Her Majesty’s Secret Servant marks its 16th anniversary

This month marks the 16th anniversary of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant. It was in April 1997 that the Web site debuted. HMSS’s first year included a variety of features. Among them: Raymond Benson on Hong Kong near the start of his tour of duty as 007 continuation novel writer.

Last year, while noting the 15th anniversary, we said a “best of” issue of the webzine was in the works. It didn’t work out that way as real life has a way of intervening. If that changes, we’ll let you know.

Still, this blog (which has its own fifth anniversary in October), the HMSS WEBLOG TWITTER FEED and HMSS Facebook page are still active. The Twitter feed and Facebook pages include links and short comments that don’t show up on the blog. Anyway, thanks to the readers who frequent HMSS on its various platforms. (And if you’re interested in HMSS swag, there’s always the HMSS shop.)

The M of two worlds

Judi Dench as M — or one of them.

For the past seven years, there’s been a recurring debate: If the 007 film series started all over with Casino Royale, how can Judi Dench’s M still be around?

One possible answer is this: The Bond movies starting with Casino comprise a separate fictional universe from the other 007 films. The Judi Dench M of 1995-2002 (the Pierce Brosnan films) is different than the Judi Dench M of 2006-2012 (Daniel Craig’s first three films). They just look remarkably alike and are obviously played by the same actress.

Recently, the ComingSoon.net Web site had AN ARTICLE ABOUT SKYFALL’S PROPS. There was this excerpt:

As we looked at the porcelain bulldog M bequeaths Bond, the archive assistant read the inscription on the box it is presented to him in – “Olivia Mansfield bequeaths James Bond.” We’ve searched around, and as far as we can see this is the first and only time anyone’s ever revealed M’s ‘real name.’ It may not have been spoken, but if you were watching on a big enough screen it could have been visible, so we’d argue it’s now canon.

Earlier, during the Brosnan era, the Dench M was incorporated into Raymond Benson’s 007 continuation novels. One of them name gave her the name Barbara Mawdsley. That’s certainly not canon for the film series (which avoids Bond continuation novels like the plague). But it has been adopted by some fans.

What’s more, as many fans have noted, the two Ms seem to have different backgrounds. The Brosnan era M had been promoted from the analysis section and, in GoldenEye, said Bond was a relic of the Cold War. The Craig era M yearns for a return to the simplicity of the Cold War. Also, she’s rather adept at helping Bond prepare booby traps at Skyfall Lodge, skill sets she learned somewhere besides the analysis section. Not conclusive by any means, but all of that can be cited in making the case the characters are different.

The concept of different universes is hardly new and predates the Bond film series. It was a staple of science fiction and comic books.

DC Comics embraced the idea in 1961 with “The Flash of Two Worlds.”

The cover to Flash No. 123, “The Flash of Two Worlds.”

Five years earlier, DC had come out with a new version of the Flash, a hero who could move at super-speed. Instead of simply reviving the original Flash, DC came out with a different character with a different costume. The new Flash became popular and DC proceeded to produce new version of other Golden Age characters such as Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman.

The 1961 story has the two Flashes meeting when the new Flash manages to cross into the universe of the original character. (CLICK HERE to read more details.) This, too, was a hit with readers and DC further expanded on the alternate universe concept.

Now some fans say this is ridiculous, science fiction concepts have no place in the Bond films. To each their own. You could also argue the 2006 reboot would have been cleaner had M simply been recast at that time. But Judi Dench was popular and, with a new Bond, Eon opted to keep her even as characters such as Miss Moneypenny and Q were absent from Casino.

It was certainly understandable from a marketing perspective, if nothing else. So perhaps it really is, “The M of Two Worlds.”

Raymond Benson starts a blog

Raymond Benson

UPDATE: Benson deleted a Dr. No post and put up another one titled IN PRAISE OF STANLEY KUBRICK is in its place.

