131 replies to this topic

[zencat]

Never heard of this Mexican/bazooka/bartender thing before. This is great. Thank you.

[spynovelfan]

It was mentioned, although only briefly and in a different context in Siegfried Tesche's 'James Bond - Autos, Action und Autoren' (James Bond - Cars, Action and Writers). Tesche writes that this bazooka/Mexico/bartender-affair would have been Amis original idea for a continuation. Most unlikely, as it basically meant to ask Glidrose to slaughter their goose.

Blast - beaten to it! I thought I had something new there. I don't think Amis was really planning to kill Bond, though - it was just good PR, the same as Fleming had with the ending of FRWL. I expect there'd have been an attempt and perhaps a cliff-hanger of a chapter and then off he'd have gone on the mission.

Another idea of Amis was mentioned in the same book a little bit more extensive: the 70 year old Bond enjoying his holidays in the Swiss Alps where he meets the daughter of a US-Senator. Said Senator would have been abducted by the KGB General Moriarvsky. Said daughter asks Bond for help, offering to do 'everything you want'. Bond answers 'A bit late for everything but I'll help you anyway.' and sets off to rescue the father. The end would have been Bond and Moriarvsky both entangled in a fight, dropping into a waterfall.

I would have liked to read both the Mexican story and the Holmes-ripoff. Tesche writes that the latter one supposedly would have been another reason for Ann Fleming to deny Amis any further assingments regarding 007. Once more this seems unlikely IMHO. A 70 year old Bond would have been an idea that would have come later, say towards the end of the 70's or mid-80's. I don't think it was an option by 68/69. But I think the basic idea of an older Bond was never pursued so resolutely. This is what makes up much of my admiration for Amis. He seemed to have rather bold ideas. Once more: oh, what could have been...

This was just a joke by Amis, I think, a Holmes/Bond pastiche piece, although he did make the joke twice, with slight variations, and claimed to have pitched it as a short story idea to Glidrose, who 'went white'. The first time he mentioned it was to Clive James in the New Review in July 1974, the second time in an interview with Raymond Benson in 1982. Hank Reineke discussed both occasions and quoted from both interviews in his article.

I suspect there was no follow-up to COLONEL SUN because the first didn't sell as well as they'd hoped. (And Ann Fleming didn't have a veto, come to think of it, according to Peter Janson-Smith when I asked him about her regarding Jenkins. Which makes sense, seeing how Amis finished CS a month after she gave her permission for him to be hired!)

[Willowhugger]

There's another interesting Anti-Fleming element in Kingsley Amis' writings, that I actually rather enjoyed. Specifically, it's the fact that Fleming's villains are genuinely complete monsters. Mister Big and his feeding people to sharks, Red Grant is a serial killer, and Blofeld has the crazy Garden of Death where he can observe people killing themselves.

What's interesting about Colonel Sun is that he totally breaks down over the act of torture. It repulses him and leaves him feeling mentally and physically shocked. Also, peculiarly, Colonel Sun doesn't actually commit any atrocities during the work himself. The Hudsons are killed on his command and the poor Greek fisherman dies because of their desire to find Bond but Sun himself is proven to be just an ordinary human being at the end of this.

It's interesting to note that, even compared to Le Chirffe, he's actually the least monstrous of Bond's villains.

[Superhobo]

I've spent half the day out, and the rest of it trying to work my way through Sega's latest "Sonic" installment - full of glitches, full of holes, but more enjoyable on the hole than anything else they've done recently.

Where? All you've shown me is that some writers confused Smersh for other branches of Soviet intelligence, which is nowhere near the same thing.

What?

Yes, it is a beastly nuisance having to back up unsubstantiated arguments you make with people who know what they're talking about, isn't it? Especially when they were right! Why not research Cookridge a bit, and you'll then see that he was very unreliable and that there's a reason he's the only person who mentions her?

No, I'm quite serious. They're very common names - and Cookridge really isn't turning up much, either - aside from Bookfinder. I'd been trying to find out a bit about him for a while, now - nothing related to this, but just in a very 'general' way.

