opinions, share ideas with friends and be active members of a community linked by shared interests. It also gives us as publishers of books for children a real opportunity to listen to their opinions." McNally concluded, "If the Browser really wants to be part of the decision, he could always vote."

The title reveal event was held at Waterstone’s Piccadilly on Wednesday, January 3, 2007, and was attended by the UK press and fans, including twelve year old Billy Jones from Manchester who earned the opportunity to be named in the book when he triumphed at the Young Bond Stunt Academy in January 2006 (a Blood Fever promotion). Incredibly, the entire first printing were sealed inside a protective Mylar bag to conceal the cover and winning title. Even Charlie Higson didn't know what the title would be, although he privately harbored a preference for The Deadlock Cipher. With cameras rolling and cameras ready, Higson pulled the book free – "It’s Double or Die!"

"I’m still slightly trying to work out why Double or Die is called Double or Die," Higson would later confess. "But if you ask a load of kids to give a title to a book that they’ve never read, what do you expect?"

Double or Die became the #1 Children's Bestseller for the week ending January 13, beating out Disney's juggernaut High School Musical Book. In-store promotions helped boost sales, with Waterstone’s exclusive "Decryption Competition" offering fans the chance to "Be Young Bond" for a day. This included a chartered flight in a helicopter over London, an original collector's copy of The Times newspaper from 1935, and dinner for four in a West End restaurant.

Double or Die delivered on Higson's promise to be different book than the first two, and Bond fans could not help but notice that he appeared to be echoing Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels, with Double or Die sharing characteristics of Fleming's own third book, Moonraker. "I’m not slavishly thinking 'Right, I’ve got to this in the next one and this in the next one'", Higson would later explain. "But it’s quite fun to go through that same process that he went through when he was reacting to readers' comments and what people like or disliked in the books."

Young Bond visits "Paradice"

With its London locations -- including Highgate Cemetery, the Royal College of Surgeons, and an illegal casino and prizefight den called "Paradice" (which would receive a mention in Sebastian Faulks' 2008 centenary Bond novel Devil May Care) -- Double or Die is the Young Bond novel that showcases its period setting the best. Higson peppers the book with delightful slang and idioms of the period. Long forgotten brand names are resurrected like product placement circa 1933. The book also doesn’t skimp on the gore, especially during the exciting climax on the London Docklands and inside an abandon pneumatic railway. The fact that the henchmen, Wolfgang, comes away from each encounter with young James missing another body part is grisly good Bondian fun.

But the biggest surprise in Double or Die comes at the very end when we get a postscript featuring the adult James Bond driving his Bentley and reflecting on his earliest encounter with code-breaking and computers.

"Well, I have to tell you I’m of two minds as to whether or not it was a good idea," Higson would say after publication. "I think it was quite fun to do. Unfortunately, some of the kids reading it think 'Oh, so he’s not going to be a kid anymore in the books. He's grown up now is he?' But as soon as they see the next one they’ll know that’s not true."

Double or Die U.S. edition again featured original Kev Walker cover art

It turns out the "next one" would come sooner than anyone expected. Released as a promotional tie-in with Double or Die was the now collectible The Young Bond Rough Guide to London. The clever guidebook tie-in featured locations from the book along with modern London tourist destinations. But it was an advert on page 63 that rang the dinner bell for Young Bond fans. It announced that the fourth Young Bond novel would be released in just eight months!

Continue to Part IV

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

2011-12-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

Here's wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

THE JAMES BOND BEDSIDE COMPANION to be republished

2011-12-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

Great news! Raymond Benson has revealed on his Facebook page that his classic James Bond reference book The James Bond Beside Companion will be republished in early January 2012. It will be released first as an eBook, followed by an audiobook and print edition a few weeks later. This is the updated 1988 edition that examines the Bond series up to The Living Daylights (in films) and Scorpius (in books). Cover art is below.

Click to enlarge

David Tennant chosen to read CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG FLIES AGAIN audiobook

2011-12-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE: The British actor David Tennant has been chosen by the family of Ian Fleming as the voice of fiction’s most famous flying car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. David has recorded the audiobook of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, which will be available to download in time for Christmas.

The original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming and Frank Cottrell Boyce’s version, published in October by Macmillan Children’s Books, is the first official sequel to the original tale of a magical flying car.