ORIGINAL POST (with appropriate deletions): Raymond Benson, the former James Bond continuation novel author, has started a blog, Blog Benson.

The author describes Blog Benson it as a “storehouse of random and useless thoughts, usually about various Baby Boomer ‘things’ with regard to movies, music, books, theatre, and whatever strikes my fancy.”

Benson wrote six Bond continuation novels that were published between 1997 and 2002 as well as novelizations of Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.

Chicago television station interviews Raymond Benson

Benson

WGN, a Chicago television station that’s also available on U.S. cable systems, did a feature on Raymond Benson, the 007 continuation author from 1997 to 2002. To view the story on WGN’s Web site CLICK HERE.

The story presents Benson discussing the 50th anniversary of Dr. No. The piece also mentions his continuation novels and The James Bond Bedside Companion reference book first published in the 1980s (and recently reissued, though that’s not referenced). WGN also mentions his new series of books featuring a character called the Black Stiletto.

(A factoid for our readers outside the U.S.: WGN is short for “world’s greatest newspaper,” the former slogan of the Chicago Tribune, part of the same company.)

Her Majesty’s Secret Servant celebrates its 15th anniversary

Her Majesty’s Secret Servant celebrates its 15th anniversary this month. The Web site began as the “toy train” of founders/co-publishers Paul Baack and Tom Zielinski. The duo decided it’d be “rather fun” if some of the regular posters on the old alt.fan.james-bond newsgroup could contribute to an “e-magazine” centered around the special world of James Bond.

The format, then as now, was to divide the site into sections: Editorial (one or more commentaries, similar to the editor or publisher’s letters at the start of a print magazine), Films, Books, the Bond Market (all about collecting 007 items), Lagniappe (“a little something extra,” including THIS EXAMPLE done during the period when Die Another Day hadn’t gotten a title yet), F1rst Person (personal experiences with some element of 007) and the Other Spies.

Why the toy train analogy? It was always meant to be fun. Nobody is making a living off this corner of cyberspace (not unless THE HMSS SHOP suddenly takes off). Its contributors even have opinions that can vary greatly except for one thing: an affection for the world of James Bond.

Over the years, Raymond Benson presented photographs he took in Hong Kong when he was preparing his first 007 continuation novel, 1997′s Zero Minus Ten. Tom Zielinski interviewed the 007 screenwriting team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The site also featured a Mark Henderson interview with Jeffery Deaver, author of the 2011 007 novel Carte Blanche. Outside of 007, the site ran an interview with film and television music expert Jon Burlingame about The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the years he put in to produce original soundtracks from the 1964-68 show.

There’s a lot more to look back on. So, a “best of” issue of HMSS is in the works.

Since the first issue, HMSS has expanded with this weblog, which debuted in October 2008, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. Still, the main site remains the heart and soul of the operation, especially Paul Baack’s distinctive design work.

So, 15 years later, here’s a note of thanks to the founders on behalf of everybody they’ve let play with their toy train.

IFP hires writer for new 007 novel, Book Bond Says

Ian Fleming Publications has hired William Boyd to write a new James Bond novel, to be set in the 1960s, according to A POST on The Book Bond Web Site.

Here’s an excerpt, including part of an IFP statement:

Wednesday, April 11, 2012WILLIAM BOYD TO WRITE THE NEXT JAMES BOND NOVEL

Huge news today! Ian Fleming Publications has announced that William Boyd will write the next James Bond novel. Boyd’s yet untitled novel will take Bond back to the 1960s and will be published in Fall 2013 by Jonathan Cape in the UK and HarperCollins in the U.S and Canada. Here is the full press release:

William Boyd to write new James Bond novel
Boyd takes Bond back to the Sixties with all the style and flair of Ian Fleming

William Boyd, the award-winning and bestselling author of Restless and Any Human Heart, is to write the next James Bond novel.