What do you mean by 'the information being contrasted, up there?' Sorry, I just don't follow what you mean. You said Tatiana was based on a real agent -

Kleb, actually - of course, now I think of it, she likely had more than one source of inspiration, but it does seem like the former is probably one of the larger ones.

but she was in fact based on someone Cookridge seems to have invented.

- well, I'd probably be able to discuss this point - and, well, anything about Cookridge and Tamara, really - more accurately if they had less common names, the latter more than the former.

You said the training methods reflected real KGB practice: all of the training methods described in FRWL were taken directly from Cookridge, who again seems to have invented them. The only other source to corroborate all his Kuchino training school stuff, for instance, is Ronald Seth, who like Cookridge was a former British agent who wrote several books containing sensationalist and largely invented (and anti-Communist) 'information' about the espionage world.

I've been doing a lot of reading on Ronald Seth - partly because of this conversation; I can't really find any criticism of him, anywhere. He's a widely quoted source, which - by itself - doesn't make him a factual writer, but -

Also -

and anti-Communist

Be honest, there. Most Western writers involved in politics at the time were pretty vehemently against "Communism." Some reasonably, and some less so. In that regard, we can at least say Fleming was one of the more reasonable writers, like George Orwell - which isn't to compare their writings, but -

Seth repeated most of Cookridge's claims about the MGB in THE EXECUTIONERS: THE STORY OF SMERSH (1967) - attributing it all to the defunct Smersh, presumably to capitalise on the success of James Bond.

That's my boy.

He did roughly what you have done,

Should I feel proud, or - ?

which is to say 'Alright, Smersh was made obsolete, but anything else I find that sounds juicy and interesting can be attributed to them anyway because, well, everyone calls that department Smersh - actually the whole of Soviet intelligence can be called Smersh - actually Smersh still survives in this other department.'

- which isn't what I've done. Perhaps I've woven myself a bit like a drunken driver, but I wouldn't go as far as that, really.

As far as SMERSH still surviving, it sounds far-fetched, and I'm usually not one to indulge in conspiracy - ironically, but have you heard of Litvinenko?

John Gardner did this, too. And it's fine in novels, and can be made to sound convincing. But it doesn't make these books realistic depictions of Soviet intelligence.

The targeting by distance is pretty far-fetched. The targeting of a known field agent ditto. The whole idea that she's in love with him, that the British will know that that's absurd and therefore a trap but not be able to resist... The idea that they would think 'let's trap someone' first and then discuss the whole world until they narrowed it down to Bond. It's enormous fun, but I don't think it's a plausible operation in espionage terms - or even in espionage fiction terms. But this is just a matter of opinion, so I don't think we'll reach agreement on this point.

Yes, probably not. But, what can you do?

Of course I would agree with it, as it's the point I've been trying to make. Fleming didn't care about plots that much, and he had other strengths that over-rode that, so it wasn't really a problem.

I wouldn't agree that he didn't really care about plot - but, we've been over that, and over and over it, so - but, I do agree that he had a particular talent that none of these others have been able to touch.

In a way, Bond has become something like a serialized comic book character - which isn't a debasement; you'll not find a larger fan of Batman - when he's written by certain writers, e.g. Alan Moore, Ed Brubaker, Paul Dini, and early Frank Miller, to name a few - on the forums, I think. But, each has their own strengths - and, their stories generally seem to exist within their own universes.

The term was occasionally misused by misinformed writers in the West many years later, but that's an entirely different matter. You claimed that the real-life Smersh undertook similar operations to the one in FRWL. I said Smersh no longer existed and you said, ah, but Soviet intelligence in general was known by the name Smersh. Which is simply not true.

I believe this may be a case of misunderstanding, actually.

Some writers have confused it with others parts of Soviet intelligence - but by that token your misunderstanding of Smersh means Fleming was rather accurately reflecting Soviet espionage activity!

I'm sorry?

Additionally, Griswold - who seems to be your source for this (you're a bit vague about what your source is for what piece of information, understandably!) - specifically stated in his book that Fleming's use of Smersh 'appears to be one of artistic licence and a very active imagination'. Which is my point.