Lucy Fleming, niece of Ian Flemings, says: "We are thrilled that David agreed to read the audiobook. He is such a talented actor and his voice brings Frank Cottrell Boyce’s story to life with a wry humour and great characterisation. Chitty could not have been in safer hands with him behind the wheel! We hope that this audio book will add some extra sparkle as families embark on their own magical adventure this Christmas."

The audio download will be accompanied by an interview between Lucy Fleming, and David Tennant. In the interview he said: "The idea of a flying car is hard to better. I think we would all love to have a car that would take off, escape the traffic, and fly you to any country in the world."

Also in the interview Lucy Fleming and David Tennant pick up on the James Bond connections cleverly woven in to the story by Frank Cottrell Boyce. However neither reveal where they can be found, with Lucy adding how much fun it is for people to find them themselves. When asked if he could sum up Chitty in three words, David said it was "very clever, slightly surreal and hugely readable."

The audiobook will be available from the online retailers Audible and iTunes just in time for Christmas as an exclusive download from 21 December 2011 priced £10.99.

Since the publication of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again readers of all ages have been entranced by the family story, filled with wonderful characters, terrifying villains and exotic far-flung lands.

First look at the CARTE BLANCHE "RED EDITION"

2011-12-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

The good folks at MSE Books have sent over cover art for the special Carte Blanche "Red Edition" coming December 20.

Bound in red leather and limited to just 500 copies, the special edition will have a bullet embedded into the pages which will contain the limitation number. The price is £100 and is available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk.

UPDATE: I've just received word that this edition is NOT signed as I originally reported. Sorry about that.

Special CARTE BLANCHE "RED EDITION" coming Dec 20

2011-12-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice little Christmas present!

The good folks at MSE Books in the UK (a great source for special editions and hard to find titles) have alerted me to an all-new special edition of Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche coming our way on December 20.

Known as the "Red Edition", it will be a hardcover bound in red leather with head and tail bands and a ribbion bookmarker. Limited to just 500 copies, it will have a bullet embedded into the pages which will contain the limitation number (now that's pretty cool).

The price is £100 and it is available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk. Unfortunately, there are no photos available yet, but I'm hoping to get some soon.

UPDATE: Photo revealed! Very nice. This appears to be another version of the Bentley Special Edition in red, and at a much more affordable price.

UPDATE 2: I've just received word that this edition is NOT signed as I originally reported. Sorry about that.

Final 2 JOHN GARDNER paperbacks appear on Amazon

2011-12-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

Death is Forever ad from 1992

Amazon.co.uk now has listings for The Man From Barbarossa and Death Is Forever, which means ALL the John Gardner James Bond novels are now available to pre-order as new paperbacks from Orion.

These last two holdouts show an August 2, 2012 release date. However, the release dates for the Gardner reprints has been fluid, so this might change. So far Orion has only revealed cover art for the first six books.

Watch out our special Gardner Renewed page for links and the latest release date information on all the Gardner-Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

Penguin sends JAMES BOND back in time

2011-12-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

In 2002/2003 Penguin Books reprinted all the Ian Fleming James Bond books in the U.S. as trade paperbacks with terrific "retro" cover art by Richie Fahey. This was the first time in over 30 years that a single U.S. publisher had released all the Fleming books in a uniform set (Signet prevented this by holding onto their original publishing rights to these last two books). It was also the first time the UK texts were made available in the U.S., including the unedited Live And Let Die.

But most interestingly, this set from Penguin was the first to acknowledge on their covers that these original 007 stories are set in the 1950s and '60s. Until this set, publishers either updated Bond's look on their covers (Jove) or concealed the period setting behind iconic Bondian imagery (Berkley). Yes, this is your father's James Bond -- and there's nothing wrong with that!

These covers proved to be very popular and Penguin would release them in the UK as mass market paperbacks in 2006 with new introductions (which included Bond authors Charlie Higson and Jeffery Deaver). A new collection of short stories, Quantum of Solace, was released as a trade edition with a matching Fahey cover in the U.S. in 2008.

Also read:

Asa Butterfield would like to play YOUNG BOND

2011-12-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Asa Butterfield, the young star from Martin Scorsese's HUGO, was recently asked what his perfect role would be, and he reportedly replied: "Young Bond! Or some sort of sci-fi movie."

