98 replies to this topic

[TheREAL008]

Good point Dark. But how about going a step further and hiring some author to re-adapt the Fleming plots into the 21st century?

[Santa]

Definitely Charlie Higson. Whatever you may think about the concept of Young Bond (and I admit I resisted it at first), he has a very Flemingo tone which doesn't feel forced in the way DMC did. I'm sure he'd do an excellent job.

Apart from Charlie, Jim.

[Scrambled Eggs]

I still like the idea of a series of novels about other double 0 agents. Stories set in the same universe, and with a Flemingian spirit but with Bond as a fringe character - giving the writer a bit more freedom..

That way we could have our period pieces whilst not putting an author in the position of feeling he has to somehow pastiche Fleming.
In the same way, an author writing a contemporary story wouldnt feel obliged to write something which fits with Craig's Bond.

And also, we'll all be less likely to get our knickers in a twist when the book doesn't meet unreasonably high expectations or slips up on some detail about Bond's taste in underwear or something.

[[dark]]

Good point Dark. But how about going a step further and hiring some author to re-adapt the Fleming plots into the 21st century?

Blasphemy!

I still like the idea of a series of novels about other double 0 agents. Stories set in the same universe, and with a Flemingian spirit but with Bond as a fringe character - giving the writer a bit more freedom..

Well, The Moneypenny Diaries kind of fulfils this: it's a period piece, Bond's a "fringe character" and Samantha Weinberg takes more liberties with the characters than any other continuation novelist. Oh, and they're fantastic!

[Hitch]

Flemingo?

[Santa]

Flemingo?

And why not?

[Scrambled Eggs]

Flemingo?

A beautiful leggy bird that stands on one leg while smoking a cigarette in a long holder?

[Santa]

Flemingo?

A beautiful leggy bird that stands on one leg while smoking a cigarette in a long holder?

Well I don't smoke but if I did I'm sure I'd use a holder . Thank you, I'll be here all night.

[spynovelfan]

I still like the idea of a series of novels about other double 0 agents. Stories set in the same universe, and with a Flemingian spirit but with Bond as a fringe character - giving the writer a bit more freedom..

That way we could have our period pieces whilst not putting an author in the position of feeling he has to somehow pastiche Fleming.
In the same way, an author writing a contemporary story wouldnt feel obliged to write something which fits with Craig's Bond.

And also, we'll all be less likely to get our knickers in a twist when the book doesn't meet unreasonably high expectations or slips up on some detail about Bond's taste in underwear or something.

I also like this idea, for all the reasons given and more. The Moneypenny Diaries were in this line, I suppose, but that was still a bit of a hard sell to most fans of the genre. It seems they took two ideas that on paper seemed dreadful and very bandwagonish - the adventures of a young James Bond (for the Alex Rider/Harry Potter market) and the diaries of Moneypenny (chick-lit/Bridget Jones crowd) - and gave them to brilliant writers who handled them very well. But, you know, they're still series featuring a young boy and a woman and for those reasons alone many people, even on these forums, haven't read them. I think a series of mass-market paperbacks featuring other Double Os is much more obviously appealing to the target audience than either of those at first glance, but still doesn't come with the burden of expectation that a 'real' continuation has, and all the baggage that has gone with it. They could produce them regularly - every three months, perhaps - and have them in every airport bookstand and supermarket in the world, with 'Ian Fleming Productions Presents...' as a banner across the top. Just the same as all those 'Tom Clancy's Net Force' books, but with a British feel to them. Maybe set them in the Sixties, even, give them cool retro covers and so on.

I think if they were exciting and reasonably well written (which would be the hard part!), people would eat them up. Have them all published under the 'Robert Markham' name, and give the writers access to Fleming's notebooks and so on to class it up a bit. Package the whole series as 'Double O', and start marketing each character with diffferent logos and iconographies, but obviously fitting in with the main Bond one. Have a few of them hate Bond, feature Bond in a couple of the plots, kill Bond off in one and get one of them to impersonate Bond (before revealing Bond is alive all along), set them between the Fleming adventures, bring a few villains or girls back (carefully, mind)... I think there's loads they could do with this idea. It would take a lot of planning and investment and, above all, care, but then the've shown they can do that with Higson's and Weinberg's series, and I reckon the massive success of DEVIL MAY CARE would give a lot of momentum.