He also said, "It's is apparent that Fleming's fictional SMERSH was based on the structure of the real SMERSH except that Fleming broadened it's reach from military intelligence to counterintelligence against opposition secret services."








Oddly, it's not letting me post the rest of my response. What's the deal?

[Willowhugger]

Maybe its too large.

[Superhobo]

Well, that's what I thought, at first. But, when I tried to post it as a separate post, the same thing happened - a completely blank "The following errors, etc." field.

[spynovelfan]

Superhobo, the board won't allow more than a certain number of quotes in a post - probably for good reason!

I think we've gone on quite long enough on this. You said that Fleming's depiction of Soviet espionage in FRWL was realistic but, as I think I've shown at length now, quoting directly, most of it was based on information from one book, which was largely invented. It's not my problem if you can't find anything to back up your points, I'm afraid. You are absolutely right that most Western writers of non-fiction books about espionage in Fleming's time were vehemently anti-Communist - and that's one reason why a lot of those sources are unreliable. Espionage non-fiction has improved immensely since the end of the Cold War. (Regarding Seth/Chartham, the CIA review of one of his books near the foot of this page gives you some indication of the problems in his works: https://www.cia.gov/...i2a10p_0001.htm He, Cookridge/Spiro and Donald McCormick/Richard Deacon were all of the same stamp: I advise steering well clear of all three if you want an accurate picture of real-life espionage!)

I think once you've read Cookridge's book and looked up all the other stuff you confidently claimed but are now having trouble backing up with a quick Google search, we can continue the conversation. Alternatively, please feel free to continue to quote all my reasoned arguments back at me with 'What?' or 'I'm sorry?' appended after each point - but I won't be responding until you've put a bit more effort in. So far, most of your replies have been, dare I say it, rather hollow? Sorry, couldn't resist. I don't mean it as cattily as that - it's always good to discuss Fleming with others who appreciate him.

[Trident]

What's interesting about Colonel Sun is that he totally breaks down over the act of torture. It repulses him and leaves him feeling mentally and physically shocked. Also, peculiarly, Colonel Sun doesn't actually commit any atrocities during the work himself. The Hudsons are killed on his command and the poor Greek fisherman dies because of their desire to find Bond but Sun himself is proven to be just an ordinary human being at the end of this.

It's interesting to note that, even compared to Le Chirffe, he's actually the least monstrous of Bond's villains.

Sun seems to have a built-in predetermined breaking point. Fleming's villains usually are of the dragon variety. They may have weak points (Goldfinger's greed for gold, Blofeld's vanity and megalomania, Mr. Big's voodoo-cult scheme, the beast-quality of Red Grant) but they are generally depicted as larger-than-life, superior in ressourcefulness, wealth and power.

Sun's distinguishing weakness is an only too common one. He has a major crush on Bond. He fell for his victim and, afraid of certain rejection, wasn't able to acknowledge his feelings until the very end. He seeks Bond's forgiveness. And before he can get an answer, once more afraid of what it would be (we never learn from the novel), he kills himself.

A previously unheard-of act, entirely out of character with any other villain in Fleming's oeuvre. The closest we ever come to such a development would have been Vesper's suicide. Speculation has it that a different version of TMWTGG may have seen a more interesting relationship between Bond and Scaramanga, but we'll most likely never learn about how much of this is true. So Sun remains the only villain to ever fall in love with lit-Bond.

[Trident]

It was mentioned, although only briefly and in a different context in Siegfried Tesche's 'James Bond - Autos, Action und Autoren' (James Bond - Cars, Action and Writers). Tesche writes that this bazooka/Mexico/bartender-affair would have been Amis original idea for a continuation. Most unlikely, as it basically meant to ask Glidrose to slaughter their goose.

Blast - beaten to it! I thought I had something new there. I don't think Amis was really planning to kill Bond, though - it was just good PR, the same as Fleming had with the ending of FRWL. I expect there'd have been an attempt and perhaps a cliff-hanger of a chapter and then off he'd have gone on the mission.

