![Red Grant by © George Almond [courtesy of www.007magazine.com]](https://literary007.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/1148830_10151614947083106_339189802_n.jpg?w=220&h=126&crop=1)
It’s no accident that the best novels often have the best villains, and in Ian Fleming’s canon, this is no different. They lay bare humanity’s worst traits and push Bond’s resourcefulness to the nth degree. Only the greatest authors make the pulses of all of us beat faster, and they do this by marrying the…
On April 12, 2020 we lost one of the greatest racing drivers and Britons in Sir Stirling Moss aged 90. In a quite remarkable life in which Moss cheated death a few times, he crossed paths with Ian Fleming and inspired a short story that would find life again in Anthony Horowitz’s novel Trigger Mortis.…
We have two more calls for papers for the annual SAMLA conference between November 15-17, 2019 in Atlanta. Please send 250-word proposals, brief bios, and A/V requirements to Oliver Buckton (obuckton@fau.edu) and Matt Sherman (baconbond@gmail.com) by May 15th, 2019. James Bond as Popular Icon: Goldfinger at 60 (and 55) Goldfinger—the seventh James Bond novel by…
The 3rd annual Whitstable Literary Festival in Kent this year, took on a spy theme and in particular Ian Fleming and his many Kent connections. Fans of the genre were delighted to witness some of the best names in the literary espionage trade, including many who we have interviewed in the past such as Matthew Parker,…
Review by Craig Arthur © 2015 The previous three James Bond continuation novels prior to Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis did not elevate the literary Bond brand. Sebastian Faulks’s Devil May Care showed contempt for actual Fleming aficionados, evident in the hubris of his assertion that he was ‘writing as Ian Fleming’. Every aspect of Devil May Care is…
On the eve of the publication of Trigger Mortis, we are absolutely thrilled to gain a quick exclusive interview with the 6th James Bond continuation novelist – Anthony Horowitz! How did you settle on the book’s title ‘Trigger Mortis‘? The title is probably the hardest part of getting a Bond book right! (And I hope…
This month we kick off a 7-part series by 7 writers inspired by Ian Fleming’s ‘Seven Deadlier Sins’. In his foreword to the book The Seven Deadly Sins, published in 1962; Fleming declared that the traditional seven deadly sins — PRIDE, ENVY, ANGER, SLOTH [accidie], COVETOUSNESS, GLUTTONY and LUST — were no longer sufficient. Thereupon, he…
Now pay attention literary 007 fans … this just in from top brass. Today marks what would be Ian Fleming’s 107th birthday and it could not be more fitting than for Ian Fleming Publications in conjunction with Orion Publishing, to announce the title of the new James Bond continuation novel – Trigger Mortis! The author,…
Since 2010, Gerry Wadsworth has been painting in watercolor and for the past two years has been working on “An Homage to James Bond” – a series of visual interpretations of books of Ian Fleming and the James Bond films. We welcome him in from the cold to answer to debrief. What ignited your passion…
Article by Craig Arthur with permission, originally published in 2007 James Bond was not the first fictional secret agent with a liking for martinis. W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden also drank them. “I move with the times,” Ashenden explains in Maugham’s story ‘His Excellency’. “To drink a glass of sherry when you can get a dry…
This week we welcome Jonathan Hopson from the V & A Museum in London, in from the cold, to submit his Field Report. What is your favourite Chopping cover and why? It’s a difficult choice, but For Your Eyes Only is exceptional. I admire the contrasting textures of paper, wood, metal and flesh. Chopping obviously enjoyed painting…
This week, we are so delighted to welcome the artist and illustrator George Almond in from the cold, to talk about his remarkable illustrations that he did to accompany John Griswold‘s James Bond Annotations and Chronologies. He also has provide artwork for various James Bond magazines including Bondage Magazine and 007 Magazine. 1. Was Richard Chopping…
Chicago is the kind of city that James Bond would have loved. He might well have needed to go there more often on assignments but there always seemed to be enough trouble off the coast of Miami to pull him away. Ian Fleming however made it there and used it for inspiration for some his…
Writer Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, provided an unlikely footnote to Bond lore. In 1975, he was commissioned by Albert R Broccoli to write a screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. Fleming’s original novel was considered unsuitable for adaptation but the title was retained with the aim of building a new story around it. Broccoli and…
Article by Revelator After the narrative slack of Diamonds Are Forever, Fleming decided to better himself with From Russia with Love. Because its story was entirely structured around a deathtrap for one man, it was important for that man to be human enough to hold the audience’s empathy. This demanded a more rounded Bond, and…
The name Goldfinger is probably the most synonymous title in the Bond canon with the most famous Bond girl, Bond villain, Bond film and Bond line: “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” But what about the book as a whole in the collective memory? It stands as one of the longest in the…
There is a certain paradox about James Bond’s relationship with all things America. Devoted to the Anglo-American war against Communism, there is a level of contempt that runs through the novels during a time when the British Empire was winding up and the new American one was burgeoning. The contempt tended to be about material…
The striking image of a skull holding a rose in its teeth on the cover of Goldfinger was Chopping’s favourite. Ironically, it was also the first Bond book he read, and he was noted as saying he felt there was enough violence in the world already without characters such as Bond glamorising it. From Goldfinger on,…
Artistic Licence Renewed 