Well, one can hope they're already planning something along these lines.

[Loomis]

For the fiftieth anniversary of DR. NO, all six Bond actors should be commissioned to pen a Bond short story or novella, all works to be collected in a single volume, natch. Call it BOND ON BOND, or THE SPY WHO WAS ME, or something. Holy Toledo, just imagine the sales!

[spynovelfan]

Imagine the cost, Loomis! Just for Connery, I mean.

[[dark]]

I still like the idea of a series of novels about other double 0 agents. Stories set in the same universe, and with a Flemingian spirit but with Bond as a fringe character - giving the writer a bit more freedom..

That way we could have our period pieces whilst not putting an author in the position of feeling he has to somehow pastiche Fleming.
In the same way, an author writing a contemporary story wouldnt feel obliged to write something which fits with Craig's Bond.

And also, we'll all be less likely to get our knickers in a twist when the book doesn't meet unreasonably high expectations or slips up on some detail about Bond's taste in underwear or something.

I also like this idea, for all the reasons given and more. The Moneypenny Diaries were in this line, I suppose, but that was still a bit of a hard sell to most fans of the genre. It seems they took two ideas that on paper seemed dreadful and very bandwagonish - the adventures of a young James Bond (for the Alex Rider/Harry Potter market) and the diaries of Moneypenny (chick-lit/Bridget Jones crowd) - and gave them to brilliant writers who handled them very well. But, you know, they're still series featuring a young boy and a woman and for those reasons alone many people, even on these forums, haven't read them. I think a series of mass-market paperbacks featuring other Double Os is much more obviously appealing to the target audience than either of those at first glance, but still doesn't come with the burden of expectation that a 'real' continuation has, and all the baggage that has gone with it. They could produce them regularly - every three months, perhaps - and have them in every airport bookstand and supermarket in the world, with 'Ian Fleming Productions Presents...' as a banner across the top. Just the same as all those 'Tom Clancy's Net Force' books, but with a British feel to them. Maybe set them in the Sixties, even, give them cool retro covers and so on.

I think if they were exciting and reasonably well written (which would be the hard part!), people would eat them up. Have them all published under the 'Robert Markham' name, and give the writers access to Fleming's notebooks and so on to class it up a bit. Package the whole series as 'Double O', and start marketing each character with diffferent logos and iconographies, but obviously fitting in with the main Bond one. Have a few of them hate Bond, feature Bond in a couple of the plots, kill Bond off in one and get one of them to impersonate Bond (before revealing Bond is alive all along), set them between the Fleming adventures, bring a few villains or girls back (carefully, mind)... I think there's loads they could do with this idea. It would take a lot of planning and investment and, above all, care, but then the've shown they can do that with Higson's and Weinberg's series, and I reckon the massive success of DEVIL MAY CARE would give a lot of momentum.

Well, one can hope they're already planning something along these lines.

It's an intriguing premise, spynovelfan, and you go a long way towards selling it, but the question remains: would people want to read about a 00-agent who wasn't James Bond? Surely that concept could be placed alongside the "adventures of a young James Bond (for the Alex Rider/Harry Potter market) and the diaries of Moneypenny (chick-lit/Bridget Jones crowd)" ideas.

[Scrambled Eggs]

For the fiftieth anniversary of DR. NO, all six Bond actors should be commissioned to pen a Bond short story or novella, all works to be collected in a single volume, natch. Call it BOND ON BOND, or THE SPY WHO WAS ME, or something. Holy Toledo, just imagine the sales!

That sounds like it could be a film aimed at a certain section of the community starring Moore and Connery lookalikes.

Sorry, I dont want to give anyone nightmares.