Another idea of Amis was mentioned in the same book a little bit more extensive: the 70 year old Bond enjoying his holidays in the Swiss Alps where he meets the daughter of a US-Senator. Said Senator would have been abducted by the KGB General Moriarvsky. Said daughter asks Bond for help, offering to do 'everything you want'. Bond answers 'A bit late for everything but I'll help you anyway.' and sets off to rescue the father. The end would have been Bond and Moriarvsky both entangled in a fight, dropping into a waterfall.

I would have liked to read both the Mexican story and the Holmes-ripoff. Tesche writes that the latter one supposedly would have been another reason for Ann Fleming to deny Amis any further assingments regarding 007. Once more this seems unlikely IMHO. A 70 year old Bond would have been an idea that would have come later, say towards the end of the 70's or mid-80's. I don't think it was an option by 68/69. But I think the basic idea of an older Bond was never pursued so resolutely. This is what makes up much of my admiration for Amis. He seemed to have rather bold ideas. Once more: oh, what could have been...

This was just a joke by Amis, I think, a Holmes/Bond pastiche piece, although he did make the joke twice, with slight variations, and claimed to have pitched it as a short story idea to Glidrose, who 'went white'. The first time he mentioned it was to Clive James in the New Review in July 1974, the second time in an interview with Raymond Benson in 1982. Hank Reineke discussed both occasions and quoted from both interviews in his article.

Yes, somehow the idea is just too far off into spoof territory; and spoofing two iconic figures with one go at that. Still a shame Amis never wrote about the older Bond. I think his version of Bond might have worked better with an older, more mature hero. At any rate it would have been interesting.

I suspect there was no follow-up to COLONEL SUN because the first didn't sell as well as they'd hoped. (And Ann Fleming didn't have a veto, come to think of it, according to Peter Janson-Smith when I asked him about her regarding Jenkins. Which makes sense, seeing how Amis finished CS a month after she gave her permission for him to be hired!)

Looks as if Ann Fleming was merely asked for decency's sake and to avoid a scandal if she found a way to somehow publish her feelings about further exploits of Bond penned by Amis. If she gave, however reluctantly, her ok to this, she'd have a weaker position later in the day.

[Willowhugger]

Sun seems to have a built-in predetermined breaking point. Fleming's villains usually are of the dragon variety. They may have weak points (Goldfinger's greed for gold, Blofeld's vanity and megalomania, Mr. Big's voodoo-cult scheme, the beast-quality of Red Grant) but they are generally depicted as larger-than-life, superior in ressourcefulness, wealth and power.

Sun's distinguishing weakness is an only too common one. He has a major crush on Bond. He fell for his victim and, afraid of certain rejection, wasn't able to acknowledge his feelings until the very end. He seeks Bond's forgiveness. And before he can get an answer, once more afraid of what it would be (we never learn from the novel), he kills himself.

A previously unheard-of act, entirely out of character with any other villain in Fleming's oeuvre. The closest we ever come to such a development would have been Vesper's suicide. Speculation has it that a different version of TMWTGG may have seen a more interesting relationship between Bond and Scaramanga, but we'll most likely never learn about how much of this is true. So Sun remains the only villain to ever fall in love with lit-Bond.

Honestly, I've always rejected Kingsley Amis' view that Scaramanga had a crush on Bond. While his denied homosexuality is explicit in the novel, it seems to be reaching that it was anything more than one of Fleming's usual plot devices. The fact that Scaramanga intends to kill James Bond from the very beginning seems to go along with his stated view. In other words, Scaramanga just wants an extra gun at the conference and intends to kill the man afterwards so he doesn't have to pay him (a cheap villain as well as a murderer!) and Bond will not have overheard anything that could implicate him.

Occam's Razor and all that.

Colonel Sun's crush on Bond is certainly one reading of it, too. However, there's also a certain level of experimentation on the torturer's part as well. He's not interested in torturing Bond per say for sexual reasons (though he seems to think he'll get a spiritual=sexual thrill from it) but because he thinks it'll make him feel like God. He's actually right in that he's read the Marquis De La Sade wrong because yes, it is about sex with him. What's interesting is that since Colonel Sun feels so disgusted with himself, the earlier talk about interrogations and breaking people in Sun's mind seemed to have been done nonviolently.

