The writers taking James Bond beyond Fleming

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Goldeneye
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The writers taking James Bond beyond Fleming

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Guardian UK
Alex Larman
October 31 2008
The writers taking James Bond beyond Fleming
From Charlie Higson to Sebastian Faulks, from John Gardner to the host of slash fiction authors online, everyone seems to want to continue the adventures of 007
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The new James Bond film has attracted a great deal of attention for its unusual name. Quantum of Solace, after all, hardly trips off the tongue in the same way as such iconic titles as The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger or even Casino Royale. Perhaps mindful of the great acclaim that the latter's relatively faithful adaptation of the novel inspired, the producers and Daniel Craig have made a great fuss about how the latest title, taken from a Fleming short story is thematically close to the spirit of the earlier Bond, if not the actual plot. This sounds rather like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Were it not for the Bond connection, any title as self-consciously esoteric as Quantum of Solace would hardly pass muster.

But if the producers are running out of genuine Fleming to put through the mangle, where should they turn to next? The Fleming estate has already ensured that there's no lack of new material coming through. Bond is still a major literary brand, with Charlie Higson and Sebastian Faulks keeping the flame alive. There's a bewildering variety of official Bond spin-off novels.

The most obviously "literary" writer to have produced one was Kingsley Amis, whose novel Colonel Sun was written under the pseudonym Robert Markham. Amis, a long-term Bondophile, can be credited with beginning a renaissance after Fleming's death, which then continued with the books written by the reliable duo of Raymond Benson and John Gardner. The latter, especially, was widely seen as carrying on where Fleming left off, with sixteen novels to his name, including the novelisations of the films Licence To Kill and Goldeneye. His style is a close facsimile of Fleming's clipped, brand name-obsessed prose, and for many fans he ranks a close second to the original author. Even the dust jackets were modelled on the earlier books, with the artist most closely associated with the later Bond novels, Richard Chopping, producing the cover for Gardner's first book, Licence Renewed.

For those with more catholic tastes there's a ton of unofficial fan fiction, ranging from the illiterate to writing close to surpassing Fleming's. Thankfully most writers avoid the urge to try to drag Bond into our era of international terrorism. Most efforts concern the cold war, improbably named and seductive women, and an evil mastermind with a nefarious scheme to take over the world. Business as usual, then. Some of the best can be found at the excellent MI6 website, which operates a rigorous proofreading system.

The darker side of fan fiction, of course, is slash fiction, which sees Bond coupling with all manner of improbable allies and adversaries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, assignations with Miss Moneypenny prove to be particularly popular, often described in eyebrow-raisingly explicit detail. However, for satirical value, very few come close to Cyril Connolly's excellent parody, Bond Strikes Camp, which features a laughably macho 007 being sent to seduce General Count Apraxin, a KGB agent who is, in the pained words of M, "mad about drag". If you haven't read the story already, the twist in the tale is too good to be revealed, but suffice to say the oft-noted tension between Daniel Craig's Bond and Judi Dench's M might, in Connolly's view, have had quite a different cause altogether. Sadly we are unlikely to see such an adaptation making it onto the screen, but stranger things have happened. And perhaps Sir Sean Connery might consider taking on one last, dangerous mission?



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