About continuity in James Bond continuation novels

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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.

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.

A look back at a Bond continuation story

Playboy’s publication of Midsummer Night’s Doom

In the late 1990s, Playboy magazine revived a tradition. In the 1960s, Playboy serialized James Bond short stories and novels by Ian Fleming. When Raymond Benson was hired by the Ian Fleming estate in the 1990s, Playboy renewed the connection.

The magazine first published Blast From the Past, a Benson short story ahead of the publication of his first Bond continuation novel. The story connected details from Fleming’s You Only Live Twice Novel (what happened to the son Bond fathered with Kissy Suzuki) to more recent Bond literary events.

Benson also was a friend of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner (1926-2017). So, with Benson taking over from John Garnder as continuation author, Playboy went all in.

With Playboy’s January 1999 issue, Benson’s Midsummer Night’s Doom began thusly:

Five minutes into the briefing, M turned her chair to face him and asked, “What do you know about Playboy, 007?

James Bond blinked, “Ma’am?”

The magazine, 007. how much do you know about it?”

At this point, knowing Eon Production now had a woman M (Judi Dench), Ian Fleming Publications followed stit. Toward the end of the story, the reader is informed that Hefner has long known about Bond.

Bond was amazed. “I’m surprised that you remember that day, Mr. Hefner.”

“We have always kept up with you, James,” Hefner said with a wink. “We’re a lot, you and I. And please call me Hef.”

In the movies made by Eon Productions, Bond knew a lot about Playboy. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the George Lazenby version of Bond read a copy while a machine cracked a safe. In 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery’s Bond switched his wallet with Peter Franks, a villain Bond had just killed. Bond had a Playboy Club card

In real life, Hugh Hefner helped boost Bond’s popularity in the U.S.

The 1999 short story played on all of that. Bond’s mission takes him to Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. The story even uses names of friends of Benson’s (similar to how Ian Fleming did in his originals). Benson even evokes the final line of Fleming’s final line from the author’s Goldfinger novel. “Then he brought his mouth ruthlessly down on hers.”

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.

Bond questions: The new continuation novel

Image for the cover of With a Mind to Kill

So, a third James Bond continuation novel by Anthony Horowitz is scheduled for May 2022. Horowitz’s Bond stories are set in the original Ian Fleming timeline.

According to early publicity material for With a Mind to Kill, “It is M’s funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M’s murder – James Bond.”

While we’ll have to wait until May, naturally the blog has questions.

What kind of security does MI6 have, anyway?

With a Mind to Kill begins after the events of The Man With the Golden Gun, Fleming’s last Bond novel. That book (published in 1965, after Fleming’s death) began with a brainwashed Bond unsuccessfully trying to kill M.

The whole point of the 1965 novel was for Bond to be un-brainwashed and given a suicide mission to show his loyalty. So Bond turns around and tries to kill M, again? And this time it works? That doesn’t say much for MI6 security.

What does this mean for Colonel Sun?

Colonel Sun, written by Kingsley Amis under the name Robert Markham, was the first Bond continuation novel. M gets kidnapped and Bond has to rescue him.

So does that not count now? For that matter, does With a Mind to Kill write off the John Gardner continuation novels?

You have more questions?

Does that mean the Gardner novels are now, officially, their own universe? Does that apply to all the other continuation novels aside from the ones Horowitz has written?

Truth be told, it has been shaping up that way for some time. Gardner and Raymond Benson basically timeshifted Fleming’s Bond. Jeffery Deaver essentially did a hard reboot but that was never followed up. Horowitz and other continuation authors set their stories in the Fleming timeline.

Still, Colonel Sun had been special. It was the first continuation novel. And it’s the only one acknowledged by Eon Productions, which produces the James Bond films. Eon used a torture scene from Colonel Sun in SPECTRE and had a “special thanks” credit to Amis’s estate.

It could be in the new novel that M’s death is a fakeout. It should also be noted that a detailed description of the book surfaced in September on the website of HarperCollins before being taken down. (Don’t click on the link if you don’t want to know.)

Still, there are a lot of questions.