[Trident]

Honestly, I've always rejected Kingsley Amis' view that Scaramanga had a crush on Bond. While his denied homosexuality is explicit in the novel, it seems to be reaching that it was anything more than one of Fleming's usual plot devices. The fact that Scaramanga intends to kill James Bond from the very beginning seems to go along with his stated view. In other words, Scaramanga just wants an extra gun at the conference and intends to kill the man afterwards so he doesn't have to pay him (a cheap villain as well as a murderer!) and Bond will not have overheard anything that could implicate him.

There are several quite interesting articles and discussions regarding TMWTGG on here. Off the top of my hat:

http://commanderbond.net/article/1099

http://commanderbond.net/article/1110

http://debrief.comma...p...t=0&start=0

From the discussion:

Then, at Scaramanga's hotel Bond is woken by a nightmare. Something that hasn't happened previously with this force. And the nightmare is a telling tale regarding Bond's present state of mind (and would probably be further material for the inspection of sexual undercurrents in the novel).

'A nightmare woke him, sweating, around two in the morning. He had been defending a fort. There were other defenders with him, but they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly, ineffectively, and when Bond shouted to rally them they seemed not to hear him. Out on the plain, Scaramanga sat bassackwards on the caf� chair beside a huge golden cannon. Every now and then, he put his long cigar to the touch-hole and there came a tremendous flash of soundless flame. A black cannon ball, as big as a football, lobbed up high in the air and crashed down into the fort with a shattering noise of breaking timber. Bond was armed with nothing but a longbow, but even this he cold not fire because, every time he tried to fit the notch of the arrow into the gut, the arrow slipped out of his fingers to the ground. He cursed his clumsiness. Any moment now and a huge cannon ball would land on the small open space where he was standing! Out on the plain Scaramanga reached his cigar to the touch-hole. The black ball soared up. It was coming straight for Bond! It landed just in front of him and came rolling very slowly towards him, getting bigger and bigger, smoke and sparks coming from its shortening fuse. Bond threw up an arm to protect himself. Painfully, the arm crashed into the side of the night table and Bond woke up.'(from 'The Man With The Golden Gun', Ian Fleming 1965, Coronet paperback 1989, page 84-85)

The late-night raid of Bond's room by Scaramanga, maybe an attempt at rape? And what about Bond's blocking of the door? Did he actually expect such an attempt? After all, Scaramanga could have shot him already a dozen times before. What was he after in the middle of the night? And what did Bond suspect as he took pains to block his door?

My opinion is that there are several points in TMWTGG that would allow for a kind of sexual motive in Scaramanga's hiring of Bond and his subsequent behaviour towards his employee. Why the nightime-visit, for example? And there would also seem to be sufficient indication of Bond's awareness of Scaramanga's interest in him (the dream sequence and Bond's (ineffective) precautions agains Scaramanga surprising him in the night). In my readig these elements would tally without major discrepancies with an intended emphasis of a sexual element in TMWTGG. But of course this wasn't developed any further. Due to what reasons we may only speculate. Spynovelfan has mentioned in this discussion that Amis in a letter to Maschler expressed his belief that TMWTGG couldn't be published in its original version. Room for endless speculation regarding this 'original version'.

Colonel Sun's crush on Bond is certainly one reading of it, too. However, there's also a certain level of experimentation on the torturer's part as well. He's not interested in torturing Bond per say for sexual reasons (though he seems to think he'll get a spiritual=sexual thrill from it) but because he thinks it'll make him feel like God. He's actually right in that he's read the Marquis De La Sade wrong because yes, it is about sex with him. What's interesting is that since Colonel Sun feels so disgusted with himself, the earlier talk about interrogations and breaking people in Sun's mind seemed to have been done nonviolently.

Of course we mustn't forget here that Sun's belated epiphany comes only after Bond escaped and the tables have turned. How much of his last words is true feeling, how much calculated move to trick Bond into making a fatal mistake? Impossible to say.