[spynovelfan]

It's an intriguing premise, spynovelfan, and you go a long way towards selling it, but the question remains: would people want to read about a 00-agent who wasn't James Bond? Surely that concept could be placed alongside the "adventures of a young James Bond (for the Alex Rider/Harry Potter market) and the diaries of Moneypenny (chick-lit/Bridget Jones crowd)" ideas.

Look at the three options:

The adventures of James Bond as a teenage boy at Eton in the 1930s.
The adventures of Miss Moneypenny in the Cold War, as discovered by her aunt.
The adventures of other Double O agents in the 1960s.

What was your initial reaction to the first two being announced? Be honest. What would your reaction be to the third being announced? It's a better reaction than you initially had to the other two, isn't it?

Well, yes, spy, but it's not a great reaction because I'm a Bond fan and I want to read about Bond. Okay. But there are lots of casual Bond fans, millions of them around the world, in fact, and it would appear that generally speaking they don't really want to read about Bond all that much. One reason is because of the films. It's simply too confusing: people don't want the two worlds confused, and the Bond film brand is simply far too big. It's caused lots of problems with the literary brand over the years, and even with the success of DEVIL MAY CARE there are problems. These problems were neatly sidestepped by the Higson and Weinberg projects, and in Higson's case were best-sellers. They sidestepped them because there was no burden of following either the films or Fleming - but they still appealed to people who 'like this sort of thing'. Higson had an uphill struggle, though, because nobody liked the idea when they first heard about it (and some still don't). The Double O idea is something like both Higson and Weinberg but it is, from the off, much more obviously appealing. Sure, there'd be a 'What? No Bond?' effect at first. But compare that to the 'What???? James Bond as a boy? No way!' and 'Moneypenny? She was a secretary! The adventures of Moneypenny????' reactions and the adventures of Double O agents, I'd hope you'd agree, are rather less jarring.

Since the success of the Bourne films, Ludlum's estate has commissioned and published three new Bourne novels (by Eric Van Lustbader) with a fourth soon to come out. Okay. And if they introduced a series of novels about other Treadstone agents...? The same people would buy them. A series about Bourne as a teenager, or Bourne's assistant... Tougher sell.

Ironically, because this idea is more easily accessible, hardcore Bond fans will find it harder to like it (because 'it's not Bond'). Everyone else will get it at once, though, and in a way they did not with Higson or Weinberg, both of which are pretty esoteric and jarring ideas in the modern market and which worked despite that. Hardcore Bond fans didn't like the sound of either of those, either... but hardcore Bond fans are rather hard to please.

Imagine you're walking through a train station. You see a bookshop, and it has a stand filled with paperbacks. They look like Bond novels, so you pick one up. It is a Bond novel, a new edition of DR NO. Oh, look, they have all the Flemings and even COLONEL SUN. All with the same kind of cool, classy retro covers. Just the sort of thing you'd like to read and be seen reading on the train. But what's this one - you've not heard of that continuation! Ah, it's not, quite. Across the top, in a classy white typeface on black, you read:

'IAN FLEMING PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

A DOUBLE O SECTION ADVENTURE

HELL HAS NO EXITS
BY
ROBERT MARKHAM'

What fresh heaven is this? You turn to the back:

'Ian Fleming Productions is proud to present a new series of thrilling adventures designed to appeal to fans of Ian Fleming the world over. Since 2009, we have worked with a specially selected group of writers to bring to life some of Fleming's world, through fresh eyes. Ian Fleming made passing mention to the Double O Section to which James Bond belongs in his novels. It is an elite group of crack agents, licensed to kill. Prepare to meet them...'

Beneath this is a synopsis of an adventure featuring 0011, who even has his own 007-ish-style logo, only the two '1's are silver bullets. The novel takes place in 1964, and is a 65,000-word Sixties-style page-turner. 0011 isn't Bond, to be sure, but he's a damn sight more like it than most thrillers out there, and there's a scene with M, Boothroyd pops up, London and Cairo and Biarritz and a villainous plot... You read the whole thing on the train journey and when you get out the other end you look for another bookshop. There are more of these to come! Fantastic...

Just a dream, I know. But if they can make best-sellers out of a schoolboy Bond in the 1930s, I really can't see why they couldn't make this work, and work very well.

