Bond (and his rights holders) try to decide what’s next

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It’s a weird time to be a James Bond fan.

In terms of the films, we are — yet again — in another hiatus. This time, it’s entirely voluntary on the part of Eon Productions. Eon killed off the Daniel Craig version of Bond in No Time to Die. Where does it go from here?

The message from Eon: Don’t call us. We’ll call you.

Put another way: Bond 26? What’s that?

In the literary Bond world, Ian Fleming Publications wrapped up a trilogy written by Anthony Horowitz anchored in the Ian Fleming timeline. It’s now emphasizing a timeshifted “James Bond is missing” trilogy by Kim Sherwood with a quickly done timeshifted Charlie Higson story. The Sherwood and Higson stories have nothing to do with each other.

Higson’s tale, On His Majesty’s Secret Service, was connected to the recent coronation of King Charles III, the long-in-waiting monarch. Meanwhile, Sherwood’s trilogy still has two parts to go. More James Bond without James Bond.

For now, Bond overall is in neutral. Aside from Higson’s story, there’s not much actual Bond.

All of this, you might say, is obvious. And so it is. Regardless, it’s one of the oddest periods for Bond fans.

About continuity in James Bond continuation novels

To listen to an audio version of this post, CLICK HERE.

This probably doesn’t need to be said, but apparently, it does….continuation in the 007 continuation novels DOESN’T EXIST.

Let’s take a look.

Colonel Sun (1968, by Kingley Amis, writing as Robert Markham): This novel by an Ian Fleming admirer, seeks to be tied closely to Fleming’s originals.

The Fleming heirs (at least then) wanted to keep the Bond novels going. The Robert Markham pen name was intended for future Bond literary stories.

But this initial effort didn’t get beyond Colonel Sun. Anne Fleming, the author’s widow, wasn’t that interested.

Licensed Renewed-Cold: John Gardner was commissioned by Fleming’s heirs to restart the Bond literary series. His novels were published starting in 1981 through the mid-1990s. The books were “timeshifted” from Fleming’s originals with references to the creator’s works. Gardner’s books included novelizations for the Licence to Kill and Goldeneye films made by Eon Productions.

Zero Minus Ten-The Man With the Red Tatoo: Raymond Benson, who penned the James Bond Bedside Companion, was hired to take over from Gardner. In addition to the novels cited here, Benson wrote short stories that first appeared in Playboy and TV Guide. Like Gardner, Benson’s stories were timeshifted. Benson also did novelizations based on Eon movies.

Sebastian Faulks (2008): Years after Benson’s exit, the Fleming heirs hired celebrated author Faulks to do a Bond novel for the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth. Supposedly, Faulks was “writing as Ian Fleming.”

Jeffery Deaver (2011): The American author was hired by the Fleming heirs to write Carte Blanche. It was intended as the start of a new timeshifted series. But nothing happened after publication.

William Boyd (2013): The Fleming estate hired another established novelist to do a period piece, set in 1969. Amusingly, the title came from a TV project Ian Fleming was involved with that would be retitled The Man From U.N.C.L.E. None of the publicity mentioned this. Perhaps the heirs didn’t appreciate that Fleming sold his U.N.C.L.E. rights for 1 British pound.

Anthony Horowitz (2015-2022): The Fleming estate hired Horowitz for what would be a trilogy set in the Ian Feming timeline. The first book, Trigger Mortis takes place after the events of Fleming’s Goldfinger novel. Forever and a Day takes place before Casino Royale. Horwitz’s final Bond effort, With a Mind to a Kill, occurs after The Man with the Golden Gun novel.

Since then, Kim Sherwood and Charlie Higson have done timeshifted novels. There is no way to tie all of this to a continuity.

If any fan thinks they’re being clever pointing out discrepancies, forget it. It’s like pointing out time differences in comic books and comic strips. It’s fiction. Ian Fleming himself changed Bond’s timeline while doing his novels and short stories. The likes of Superman, Batman, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, etc., etc. don’t hold up to a firm timeline.

It’s fiction. That’s how it works.

Higson says his and Sherwood’s 007 stories are separate

Charlie Higson, author of the upcoming James Bond novel On His Majesty’s Secret Service, says his book and Kim Sherwood’s 007 universe trilogy exist in separate universes.

“My book and Kim’s book exist in 2 separate universes. They don’t relate,” Higson wrote on Twitter. “Kim’s book and world are her own creation. I’ve tried to do a tweak/update of Fleming’s world.”