The novel, which is yet to be titled, will be published in the UK and Commonwealth in autumn 2013 by Jonathan Cape – Ian Fleming’s original publisher and an imprint of Vintage Publishing – and simultaneously by HarperCollins Publishers in USA & Canada. Rights were sold in the English language by Jonny Geller of Curtis Brown, on behalf of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.

William Boyd is the third author in recent years to be invited by the Ian Fleming estate to write an official Bond novel, following in the footsteps of the American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver, who wrote Carte Blanche in 2011, and Sebastian Faulks, whose Devil May Care was published to mark Ian Fleming’s centenary in 2008.

The key phrase is “in recent years.” IFP, formerly known as Glidrose, “invited” Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Christopher Wood and Raymond Benson to write either new 007 novels or novelizations of James Bond films between 1968 and 2002. IFP changed management about a decade ago and, not uncommon a phenomenon, the current regime tends not to recognize the work of its predecessors.

The last new “adult” Bond novel was Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche, published last year, which rebooted the literary 007 to the 21st Century, just like the film 007′s reboot starting with 2006′s Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. Now, IFP has switched gears back to going with the period piece approach the way it did with Sebastian Faulks’s Devil May Care in 2008.

Our speculation: it may be a sign that IFP has realized there’s no way Eon Productions will ever opt to use a continuation novel as the basis of a movie. Or maybe not.

As of 10 p.m. New York time, there was no press release on the official IFP Web site. So credit John Cox, who runs The Book Bond site, with a scoop (at least among the fan Web sites).

UPDATE: The BBC in A STORY on its Web site, quotes the new 007 author as saying his story will be set in 1969. It also says first-week sales of Deaver’s Carte Blanche novels were a fraction of Faulks’s Devil May Care.

No Skyfall novelization, Book Bond Web site says

There won’t be a novelization of Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film, the BOOK BOND WEB SITE REPORTED, citing Ian Fleming Publications.

Raymond Benson, most recent 007 novelization author

There was no statement on the Ian Fleming Publications Web site as of 3 p.m. Eastern Time on March 18. On the Book Bond site, webmaster John Cox said he didn’t press for the reasons why there won’t be a novelization.

One possibility (our own speculation): director Sam Mendes has had a penchant for secrecy for all matters Skyfall, even to the point of denying in early 2010 he was in talks to direct the film even after his own publicist had confirmed such talks were, in fact, underway. A novelization is typically available before a film’s release and is the ultimate spoiler. One exception: Max Allan Collins, in his novelization for Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy movie, awkwardly told the reader Tracy was surprised who the mystery was without revealing the identity.

IFP controls the literary Bond. Novelizations were published for the four Pierce Brosnan films: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. John Gardner did the GoldenEye novelization in 1995 and Raymond Benson the others, beginning in 1997. In 2002, Benson’s final Bond continuation novel had been published but he was the logical choice to do Die Another Day’s novelization published in the fall of that year.

With 2006′s Casino Royale, IFP re-issued Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel of the same name, and with 2008′s Quantum of Solace, IFP put out two Fleming short stories, including Quantum of Solace, which had nothing to do with the film.

Going further back, Christopher Wood penned novelizations for The Spy Who Loved Me (“James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me”) and Moonraker (“James Bond and Moonraker”) in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Gardner also wrote the novelization for 1989′s Licence to Kill.

IFP has no “regular” Bond continuation novel author. Sebastian Faulks and Jeffery Deaver were hired to do one-offs (Devil May Care for Faulks where he was “writing as Ian Fleming” and Carte Blanche for Deaver). Interestingly, based on spoilers that have leaked out, Skyfall has a plot element similar to Carte Blanche. (We referenced that spoiler in a March 17 post, so we won’t mention it here).

A modest proposal for the post-Skyfall 007 film series

So what happens after Skyfall? The 23rd James Bond film is still filming, of course, but we got to thinking what happens in the future.