Why not just do all this with Bond himself? Well, possibly. But suddenly you have all those problems about Fleming, and continuity, and the films. Weinberg and Higson were pros, but if they hadn't been it wouldn't have been a major problem because it wasn't the main brand they were playing with. It would have been akin to 'Oh, that cartoon they once did' or the book with the nephew. Trivia, collectible to hardcore fans and that's it. 'Those awful books where they made James Bond into Harry Potter in the 1930s!' or 'That dire attempt to make Moneypenny into Tomb Raider'! If the worst fears we had had about those two projects had happened, it wouldn't really have mattered. If Moneypenny had been killed off or a Young James Bond has become a wizard, it wouldn't really have counted. But if you do that sort of thing in a proper adult James Bond novel... well, it's a bit tricky. Same with this. Pull it off and you could well lead into adult Bonds in the same style, regularly produced and massively distributed and best-sellers around the world. If they're dreadful, though, or just fail to sell, you haven't harmed that main brand, which needs protecting. You can only improve the brand, not in any way significantly diminish it. And once diminished, it's hard to get the public back on track.

[Double-Oh Agent]

Just give me Bond, James Bond and I'll be happy. We'd gone way too long without a 007 novel before Devil May Care and it will be at least a two-year break before we get a another one. Sorry, I'm a James Bond fan and I want to read and watch exploits about him, not the other 00 agents. Even the Young Bond and Moneypenny Diaries while very good, still don't quite fill my craving for an adult Bond adventure.

Bring back Bond!

[spynovelfan]

Just give me Bond, James Bond and I'll be happy. We'd gone way too long without a 007 novel before Devil May Care and it will be at least a two-year break before we get a another one. Sorry, I'm a James Bond fan and I want to read and watch exploits about him, not the other 00 agents. Even the Young Bond and Moneypenny Diaries while very good, still don't quite fill my craving for an adult Bond adventure.

Bring back Bond!

Can I just ask, though, what it is about the literary James Bond that you want to see? For instance, would you like to read a novel featuring:

1. A British secret agent with a licence to kill
2. Wearing a blue serge suit and a black knitted tie
3. Battling megalomaniacal villains
4 And bedding beautiful women
5. During the Cold War
6. In exotic locations around the world
7. Rendered in glitteringly evocative prose...?

I could add many other elements to that list, but those will do as a start. I suspect most would say that 1 is crucial but that 2 really isn't. However, it needs to be more than just 1 because, well, there are plenty of those already but they don't have the same appeal. So what is the appeal, precisely? It's not just that he is named 'James Bond', is it?

I think this idea could provide many of the things fans love about literary Bond, even if the main character would not be called James Bond. Realistically, 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 from the little list above, but also more of the world of Fleming's novels. I'd try to make a clear distinction from the brand of the films, which currently do not feature Sir Miles Messervy, Moneypenny, Boothroyd, Tanner, Ponsonby, St James' Park, and so on. Fleming's world, in other words, which is IFP's natural domain. Add all those into the mix and I think you'd be a lot closer to a 'proper' James Bond novel than Higson or Weinberg have come conceptually - or even than the later John Gardner novels, which weren't even the adventures of another Double O agent, but of a Captain James Boldman of something called MicroGlobe One, albeit with the character's name changed in a few places at a late editing stage. Well, weren't they? Stack up this idea against what Gardner delivered and ask yourself again if getting your literary Bond fix is really only about naming the main character - or if you're looking for something else from the books.

[Santa]

Just a dream, I know. But if they can make best-sellers out of a schoolboy Bond in the 1930s, I really can't see why they couldn't make this work, and work very well.

Just a dream? I don't think so. Sounds like you've put quite a lot of thought into this (and it seems a very feasible idea to me) - now, who could you have in mind to write these? Hmmmmm, I wonder...

[Hitch]

...Flemingo?

[spynovelfan]

Just a dream, I know. But if they can make best-sellers out of a schoolboy Bond in the 1930s, I really can't see why they couldn't make this work, and work very well.