Higson added his novel “is a one off for charity so I don’t think it can be described as a cash in.”

Both On His Majesty’s Secret Service and Sherwood’s Double or Nothing (with two sequels to come) are timeshifted to the present day. Higson, who penned a series of “Young Bond” novels, sets his novel to coincide with next month’s coronation of King Charles III.

Since 2008, Ian Fleming Publications has come out with mostly period pieces, including novels by Sebastian Faulks, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. Jeffery Deaver had a timeshifted novel that amounted to a reboot of the literary Bond.

On His Majesty’s Secret Service is scheduled to be published May 4 in the U.K. The book is to be available in ebook and audio book form on that date in the U.S. It may be available in regular book form later in the U.S.

Bond 26’s delay spur other efforts

The James Bond film franchise is in the midst of another hiatus. It’s not known when the franchise will get going again. How is this affecting the spy genre?

Literary Bond gets a chance to shine: In 2022, Ian Fleming Publication came out with Double Or Nothing by Kim Sherwood, a modern-day tale featuring other 00-agents while James Bond is missing. The novel is just now coming to the U.S.

Also, Charlie Higson, who penned a series of “Young Bond’ novels is getting his chance to do an adult Bond novel with On His Majesty’s Secret Service, a story related to the coronation of King Charles III. That will be published in all forms in the U.K early next month. In the U.S., we’ll get an e-book version and an audiobook at the same time. A print version may be out shortly.

Other spies get a chance to shine: Amazon is coming out with a streaming series called Citadel featuring operatives of an independent spy agency. A movie titled Maude vs. Maude with Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry is in development, according to Deadline: Hollywood.

Jolie previously headlined the 2010 spy movie titled Salt. Berry had the lead female role in Die Another Day, the 2002 James Bond film. Richard Madden is one of the leads for Citadel. He has been part of speculation for playing 007 in Bond 26.

There are other spy-related projects, including Argylle (whose cast includes another would-be Bond, Henry Cavill).

Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series gets a free run: Tom Cruise is coming out with a Mission: Impossible film(later this year, with a follow-up in 2024. This may be the finale for Cruise’s M:I movie series that began in 1996.

Bond fans note (with justification) that M:I stunts appear to be modeled after earlier stunt efforts in 007 films. But what makes the M:I series different is how Cruise seems all-in on the stunts.

We’ll see about all this. But nature abhors a vacuum. If the makers of the Bond franchise want a break, others clearly will take up the slack.

UPDATED: Reader Jack Lugo reminded me about this upcoming project, Ghosted, with Chris Evans and Ana De Armas. The latter was a memorable part of No Time to Die.

Temptations following in Fleming’s footsteps

Kim Sherwood’s James Bond continuation novel (without James Bond), Double or Nothing, is finally, officially available in the United States. I managed to get a copy last fall but haven’t finished it yet.

There is a temptation for authors who follow in the footsteps of Ian Fleming to show everyone they know their Fleming.

In 1998, British film historian Adrian Turner produced a book about the filming of Goldfinger, the third Bond film. It had many details, especially about different drafts of the script.

But Turner couldn’t resist playing James Bond author. He penned an introduction where he provided a parody of Fleming’s writing style where the historian sold his first-edition copy of Casino Royale. “Turner left the shop with a cheque for $6,000, which he folded and placed in his passport,” Turner wrote.

That was just the start. In chapter S, there was an entry titled “scarlet letter, the,” in which Turner engaged in pure fanfiction. The short story described an aging James Bond. He has received a letter from the daughter of Pussy Galore, who has recently died.

“My mother told me everything about you, about how you and she met and about Mr Goldfinger,” Turner wrote. “My mother was a very open and honest person who had no regrets about her past life.”

We’re eventually told that Pussy Galore married in 1967 Mark Rutland — the character Sean Connery played in the 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film Marnie. Mark Rutland died in a plane crash while Pussy Galore “started to decline immediately afterwards. I think she died of a broken heart.”

The daughter’s letter includes a note from Pussy Galore. It includes the Homer device that had been crushed with Mr. Solo in the film.

“Bond held the Homer and the piece of paper for a long time, staring into space and not resisting the tears which flooded into his eyes.”

In 1999, Bond continuation author Raymond Benson wrote a short story for Playboy where Bond traveled to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. The story ends with a Fleming line. “Then he brought his mouth ruthlessly down on hers.”