Michael G. Wilson, co-boss of Eon Productions

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which co-owns the franchise with Eon Productions, wants the series to get back to an every-other-year schedule, something it said as part of its 2010 bankruptcy filing.

But MGM relies on Eon to actually produce the films. Michael G. Wilson, co-boss of Eon along with his half-sister Barbara Broccoli, has talked about how wearying making Bond movies are, including in 2009, (“Filming Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace back to back took a lot out of time and energy so at the moment we are all just recharging our batteries.”) in 2005, (“We are running out of energy, mental energy…We need to generate something new, for ourselves.”) one in 2004 or 2005 (“It doesn’t give me a problem to do one in three years instead of two. The studio may feel different, but these are very hard to put together. They take over your life. When we’re working on the script and production, my wife will say, ‘Do you realize you’ve been working seven days a week?’ So I don’t mind doing something else; to me it’s fine.”) and in 1999 (“We don’t have any ideas at this point…It just seems that this one’s [The World Is Not Enough] been particularly hard.”).

So maybe it really is time to give up on the idea of James Bond films coming out at regular intervals.

To maintain an every-other-year schedule, around the time you have one filming coming out, the story for the next should at least be taking shape. MGM’s bankruptcy gets most of the blame for what will be a four-year gap between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. But there are signs the scripting of Skyfall has been a drawn-out affair regardless of MGM’s financial ills. For example:

–In January 2011, when it was announced in January 2011 that Bond 23 would be a go after MGM exited bankrupctcy, the script wasn’t done. John Logan, hired to rewrite drafts by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, said in a Feb. 17 interview with the BBC that he’s been working on Skyfall for “over a year.” That means he would have begun work on Skyfall around the time of the January 2011 announcement.

–Earlier, in August 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported the movie’s script “isn’t ready” and, at that point, not even sent to MGM for review. This, after Eon announced in June 2009, more than six months after Quantum of Solace debuted, that Purvis, Wade and Peter Morgan had been hired to write Bond 23. But the release also noted that Morgan wouldn’t start writing until he completed other scrips.

Eon has mined all of Ian Fleming’s original novels and short stories. Wilson has ruled out, on multiple occasions, basing a film on any of the Bond continuation novels. (CLICK HERE FOR ONE EXAMPLE.) So Eon is pretty much on its own to develop stories.

Wilson’s stepfather, Albert R. Broccoli, lived to make 007 films and, after ending his partnership with Harry Saltzman in the mid-1970s, cranked out Bond films on an every-other-year schedule from 1977 through 1989. Wilson isn’t Broccoli. We take him at his word that he finds it a grind; he has said it for too long and on too many occasions to doubt it. He’s either 69 or 70 (different reference sources place his birth year as 1942 or 1943) and he’s been involved with the film series longer than Cubby Broccoli was.

So, maybe, Eon should follow the lead of Ian Fleming Publications. Starting in 1981, IFP (previously known as Glidrose) published 007 continuation novels mostly on an annual basis, first with John Gardner, later with Raymond Benson. That ended in 2002 as new management took over. Since then, IFP has come out with other projects such as the “Young Bond” novels. Meanwhile, its last two regular continuation novels, 2008′s Devil May Care and 2011′s Carte Blanche, were done more as “events” rather than part of a regularly published series. Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks was done as a period piece, Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver featured a rebooted 21st Century Bond, who would have been born around 1980.

Perhaps Eon should view its Bond films as “events,” with a gap of four years, maybe more, between movies, each a stand alone. Studio marketers have hyped “the return of Bond!” before after a hiatus (1995′s GoldenEye and 2006′s Casino Royale).

In any event it’s clear Wilson & Co. aren’t enthusiastic about an every-other-year schedule. Skyfall had scripting delays that had nothing to do with MGM’s financial problems. As long as Eon controls half the 007 franchise, it’s going to be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for MGM to have Eon come out with 007 adventures every other year.