Just a dream? I don't think so. Sounds like you've put quite a lot of thought into this (and it seems a very feasible idea to me) - now, who could you have in mind to write these? Hmmmmm, I wonder...

I wasn't and wouldn't put myself up for this idea. It's really just what I think would work and which would also, coincidentally, give me the sort of lit-Bond fix I crave.

Bond novels now have all kinds of problems attached to writing them, depending on whether you set them in Fleming's era or now. If you go down the Fleming route, you run the risk of getting bad reviews comparing you to Fleming, annoying fans because you put Bond into a situation that contradicts the spirit or letter of the original books and presumes to change that history, etc. If you set it now you confuse the hell out of people and run the risk of looking like novelizations of Craig films they didn't make because the ideas were too lame. Again, how do you fit a Bond story into what he's doing in the other continuity - why does M do this when in the film QoS she says that, etc. Nightmare. Higson and Weinberg were a clever way round both problems, focusing on Fleming's spirit but at angles that did not affect Fleming's work.

Some have suggested that a series about James Bond during the war would be attractive, and I agree. That would get around the problem in much the same way, and would have the advantage of having an adult James Bond as the hero. You could have slightly younger versions of the minor Fleming characters, by which I mean the likes of M: Aunt May wasn't a character in Fleming's books, but was made into one by Higson - rather more of a tenuous connection. You could do the 'Bond begins' stuff properly, with his visiting Savile Row and so on. Higson's done some of it, but it would be a much easier sell. Many Bond fans don't want to buy 'children's books'. War Bond would have a better chance of attracting the older crowd and the mainstream who bought Faulks' novel.

So I would say that that may be the best idea. But literary Bond is a very delicate brand. A growing one with massive potential, I think, but despite the success of DEVIL MAY CARE, one false move could return it to the ghetto marked 'hardcore Bond fans only, please'. Ask your friends who are casual fans of the movies how many John Gardner Bond novels they've read. [strokes white cat] But there's an opportunity now, I think, to make literary Bond a brand that can compete in its own right, on a global scale. [/strokes white cat]

As a Bond fan, I'm interested in seeing the literary Bond become much bigger: I want a regular fix, and I want the world to have it, too. I'm just throwing out a few half-formed ideas, but it's an extremely complicated brand, I think, and needs a massive amount of thinking and investment by IFP to make it really take off. But they have executed a remarkable turnaround in the last few years, without the help of any online forum posters! And it's rather easy to be an armchair general, of course, without having to think about budgets or any other practicalities.

[Santa]

Just a dream, I know. But if they can make best-sellers out of a schoolboy Bond in the 1930s, I really can't see why they couldn't make this work, and work very well.

Just a dream? I don't think so. Sounds like you've put quite a lot of thought into this (and it seems a very feasible idea to me) - now, who could you have in mind to write these? Hmmmmm, I wonder...

I wasn't and wouldn't put myself up for this idea.

Well you should.


Edit: Ooooh and a great thought - we could have GLC do theme tune for the new book! I am a genius.

[Scrambled Eggs]

The more I read SNF's posts and the more I think about it, the better an idea this appears to be.
A succesful series of books could only increase anticipation ahead of another Bond novel - which is sue to come about sooner or later and I think would be best kept as an occasional treat every 5-10 years.

And, there's not really any limit to what a writer could be allowed to do with a book. Any place, period (well, within reason) would be fair game. We could have stories about a Victorian double 0 agent on the North West frontier.

And yes, SNF should write one.

Edit: Ooooh and a great thought - we could have GLC do theme tune for the new book! I am a genius.

"Sex for dinner and death for breakfast - you pure knows it clart."

[Trident]

This 00-section idea is quickly growing into something so detailed, showing such potential, that I wouldn't be surprised should I find myself searching for the series at the airport/railway-station on my next trip to wherever.

There really seem to be lots of possibilities this move would open, most of them previously either not recognized (Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian 00-agents; origins of the Secret Service and the 00-section) or for the most part just hinted at (00-section during the mid to end-60's, 70's). A definite potential that wasn't tapped as yet. And really, compared to what IFP has managed to pull off with Higson and Weinberg, a much more natural next step for the development of the literary brand.