Kim Sherwood’s Bond novel, the first of three, has a double-O agent named Johanna Harwood, a screenwriter who worked on the first two Bond films, Dr. No and From Russia With Love. The novel also includes a character called Bob Simmon, presumably named after the long-time Bond film stuntman and stunt arranger.

To be sure, Fleming himself named characters after people he knew. So it’s understandable that continuation authors would perform similar wink-wink sort of things.

Still, those who follow Fleming can spot this sort of thing.

Twilight of the JFK-Hefner era of U.S. Bond fandom

John F. Kennedy statue in Fort Worth, Texas

James Bond became BIG in the United States in the early 1960s.

Ian Fleming’s 007 novels had been published since the early 1950s. But Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner began serializing Bond short stories and novels in the early 1960s. And, of course, John F. Kennedy, elected as U.S. president in 1960, made it known he was a 007 fan.

Life magazine published a list of the new president’s favorite books. Most were heavy history and biographies. But one was a popular tale, Fleming’s From Russia, With Love novel.

Hefner and Kennedy provided the literary Bond a huge jolt in the U.S. All of this happened just as the literary Bond was to be adapted to the screen by Eon Productions and United Artists.

That era, perhaps, might be at an end.

These days, continuation novels featuring Fleming’s character don’t show up in the U.S. until months after they’ve been published in the U.K. The most recent example? Double Or Nothing by Kim Sherwood. The most interested U.S. Bond literary fans arranged to have the novel imported.

What’s more, the U.S. box office for the 007 films aren’t what they used they be.

With 2021’s No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film made by Eon, showed up in the pay-per-view market about a month after the U.S. debut. In the U.S. theatrical market, No Time to Die came in at 007 at $160.8 million, behind The Eternals at $164.6 million, a major disappointment for Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios.

What’s up with Bond 26, the next installment for the Eon series?

Nobody outside of Eon knows. As of this date, there’s no new Bond film actor. There’s no new Bond film director. There’s no new Bond script.

Eventually, you would guess, Bond 26 will take shape. But Bond doesn’t generate the excitement in the U.S. it once did. The U.K. is Bond’s homeland. Both the film and literary franchises care a lot about that.

The U.S.? It doesn’t seem so much.

JFK died 60 years ago this November. Hefner? He left the scene in September 2017.

We will see if Bond again generates the kind of excitement he once did in the U.S.

Sherwood says she has completed her 2d 007-universe novel

Author Kim Sherwood says she has completed her second (of three) James Bond-universe novels.

This is what Sherwood sent out on Twitter:

Done! 🥳 Today I delivered book two of the #DoubleO trilogy to @TheIanFleming @HarperFiction & @HarperCollins 🍾 Does anyone else here write notes like this to themselves when they finish a book? 😂 (Of course, the word count will change with editing) pic.twitter.com/frbyI6M9iI

— Kim Sherwood (@kimtsherwood) October 31, 2022

Sherwood’s first Bond-related novel, Double Or Nothing, was published earlier this year. The official U.S. publication date is 2023.

Sherwood’s novels are timeshifted. James Bond has been missing for an extended time. The author introduces a new cast of 00-agents, including one named after one-time Bond screenwriter Johanna Harwood.

The return to ‘timeshifting’ with literary Bond

Cover for Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing

With this week’s publication of Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing, Ian Fleming Publications has, again, decided to embrace “timeshifting.”

Timeshifting is where an established character or universe created in one era is brought forward to the present day (or even near future) without the participants aging in real-time.

James Bond continuation novels began with Kingsley Amis’ Colonel Sun. But that was published in 1968, just three years after Fleming’s final Bond novel, The Man With the Golden Gun. Essentially, Colonel Sun was an extension of Fleming’s original timeline.

Continuation novels of standard Bond adventures wouldn’t resume until 1981 when John Gardner was hired by Glidrose (now IFP) to write new Bond literary adventures. In between, John Pearson wrote a one-shot Bond “biography.”

Gardner’s Bond was somewhat older. But he definitely wasn’t in his 60s (based on the Pearson book). Bond had a bit of gray hair but was still pretty energetic. Gardner would also write novelizations of Bond movies made by Eon Productions.

The Gardner era lasted into the 1990s. Glidrose/IFP then hired Raymond Benson to pen new original continuation novels. Benson would also write novelizations of Eon films. Benson has said he was instructed to make his original stories take place in the (then) present day.

Benson departed in 2002 (with one last original novel and the novelization for Die Another Day).

IFP hired authors such as Sebastian Faulks, William Boyd, and, most successfully, Anthony Horowitz, to write Bond novels as period pieces. Horowitz said his stories were specifically set within Fleming’s original timeline.