[spynovelfan]

Incidentally, for those interested in COLONEL SUN - yes, we were discussing that, a long time ago! - in 2005, there was a very detailed 12-page article about it in Issue 47 of OO7 magazine by Hank Reineke. Reineke traced the history of Amis' involvement with Bond, and quoted at length from many of the (mostly somewhat negative) reviews the novel received. Reading the article again now, I see that Amis' appointment to write the novel was announced to the press on April 24 1967. On April 13 1967, Ann Fleming wrote to Lord Campbell saying 'Since Peter Fleming agrees to the counterfeit Bond, I am prepared to accept his judgement.' And on May 21, 1967 Amis mentioned in a letter to Philip Larkin that he had finished his 'Bond novel'.

If Amis' appointment hinged on having Ann Fleming's permission - which I'm not sure it did, mind - this is all rather extraordinary, because Amis had started researching the book in September 1965 - what state was the book in a year and a half later? He can't have finished it in a month, so who was the central character? What would have happened if Ann hadn't given the green light - or had they already given it to Amis without her knowing? Add in the contract with Jenkins and it's a pretty curious state of affairs!

Coming back to this - and the original topic of the thread - it might be worth pointing out that Glidrose were initially opposed to the idea of a continuation novel, but that they appear to have started to change their minds as a result of the respected British publisher Cassell announcing that they would publish a novel by the Bulgarian spy writer Andrei Gulyashki, in which his hero would battle James Bond. From The Times, October 8 1965:

'From Russia with Bond

The Russians can hardly be blamed. With the James Bond cult flourishing in every contitient it was not enough to damn hin as a sadist and a successor to Nazi war criminals, as Pravda did last week. More positive steps were called for, and now it is reported that Bond is to appear in a book by ANDREI GULYASHKI, where he will come up against what is described as an ideologically-steeled agent called Avvakum Zakhov, who, it is fair to guess, will make him look uncommonly silly even if he does not polish him off.

Obvious though this revenge seems, it represents a seriously thought out change of policy. Detective and adventure stories used to be frowned on in Russia, but last year Komsoniolskaya Pravda admitted that they could become "a powerful means of propaganda for the Soviet way of life, and for the new attitude of our society towards the people who stand guard over its tranquility". In other words, Avvakum Zakhov of Dock Green. More than an ideological battle has been joined here. Almost every reader must at times have felt a strong temptation to take over somebody in a book and completely change his or her destinies. It may only be the law of copyright and natural laziness that prevents this happenihg more often. Might it not, say, have been good for their characters if Agnes had been obliged to marry Uriah Heep or Little Lord Fauntleroy to remain a commoner? Or to arrange for Poirot to end a chase absolutely baffled, and Sherlock Holmes to go chasing off in the wrong direction while Lestrade brought the real criminal to book? When patriotic motives are involved the arguments in favour of re-writing fiction become overwhelming. Did no patriotic Frenchman ever see to it that Chauvelin caught Sir Percy Blakeney and had him properly guillotined? And what have the Chinese been doing all these years to help Dr. Fu Manchu? Now that the Russians have started something they might as well carry on with the good work. It would not be surprising to learn that Kim and Hurree Babu were really double agents.'

One wonders if Amis read this - the reference to the Chinese and Fu Manchu is rather intriguing, I think! Ann Fleming wrote to Evelyn Waugh just four days before this article appeared, on October 4 1965:

'Such is the avarice of Sir Jock Campbell who garners the "Bond" royalties, that he has hired at a vast price Kingsley Amis to impersonate Ian and continue the series. Peter Fleming was party to the transaction - they have not yet agreed on a pseudonym for Amis. No one understands why I am distressed; though I do not admire "Bond" he was Ian's creation and should not be commercıalısed to this extent. Is there any parallel in literature? Should not Kingsley Amis be ashamed? It's all a left-wing plot.'