ADDENDUM (Feb. 20): Just to be clear, as a matter of personal preference, we’d like Bond movies to come out more often than called for above. We call this a “modest” proposal because it calls for no changes in the cast of characters.

To get Bond movies more often, one of the following is going to have to happen: 1) Eon agrees to use continuation novels (because you’d at least have a starting point, something that would save time in story development); 2) Michael G. Wilson retires (though that alone doesn’t guarantee it); 3) MGM, or Sony or somebody else buys out the Broccoli-Wilson family (something that would be unpopular with much of the fan base), causing a jump start in the frequency (again not guaranteed).

Something has to got to give in the MGM/Eon dynamic: either MGM backs off an every-other-year schedule or Eon accelerates the pace of movie development or some combination of both. Maybe every third year, but *no* backsliding (Casino Royale was originally supposed to be released in 2005, but was delayed a year). The modest proposal above is a compromise that could occur without taking more far-reaching steps. Essentially the “modest proposal” is more or less the status quo of the past decade, simply recognizing it for what it is.

Benson wins a Lovey!

Cover Art © Del Ray Books. Click to embiggen.

Our good friend — and six-time James Bond novelist — Raymond Benson has just picked up an award at last week’s Love Is Murder mystery writer’s conference in Chicago. Sharing the “Lovey” with filmmaker John Milius, Mr. Benson won in the Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Horror category for the novel Homefront — The Voice of Freedom, based on the popular HOMEFRONT video game developed by Mr. Milius for THQ.

The book is published by Del Ray, a division of Random House. They describe it thusly:

HOME IS WHERE THE WAR IS

America may be reeling from endless recessions and crippling oil wars, but hack reporter Ben Walker never expected to see his homeland invaded and occupied by a reunified Korea—now a formidable world power under Kim Jong-il’s dictator son.

The enemy’s massive cyberattack is followed by the detonation of an electromagnetic pulse that destroys technology across the United States. Communications, weapons, and defense systems are rendered useless; thousands perish as vehicles suddenly lose power and passenger jets plummet to the ground.

Fleeing the chaos of Los Angeles, Walker discovers that although America’s military has been scattered, its fighting spirit remains. Walker joins the soldiers as they head east across the desert, battling Korean patrols—and soon finds his own mission. Walker reinvents himself as the Voice of Freedom, broadcasting information and enemy positions to civilian Resistance cells via guerrilla radio.

But Walker’s broadcasts have also reached the ears of the enemy. Korea dispatches its deadliest warrior to hunt the Voice of Freedom and crush the ever-growing Resistance before it can mount a new war for American liberty.

(Mr. Benson has previously won the “Lovey” in 2009 for Metal Gear Solid in the same category, and in the 2007 “Best Thriller” category with Sweetie’s Diamonds.)

On the off chance that you haven’t yet read it, Homefront — The Voice of Freedom is available at all fine booksellers, and from Amazon.com in several formats, including Kindle.

HMSS extends its congratulations to Raymond Benson on the winning of his third “Lovey” award!

PS: As a by-the-way, fans of his fabulous novel The Black Stiletto are in for a treat. Right now you can grab — for free! — a copy of his short story “The Black Stiletto’s Autograph” over at the SmashWords website. A sort-of prequel to the novel, this particular piece gives us a little back story, and a little additional insight, into the character of our favorite new costumed urban avenger. So, if you can’t wait for The Black Stiletto: Black and White to come out later this year, hightail it over to SmashWords to snag your free copy. They have it formatted for practically every platform in the world (including Kindle), so don’t worry if you don’t have an iNook or whatever.

Highlights of The James Bond Bedside Companion

Benson

With the news that Raymond Benson’s James Bond Bedside Companion will be reissued in 2012, we dusted off our 1984 first edition copy of the book to remind ourselves what the fuss was all about. Here are a few examples:

It had an introduction by Ernest Cuneo, one of Ian Fleming’s friends: “Ian Fleming was of the twentieth century and indeed his creation, James Bond, who emerged full blown from his imagination as a Greek God from the brow of Zeus, may be one of the twentieth century’s landmarks.” And that was just the first sentence of a three-page essay.