The one exception was Jeffery Deaver, whose Carte Blanche in 2011 was a sort of literary Bond reset. But IFP never followed up that that.

With Double or Nothing, Kim Sherwood brings the Bond universe — if not Bond himself — back to either the present day or near-term future. The big plot point is climate change. But Sherwood’s cast also features more diverse 00-agents.

To be clear, timeshifting is not a new technique at all.

Comic book characters such as Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, etc., etc. have been timeshifted. Authors of comic book stories have cherry-picked from stories originally published tens of decades ago. The same applies to newspaper comic strips. Dick Tracy debuted in 1931. He is *not* 100 years old (or older) in recent adventures.

To be fair, even Ian Fleming was slippery when it came to Bond’s age. The author likely didn’t realize how big Bond would become. Bond was in his mid-30s when Fleming wrote Casino Royale. Bond was *still* in his mid-30s when Fleming wrote his later 007 novels.

Reviews arrive for Double or Nothing

Double or Nothing, Kim Sherwood’s novel that expands the James Bond literary universe of 00-agents, is officially published Sept. 1 in the U.K. Reviews already are coming in

What follows are non-spoiler excerpts. James Bond is missing. Sherwood introduces a new cast of agents. They are directly overseen by Moneypenny. After a trilogy of Anthony Horwitz Bond continuation novels in the Ian Fleming timeline, the new Sherwood book timeshifts to the present day (or near future) with a plot related to climate change.

ROBERT CRAMPTON, THE TIMES: “The problem I had with Double or Nothing isn’t Kim Sherwood’s cultural update, it’s that James Bond, missing presumed dead, isn’t in it. So we get a Bond book without Bond. Which means we get a decent but nothing special spy thriller, better than Fleming in one way (because Fleming was a mediocre writer), but far inferior in the only way that matters. Because Fleming had one stroke of genius, namely creating this one fabulous character, the premier fictional star of the late 20th century. And Sherwood chooses to place this star, this legend, this 101-year-old king of cars and costume, coitus and cloak and dagger, not to mention luxury travel, off stage. Weird one.”

DAVID LEIGH, THE JAMES BOND DOSSIER: “The author, Kim Sherwood, is someone I was unfamiliar with but her writing is fast paced and she throws you right into the action from the start. While James Bond is MIA he looms in the background and there are many familiar elements and characters throughout the book…There are a whole host of characters, both from previous Bond books and new Double-O agents. Reflecting the modern world these characters are a much more diverse bunch than those appearing in Ian Fleming’s works. Most of the time they work perfectly well, at times it feels a little forced.”

SAM TYLER, SFBOOK.COM: “This is a thoroughly modern Bond book that brings (Ian) Fleming’s voice into 2022 and promises the future…The young agents also feel fresh, diverse, and deadly…Sherwood plays up the duplicitous nature of the agents. There are few people less trustworthy than someone who lies for a living…Rather than disturbing the legacy of Bond, (Double or Nothing) gives the franchise some new legs.”

In the United States, Double or Nothing won’t be published until April 2023. That follows the pattern of recent Bond continuation novels from Ian Fleming Publications.

An excerpt of Double or Nothing is published

Relatively minor spoilers. But those who are super spoiler adverse should leave now.

The Times today published an excerpt of Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing novel, which introduces new 00-agents.

The excerpt is a briefing scene between Moneypenny, now in charge of the 00s, and agent 004, Joseph Dryden.

Dryden is a veteran of the British military. “Moneypenny considered 004 the most experienced of her new generation of Double-0s,” Sherwood writes.

Essentially, the scene covered in the excerpt spells out the stakes of the story. Climate change is a big theme in the story. A tech billionaire “claims he can reverse the climate crisis and save the planet,” according to an Amazon promo of the novel.

Sherwood is introducing new 00-agents, with James Bond missing.

The Times also published an interview with Sherwood. The author says James Bond creator Ian Fleming “has influenced me hugely.”

In the interview, Sherwood said Ian Fleming Publications “wanted to expand the universe, widen it out.”

The Times summarized it this way: “Along the way, it makes Fleming’s cast of MI6 spies less male and less white than before.” Dryden is British-Jamaican. Johanna Harwood (named after a screenwriter of Dr. No and From Russia With Love), 003, has a French-Algerian mother, The Times said. Sid Bashir, 009, is British-Asian.

The excerpt and interview can be found by CLICKING HERE. The stories are behind a paywall.