Now, the media took this to mean that he would like to play James Bond 007 in the future, but that isn't what he said. Sounds to me like he was referring specifically to Charlie Higson's Young Bond series. Heck, at his age, I expect he's had more experience with the Young Bond novels than the James Bond films.

I'm all for it! He's a great young actor and looks the part. Goodbye Daniel Craig. Let the Butterfield era begin!

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART II

2011-12-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

Fever Pitch

With sales of the first Young Bond novel, SilverFin, hitting 125,000 in the UK and the book making the Top Ten Children’s Bestseller lists for 11 weeks, a second Young Bond novel was assured. The original plan was to have a different author pen each book, but once Charlie Higson delivered the manuscript for SilverFin, it was clear he was the man to write the entire series. "I was having too much fun to let anyone else have a go," says Higson.

The second Young Bond novel was originally scheduled to be released only six month after the first. In fact, an ad in the back of the first edition of SilverFin promises Book 2 in Fall ’05. This was mainly to take advantage of the release of the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. But when that film was delayed a year, Ian Fleming Publications decided they didn’t need to rush the release and pushed Young Bond 2 back to Jan ’06.

Charlie Higson's second Young Bond novel -- which had the working title Double M -- promised action in Sardinia with pirates, smuggling, a torture scene, and a major shootout climax inside a cave. "I wanted to set the second book somewhere reasonably exotic," Higson told the BBC. "James Bond is known for travelling to such places. But it had to be somewhere James could get to during the summer holidays. That’s why I chose the Mediterranean. I didn’t want to use somewhere overly familiar like Greece or Italy or Spain. People don’t know much about Sardinia. It’s an interesting island with a history of banditry. I’ve been there a few times and I really like it. I saw an artist’s impression of a cave there. Inside are the remains of a Neolithic village. I thought it would make a great villain’s lair."

On July 11, 2005 Puffin announced the official title of Book 2 on the Young Bond website: Blood Fever. This time a £120,000 marketing campaign would promote the book, including a television advertising campaign which Puffin noted was "a first for the literary James Bond." Francesca Dow, Managing Director of Puffin, said: "We are delighted with the success of SilverFin and anticipate a huge second bestseller in Blood Fever."

Dow had reason to be optimistic. It was clear to all who read the manuscript that with his second book Charlie Higson had written not just another fine Young Bond novel, but one the best James Bond continuation novels by any measure.

"I’d written most of Blood Fever—certainly the first or second draft—before SilverFin came out," Higson would later explain. "So it wasn’t influenced by the first book particularly. I just wanted to push it a bit more into the, kind of, Bond world."

For Higson, pushing it more into "Bond world" included introducing a gay member of James Bond's family with the characters of Uncle Victor and his partner Polyponi.

"It’s not anything that children would pick up on but that’s there for the adult readers," Higson explained in an interview. "They are obviously a gay couple, and why not? Ian Fleming’s best friend was Noel Coward and I think there’s a reference to him in the book. Ian Fleming moved in those circles and knew a lot of people like that. I was interested in that kind of upper class-gay-expats group that ended up in Tangiers a lot of them in North Africa and certainly around the Mediterranean. I quite liked that weird Bohemian slightly outside of society kind of setup. I didn’t want to labour the point though. Fleming was very open minded and as I say Noel Coward was one of his best friends, but he did have a few digs at homosexuals in his books which is perhaps slightly regrettable."

Blood Fever hit bookstores on January 5, 2006 and became the UK’s #1 bestselling children’s book for the week ending 14th January, knocking The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe off the top spot, and even bettering SilverFin which had only climbed as high as #8 on the same chart. The very effective UK cover art showed an extreme closeup of a mosquito drawing blood, continuing the "creepy critter" motif established with the eels of SilverFin.

Blood Fever would hold onto #1 for an amazing eleven weeks. A second edition was quickly released that boasted on its cover; "The Number One Young Bond Bestseller." In-store merchandise, such as a set of seven Young Bond collectors cards (from Waterstones) and a Young Bond pin (Ottakar’s), helped boost sales. Blood Fever was chosen by Nicolette Jones as the Sunday Times Children’s Book of the week. Once skeptical Bond fans praised the book as worthy of Fleming. Young Bond had arrived!

Blood Fever is a tougher, darker, much more violent book than SilverFin. The somewhat timid youngster of SilverFin has grown into a teenager with all the confidence, athletic skill, and luck of Ian Fleming's secret agent. He coolly defies the villain, finds kinship with bandits, and derives visceral excitement by diving off high cliffs and driving fast cars. When forced into a gladiatorial boxing match with a much larger boy, Bond relishes the opportunity to "get his fight on."