The book originated concepts that still fans use today: The James Bond Bedside Companion analyzed both 007 novels and movies. On page 123 of the first edition, Benson introduces the phrase the “Blofeld Triology” to describe Fleming’s novels Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and You Only Live Twice. The author says the novels mark “the change from the earlier (Fleming) novels to the more mature books.”

This theme has resonated with 007 fans, including the proprietors of this blog. Our parent site once ran an article saying that the Bond film series would have gotten more respect if it had adapted the trilogy in the order the Fleming novels were published. Instead, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman brought out You Only Live Twice after Thunderball rather than Majesty’s while tossing out Fleming’s plot for Twice.

Then again, during the period Benson described, Fleming wrote *four* novels, including the quirky 1962 The Spy Who Loved Me, which has first-person narration from a woman character. Nonetheless, the term “The Blofeld Trilogy” has stuck since Benson introduced it.

Benson introduced diagrams of novels and films that still stick with fans: Pages 156 and 157 have a literal diagram of the Eon Productions film series up to 1984. Each movie is dissected by “places,” “girls,” “villain and employer,” “villain’s project,” “obligatory sacrificial lamb,” “minor villains,” “Bond’s friends,” “gadgets” and “remarks.” Many Bond fans were aware the movies had these elements but Benson, with that one diagram, helped crystallize those notions. To this day, 007 message boards refer to “sacrificial lambs” for Bond allies who get killed in the movies.

Benson didn’t pull punches: The author clearly is a fan of the literary and cinema Bond. But there are portions of the book where he doesn’t let his admiration get in the way of his analysis. On page 116 of the first edition, Benson quotes from Chapter 16 of Fleming’s Goldfinger novel which describes how Bond views Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman, in less than admiring terms.

“So Bond is revealed to be a bigot as well,” Benson writes. “This aspect of his character is not particularly evident elsewhere in the series, though one should notice 95 percent of the villains in the novels are non-British.”

That’s tough stuff. Many fans want to hear about why the character they like is great. They don’t want to hear how the character, his novels or his films might possibly fall short of expectations. (Trust us, we know all about this.)

Benson established a template for a generation of fans regarding the movies: The over-simplified version would be Sean Connery good, Roger Moore bad. Benson is more detailed than that, but he captures the mood of many first-generation movie fans who saw 007 become the coolest thing on earth, circa 1965, only to see the character be less than that in the 1970s.

On pages 216-217, Benson diagrams the similarities between Connery’s You Only Live Twice and Moore’s The Spy Who Loved Me, which makes it hard to deny the 1977 film wasn’t a remake of the 1967 effort. The diagram was based on an article published in the 007 fan publication Bondage (which is credited), but Benson’s book gave it a larger audience.

To be honest, more space is required to analyze why The James Bond Bedside Companion had such an impact in the 1980s. Afterall, the first edition was 256 pages, including the index. The book was originally published before the Internet made it easier to do research. But it was also written by someone who clearly cared about the subject matter who wasn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers.

The author is a friend of the publishers of this blog and its parent Web site. Still, we’re not blowing smoke that it struck a cord among 007 fans. The news that a new edition is coming in 2012 caught fire on various Bond Web sites. You don’t get that kind of reaction unless fans actually care.

Benson eventually became a participant in the Bond machine, penning 007 continuation novels and three movie novelizations. As we understand it, the new editions won’t update the book beyond its 1988 edition. And that’s understandable. Once you cross over to being a participant, you can no longer maintain your distance.

The new version of the Bedside Companion — coming out in time for the 50th anniversary of the 007 film series — will help preserve a work that was published at an important time for 007 fans.