[zencat]

Pretty intriguing idea, spynovelfan.

[spynovelfan]

Victorian 00s? What are you lot like?

Literary Bond is in a unique position because it is in fact hampered by the stature of the character, meaning it's very hard to do some of the things lesser brands do the whole time (and make a lot of money doing). The thread asks who I want to write Bond, but it's easy to play fantasy, just as it's easy to say we'd like our favourite actor to play Bond, our favourite director for the next film and so on. But if we look at what is possible, likely, practical and so on... it's another ball game. Spielberg's not going to direct the next Bond film, and Clancy/Higgins/whichever massive-selling thriller-writer you happen to fancy is unlikely to write the next Bond novel.

Many successful TV series have novels now:

ALIAS: http://www.fantastic...k/series/alias/
24: http://www.fantastic...4-declassified/
BURN NOTICE: http://www.fantastic...rds=burn notice

This is even more common in the fantasy/sci-fi world. But would we really want Bond to go down this route, with three or four Bond novels a year with Craig battling Quantum around the world in adventures we'd never see on screen? I don't think we, or EON or IFP would. We wouldn't because we want Bond novels to be special, not like a TV thriller series with cheap cash-ins. The cachet of Ian Fleming's creation would be gone and the character would no longer be iconic, with an eccentric but still containable and understandable canon. Literary Bond would be much more like comic strip Bond, with dozens of strange adventures that would never have passed muster with 'proper' adult continuations. Bond would be like any other action hero and would lose his class and cool. EON wouldn't like it, either, because the films are Major Events and this would eat away at that, too.

So the success of the brand has hindered the brand. Do IFP care, really? I doubt it, somehow. It's a very wealthy company, so why devalue Fleming's name, which they are there to protect, to make a bit more cash from merchandising? No reason to, really. You can see with both the Higson and Weinberg ideas a desire to protect Fleming's creation - they're not about to open the floodgates and allow dozens of writers to have a go at writing Bond thrillers. So the odds, I think, are really on us waiting a few years. Possibly getting War Bond. The idea for thrillers on the Double Os would be a way of making some money (I think) without risking any damage to the Fleming brand and also pleasing the target audience - but is unlikely to happen, I'll admit. IFP do, I think, want to use Fleming's creation as a starting point, though, so I suspect Victorian 00 agents are something we won't see from them any time soon.

Then again, who would have predicted a series of novels about Bond at Eton in the 30s written by Charlie Higson from The Fast Show?

[Scrambled Eggs]

they're not about to open the floodgates and allow dozens of writers to have a go at writing Bond thrillers. So the odds, I think, are really on us waiting a few years. Possibly getting War Bond.

Do you honestly think they'll bide their time before putting something new on the market?

I suppose it's an obvious conclusion to jump to but, with DMC and Young Bond selling well it seems perverse for them to shut up shop for a few years...

I'm not saying they should cash in by putting out any old , quality is paramount, but doesn't it seem likely that IFP have at least talked about what their next product should be?

[spynovelfan]

I think they might shut up shop for a year or two and then launch War Bond or something along those lines to great hoopla. They don't need to take any risks right now.

[[dark]]

I think they might shut up shop for a year or two and then launch War Bond or something along those lines to great hoopla. They don't need to take any risks right now.

Agreed.

The Devil May Care and By Royal Command paperbacks will keep IFP in good stead for 2009. I suspect we'll see some kind of announcement later this year for something to be published in 2010.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Not Bond, but we can all look forward to FREE AGENT this year.

[spynovelfan]

Not Bond, but we can all look forward to FREE AGENT this year.

Your cheque is in the post, BC! Definitely not Bond, though: my chap only smokes fifty a day.

[Loomis]

As a Bond fan, I'm interested in seeing the literary Bond become much bigger: I want a regular fix, and I want the world to have it, too. practicalities.

Personally, I wish it were much smaller, not much bigger. I wish only the Flemings, the Amis and the Pearson existed.