A highlight of Blood Fever was the promised torture scene, which involved James Bond being spiked to the ground and fed on by mosquitoes. Higson explained in detail how he came up with his torture scene in my second interview with him on CommanderBond.net:

"Well, obviously I’ve got to come up with a torture which isn’t too horrible because then we wouldn’t be allowed to use it in the books if it’s too graphic. I can’t have him having his testicle crushed in a nutcracker and things like that. So the idea of doing it via third party, by a mosquito, works very well. But it’s mainly having spent many holidays as a kid in the Mediterranean. Certainly for an English person, where we don’t have mosquitoes, one of the vivid memories of going on holiday in the Mediterranean is being bitten to shreds by mosquitoes. So I thought that’s something that kids could relate too. Always in the books I’m trying to think of things where a kid could think, 'Yeah, I can imagine that. I can picture being in that situation.' The thought of being tied down in the middle of a mosquito swamp is pretty unbearable, I thought. So it had some resonance."

The Young Bond series was a hit in the UK, but U.S. sales were less robust, despite two book tours by Higson and superb reviews, including one by the New York Times praising Blood Fever as the "far better" than the new Alex Rider novel, Ark Angel.

As with SilverFin, Blood Fever was released in hardcover in the U.S. by Miramax/Hyperion. This time, however, they didn't stick with the UK cover motif (despite using it on the proof edition) and instead commissioned original artwork by Kev Walker that featured Bond on the bow of a ship. A gun in his hand, which can be seen on the prototype artwork (right), would not make the final cover.

One oddity is that both SilverFin and Blood Fever were edited in the U.S. In SilverFin several gruesome passages are changed – such as when the eel comes out of the dead Meatpacker’s mouth (it emerges from his shirt collar in the U.S. edition). Even Bond’s innocent wrestling match with Wilder is toned down, removing a reference to Wilder’s "muscular legs gripping him like steel." All references to Red Kelly drinking beer and smoking are omitted, which results in almost a full missing page.

While the edits in SilverFin are somewhat understandable (considering Disney was the publisher's parent company), the edits in Blood Fever are perplexing. A particularly disappointing change for Bond fans is the omission of a clever nod to Fleming in Chapter 17. The villain hosts a dinner party where among the attendees is "Armando Lippe from Lisbon" – whom Higson confirmed was intended to be the father of Thunderball villain Count Lippe. But the U.S. edition, for reasons unknown, omits the name Lippe from the paragraph. Instead, Ugo’s dinner guest is now "Count Armando from Lisbon."

But the real issue behind the U.S. slow start seemed to lie with Miramax Books, who did not put nearly the promotional support behind the series as did Puffin in the UK. The reason for this was Miramax was undergoing a management shake up with parent company Disney. Matters came to a head when Harvey Weinstein split off his Miramax film production and distribution from Disney, leaving parts of the company, including Miramax Books, behind. With the issue resolved, IFP negotiated a new deal under Disney-Hyperion, but this would mean the series in the U.S. would trail a year behind the UK, a situation that would be exasperated when Puffin decided to shoot for two Young Bond novels in 2007.

Continue to Part III

Amazon lists 4 more JOHN GARDNER reprints

2011-11-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

Amazon.co.uk has listed four more paperback reprints of the John Gardner James Bond novels. Never Send Flowers, SeaFire, GoldenEye, and COLD all show a November 8, 2012 release date (although these dates have been shuffling somewhat). These terrific reprints are being released by Orion Books in the UK.

Only The Man From Barbarossa and Death Is Forever are missing in action.

Watch out our special Gardner Renewed page for links and the latest release date information on all the Gardner-Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

U.S. JAMES BOND movie tie-in editions

2011-11-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, here's one I know many have been waiting for -- the U.S. movie tie-in editions and novelizations. It's a Bond literary tradition that goes back to the start of the film series in 1962 that the corresponding Fleming novels would be reissued in new editions that feature the film on the cover in some way. While various publishers took over tie-in duties, I'm treating these as their own "set". They start off straight forward enough, but things start to get tricky as the filmmakers started using short story and original titles. But before I get into the details, here are the paperbacks laid out in all their cinematic splendor.