RE-POST: The blog’s obit for Paul Baack from 2017

Paul Baack (1957-2017 ) in 2013, wearing headphones to utilize his voice-activated software.

Paul Baack, co-founder of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, died four years ago today. I’m re-posting the obituary I published that day. 

Paul Baack, co-founder of the James Bond fan site Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, died today at 60.

Paul and Tom Zielinski began the site, intended as a James Bond “e-magazine,” in 1997. HMSS, according to the founders, was the equivalent of a “toy train” for them.

It was more, of course.

From 1997 until 2011, HMSS presented magazine-length articles about James Bond and related topics. Contributors included Raymond Benson, the 007 continuation novel author from 1997 to 2002.

Benson named a character after Paul in his 1999 Bond novel High Time to Kill.

Normally an obituary refers to its subject by his or her last name. But the Spy Commander, for this obit, will refer to him by his first name.

Paul, from the beginning, designed the HMSS pages. His graphics enhanced the articles. He had a way of prodding the authors to make their contributions just a little bit better. Paul would make suggestions to improve the articles.

Those suggestions came in the form of a gentle nudge, not a dictate. HMSS, after all, was a hobby — the toy train analogy — not life or death. Nevertheless, Paul’s instincts were excellent. He was right far more than he was wrong.

Paul Baack-designed promo for the fall 2011 issue of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, the e-magazine’s last issue.

Paul led a tough life. In 2003, he was paralyzed after being struck by a car. Despite that, he carried on. He utilized voice-activated software to do his HMSS work and follow his various other interests, which included doing artwork such as THIS and THIS and THIS.

This blog was, in fact, Paul’s idea. He wanted a way for HMSS to have a presence on the internet between “issues.” The Spy Commander was among the HMSS contributors.

Eventually, I took over the blog. But I was always aware he was reading. I was always glad to receive his feedback.

HMSS had a good run. It went offline in 2014.

“Bond and Holly” by Paul Baack

Paul was one of the most memorable people I ever met. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering he endured since 2003. But he endured it with warmth, and grace and humor.

James Bond fandom is richer for what Paul and Tom Zielinski started. This blog, obviously, would not exist without Paul’s encouragement.

After HMSS went offline, the blog published THIS POST about how it was now on its own. Paul posted this comment:

“‘Upward and onward’ indeed! Heartfelt thanks to you, Bill, for keeping the flame.”

Thanks to you Paul, for lighting the flame in the first place.

Jerry Juroe, one-time Eon publicity man, dies

Cover to Jerry Juroe’s recent book

Charles “Jerry” Juroe, a long-time publicity man whose career included a stint at Eon Productions, has died at 97.

Friends of Juroe, including Doug Redenius of the Ian Fleming Foundation, and Raymond Benson, former Bond novel continuation author, published tributes this week on social media.

Juroe published a book about his career in 2018. Besides Bond, he worked with many others as a publicist including Marilyn Monroe and The Beatles.

In addition, Juroe was a presence on home video documentaries about the Bond film series produced by Eon Productions. His career also included time at United Artists where he worked on non-Bond UA movies such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Jerry Juroe in 1963 working on the UA-released It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

UPDATE: Eon’s official James Bond feed on Twitter acknowledged Juroe’s passing.

“We are so very sad to hear that Charles ‘Jerry’ Juroe passed away yesterday, aged 97. pic.twitter.com/EFnZJO283Q

— James Bond (@007) October 1, 2021

1999: TV Guide publishes a Bond special

TV Guide cover to the Nov. 13-19, 1999 issue

In 1999, TV Guide decided to go big on a special James Bond issue.

The Nov. 13-19 edition, with a Pierce Brosnan cover, included a new Bond short story, an interview with Bond actresses and an essay by a conservative icon.

Live at Five by Raymond Benson: This was a five-page short story by the American James Bond continuation author. Bond recalls an assignment in Chicago.

This was part of a big year for Benson’s tenure as a Bond author. 1999 also saw publication of an original Bond continuation novel by Benson, High Time to Kill, and the novelization of the 007 film The World Is Not Enough.