Unpicking what we know so far, it would seem that Tom Maschler might have come up with the idea of Amis writing a Bond novel and passed this on to Jock Campbell, who apparently approved. However, it seems unlikely that Amis had in fact been hired 'at a vast price', because on March 15, 1966 Peter Fleming wrote to Ann Fleming, discussing the news that Cassell were interested in publishing Gulyashki's book, regardless of the fact that Glidrose had not approved of the use of the character of James Bond and would make no money from it:

'This brings out the importance of Glidrose either publishing, or at least having up its sleeve, a Continuation Bond, the existence of which would deter a respectable publisher like Cassell from taking (as they do) a keen interest in such a long-priced outsider as Gulyashki.

As you know, I was originally less than lukewarm towards the idea of a Continuation Bond; but, having seen more of the ramifications and repercussions of this extraordinary market, I now feel strongly that the right thing to do is to tell Kingsley Amis to go ahead.'

If Amis had already been hired at a vast sum in October 1965, it seems unlikely that Peter Fleming would be discussing giving him the go-ahead five months later. I suspect the answer is that neither Peter nor Ann wanted a new Bond novel, and that Ann in particular was very much against the idea (and even more so because she thought Amis very left wing). Publishing contracts are often very drawn-out affairs, and probably would have been more so with a property like James Bond, which was one of the most lucrative literary copyrights in the world at that time. So Campbell might well have made his intention clear to hire Amis in the autumn of 1965, at a large sum, which would have prompted that letter from Amis to his friends in Greece saying that he had to come out to see them at once... but Peter and Ann's objections could have held up the signing of the contracts for quite some time. I don't think Ann Fleming had any legal say in the matter, but she would have been a powerful adversary nevertheless, and everyone would have wanted her 'on side'.

Peter Fleming also mentioned in the above-quoted letter to her the idea of Glidrose having its own official Bond novel 'up its sleeve' in order to deter Cassell from breaching copyright, and they were so deterred, renaming 007 '07' in Gulyashki's novel when it was published in 1966. If Glidrose had said they had Kingsley Amis writing a follow-up, that might well have been the deterrent - and it could be that Glidrose initially didn't really mind whether or not they published a Bond novel at all, as long as the threat they were going to stopped the piracy (another five pirate Bonds were being planned at around this time, apparently).

Coming back to the first post in this thread, one could say that the first Bond novel after Fleming's death was certainly less sympathetic to Communism than it might have been! Intriguingly, in his Observer article, Amis argued with a straight face that COLONEL SUN was in keeping with Fleming's politics, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary in the novel, and he even referred obliquely to Ann Fleming's fears of his appointment:

'When the Bond thing came up it seemed like a gift from the gods. Here was the shove needed to get me moving on my thriller project, and to be able to imitate an admired writer under license, so to speak, is a unique way of paying him tribute and at the same time of taking some particle of his genius to oneself.

There are, of course, no gifts from the gods in any literary sphere, only labours imposed by them. The whole task had to be taken with the utmost seriousness in all senses. In the preliminary stage, fears were expressed in some quarters that I might produce a sort of Lucky Jim Bond, rampaging through the back streets of Wigan with a packet of fish and chips in one hand and a broken beer bottle in the other. Not a chance. Quite apart from the responsibility to one's original, no send-up (can we all agree never to use that hideous term again?) is bearable for more than a couple of thousand words or three or four minutes of screen time. Some sort of valid continuation, neither parody nor radical new departure nor more rechauffage of Fleming ingredients, had to be worked for... '

This, I think, is to slightly misunderstand what Ann Fleming seems to have been worried about, which was not primarily that Amis would try to be too amusing so much as that ideologically Bond would move leftwards, and 'end as Philby Bond selling his country to SPECTRE' as she put it in a libellous essay found in her papers after her death.

Also courtesy of Hank Reineke's article, and in keeping with previous comments about the strangely un-Bondish nature of Bond in COLONEL SUN, the National Review's review of the novel on June 18, 1968 echoed the sentiment expressed by Newsweek in its review that, if only the protagonist had been called 'James Smith... of MI5', it would have been a 'super-dooper spy story combining all the best elements of the genre: fast movement, exotic locale, beautiful Mata-Haris, a slit-eyed Oriental who is cool, cool, cool when applying knife and skewer to quivering flesh. But call him James Bond, 007, and it's, alas, a dud.'