Signet, who published all the Bond novels in paperback in the U.S., created movie tie-in editions for eight films total. A standout among the Signet tie-in's is You Only Live Twice (1967). For some reason, Signet did not create new cover art with poster imagery, but instead simply added a pink sticker to the cover of their standard paperback edition. Interestingly, you can also find copies of Signet's series Casino Royale with a tie-in sticker, even though they also did a proper tie-in cover with the '67 film.

Bantam, who took over paperback publishing duties from Signet in the '70s, released Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Live and Let Die (1973) in nice paperback tie-in editions. A hardcover book club edition of Diamonds was also released with this movie cover. Because Signet had retained the rights to the last four Fleming books, they returned to do the official tie-in for The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974 (I believe this cover was the first image I ever saw of the flesh and blood James Bond 007).

Ian Fleming did not want his 10th book, The Spy Who Loved Me, adapted into a film apart from the title, so likewise no tie-in was done. Instead screenwriter Christopher Wood wrote the first "novelization" of a Bond film under the title, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me. It was released by one-time Bond publisher Warner Books. The novelization idea appears to have caught on and Wood returned to write a novelization of the next Bond film MOONRAKER (1979). This book was the first to be published by the new Bond publisher, Jove Books, under the title, James Bond and Moonraker.

Tie-in’s returned with 1981's "back to basics" Bond film, For Your Eyes Only. Jove Books released this collection of Fleming short stories as the last book in their paperback series with a banner touting the Roger Moore movie. Marvel also released a mass market paperback of their comic book adaptation. Signet did not do a tie-in for Octopussy (1983), the 13th Bond film. Unsurprisingly, no one went near the legal quagmire that was the unofficial Thunderball remake, Never Say Never Again (1983) with Sean Connery.

New paperback publisher Berkeley would reissue a copy of their colorful For Your Eyes Only series paperback in 1985 with a banner announcing the last Roger Moore Bond film, A View To A Kill -- although some might consider Ballantine's four Fine Your Fate paperbacks as the true tie-ins for that particular film. AVTAK was also novelized, in a fashion, by Judy Alexandrer as The James Bond Storybook of the Movie A View To A Kill (right). The kid friendly book was published by Grosset & Dunlap and the copyrighted page does list Glidrose Publications, so...

When the ball came back to Signet, they again passed on doing any kind of a tie-in for Timothy Dalton's 1987 debut Bond film, The Living Daylights (a title that's part of the Octopussy collection). This is a great shame because a look at a German tie-in edition shows us what could have been.

Novelizations returned with a vengeance for 1989s Licence To Kill (see what I did there?), the first Bond film to carry a non-Fleming title. Official continuation author John Gardner penned the book, which was published by Charter using a combination of movie artwork and the paperback series art that included the somewhat odd cover blurb: "Now a Major Motion Picture" (as if it had ever been anything else?). Licence To Kill would be the only novelization to be published in hardcover in the U.S. Not only is there a hardcover book club edition, but The Mysterious Press in New York published three different hardback editions (four if you include the special 26 "lettered" editions of the maroon cover), although their dust-jacketed edition was created primarily for sale in the UK.

The Mysterious Press Licence To Kill hardcovers

John Gardner came back to novelize Pierce Brosnan’s first Bond film, GoldenEye (1995). Raymond Benson, who took over continuation novel duties in 1997, provided novelizations for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), and Die Another Day (2002). All the Brosnan Bond novelizations where published by Boulevard Books.

Daniel Craig's debut Bond film Casino Royale (2006) marked a return to Fleming titles, and also marked the return of the traditional tie-in. Penguin, which had released all the Fleming books as trade editions in 2002 with attractive retro covers, released a new mass market edition of Casino Royale with a cover blurb saying, "Now A Major Motion Picture". For Quantum of Solace (2008), IFP took the unique step of creating a new collection of Ian Fleming short stories under this title. This can be thought of as the ultimate tie-in, although the U.S. edition by Penguin doesn't actually refer to the film at all.

Finally, there are several curious "hybrid" editions that are worth seeking out. As you can see by the photos below, these hybrids features the movie art, but all text referencing the films is stripped away. So far I've seen hybrid editions of Signet's Doctor No, Thunderball, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Signet hybrids

So what might IFP and Eon have planned for Skyfall next year? That's open for speculation.

Click here to see the UK James Bond tie-in editions.