Buckley on Bond: William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008), a conservative commentator and sometimes spy author, mused about Bond. “James Bond does it all with that remarkable lightheartedness that attaches to the Just Man,” Buckley wrote. “The Bond films are there to be viewed, popcorn in hand. You’re not to worry about the girl’s emotional problems.”

I wonder what Barbara Broccoli would say if she had a conversation with Buckley.

Bond actresses: The issue has a Q&A with Jane Seymour, Luciana Paluzzi, Maud Adams, Lana Wood, Tanya Roberts, Lynn-Holly Johnson and Lois Chiles.

How writers channel their lives to their work

“Most fiction is shaped by geography and permeated by autobiography, even when it is trying not to be,” Ross MacDonald (Kenneth Millar), in the introduction to Archer in Jeopardy, a 1979 omnibus of three Lew Archer novels, published in 1979.

There’s an old saying you should “write what you know.” But, for many fiction writers, it goes beyond that.

Writers, whether they intend to or not, show what is going on with their lives.

Take, for example, the James Bond novels and short stories by Ian Fleming. “The early novels have an engaging style that concentrates on mood, character development, and plot advancement,” Raymond Benson wrote in The James Bond Bedside Companion. “In the later novels, Fleming injected more ‘pizzazz’ into his writing.”

Toward the end of his run, Fleming had other issues. In April 1961, the author suffered a major heart attack, according to the Ian Fleming Publications website. Fleming stories written after that time reflect a fascination with death, especially the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice.

Nor was Fleming alone. Paddy Chayefsky had a dark outlook about humanity. Characters played by James Garner in The Americanization of Emily, George C. Scott in The Hospital and William Holden in Network are, in effect, alter egos for Chayefsky.

This post began with a quote from Kenneth Miller, aka Ross Macdonald. His Lew Archer often probed troubled families to solve a mystery. Miller himself channeled his own troubled life when writing his Lew Archer stories.

Writing fiction is hard. Doing it well takes talent and effort. Even though who do it well may not be able to make a sale.

Regardless, the authors tell more about themselves than they perhaps intend. As Kenneth Millar observed most fiction “is permeated by autography.”

Does No Time to Die evoke one of Fleming’s last ideas?

New No Time to Die poster

Is this a spoiler? Only if it’s correct. Nevertheless, don’t read any further if that upsets you.

The MI6 James Bond website today published a story about No Time to Die spoilers based on call sheets issued during filming in Italy last year.

The article reveals a number of details. But one in particular would catch the attention of Bond fans who’ve read Ian Fleming’s original novels.

Specifically, such fans would note the end of the author’s You Only Live Twice novel.

Here’s an excerpt:

One of the final scenes to be shot Italy back in September was with Nomi (Lashana Lynch) and Madeliene (Lea Seydoux) on the coast near Maratea Port for scene #235. This location is doubling for Safin’s island. Local press caught shots of a rib boat with Nomi in combat gear and Madeline on a radio.

But there is a third character included in these late scenes, and it is not James Bond. Her name is Mathilde and she is 5 years old. She appears in scene #235: “Nomi pilots Madeliene and Mathilde to safety with island in the background.”

Could Mathilde be the daughter of Bond? That would be similar to the You Only Live Twice novel, where Bond, suffering from amnesia and thinking he’s a Japanese fisherman, travels off to the Soviet Union. He’s unaware that Kissy Suzuki is pregnant with his son.

The MI6 article adds this at the end:

Could James Bond become a parent? Regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have for years worked on including elements of unused Ian Fleming material, and aside from Bond’s brainwashed attempt to assassinate M in ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’, one of the most glaring omissions from the film series is how Bond leaves Kissy at the end of ‘You Only Live Twice’.

We’ll see. Eventually.

Footnote: Bond continuation novel author Raymond Benson ran with the idea at the beginning of his 1997-2002 run. James Suzuki, the daughter of Bond and Kissy, figures into the short story Blast From the Past. That story was first published in Playboy.

James Suzuki is killed, bringing Bond into conflict with another old enemy.