Go for it, you know you want to...

Cinematic Bond versus Cthulhu, now there's a thought. "Pay attention, 007. As part of your cover as an occult investigator from Arkham University you'll need to be familiar with the Necronomicon, the Revelations of Glaaki, and the King in Yellow. Since we obviously don't have time for that I've programmed this PDA with all of these works. Just press the key combination FTAGN to access them..."

So, Charles, will you be staying at Willard Whyte's establishment in Las Vegas during your stay in the Colonies?

It seems to me that no Bond movie (Connery version) is complete without at least one gambling scene. It might be interesting to see your new anti-hero lose his (or more importantly, HER) shirt.

Respects,
Steve
From Flyover Country, U.S.

Reading this made me perk up - Bond! The books are fabulous, and if you're going to go on a magical Fleming book tour, please give us your itinerary so some of us can follow along at home. Not that I need an excuse to read them all again (I have all the books, although not, alas, the movies), but because it'll be fun to see your thoughts compared to ours.

Long time reader, first time commenter. There you go - I've been tempted to delurk :)

DebXena, all the way from New Zealand

Sounds like great fun! A very interesting thread snuck into the Bond films with the first Pierce Brosnan role (was it Goldeneye?) and the new M as "the evil queen of numbers", where she accused him of being a cold war relic; that could have gone someplace very interesting, but it looks like that storyline damped out very quickly in the films. The transition from Cold War to Information Age might produce a lot of interesting conflict for telling a story.

Which takes precedence -- Ian Fleming's Mary-Sue adventure yarns (his ID number, as secretary to the Head of Naval Intelligence in the Admiralty during the Second World War was, tellingly, 007), or the Broccoli family's technofantasy series?

I can't help thinking there's a potential for a great study in schizophrenia set in the mind of a Bond who tries to be *both*...

(I wonder how many who like the cinematic Bond have ever read "The Hildebrand Rarity" or "Quantum of Solace"? Admittedly, he only played a passive part as a listener in the latter.)

Odd that you should mention "Quantum of Solace" as I have to admit it's my only exposure to the written Bond (Along with the other short stories in the collection I read). What comes across from those works is Bond's contempt for women. Either Fleming had serious problems in this area or he was able to construct a very convincing character with a pathological hatred of women.

As for the screen Bond I demand the return of Vulcan bombers tout-fuckin'-suite.

See Also: Kim Newmans Hamish Bond

Let's just say, I'm planning on deconstructing Bond. Throwing away the commander and parachuting Bob (from the Laundry) in.

Bond is eminently deconstructable. An acquaintance once pointed out to me that it's pretty easy to demonstrate that Bond is actually a communist agent -- I mean, aren't most of his enemies capitalist entrepreneurs? Doesn't he work for a shady state bureaucracy in a shappy quasi-socialist realm that's seen better days? The dust-ups with SMERSH are just cover and the sort of bad-tempered bickering that had the KGB and Romanian secret police at each other's throats. And so on.

And then, there's the nature of the Bond villains. As someone else pointed out, when talking about Teledesic (in its' original 1100 satellite, mostly-owned-by-Bill-Gates incarnation circa 1998), "isn't this the sort of thing we have James Bond to protect us from?"

Personally I like the idea of Bond versus Larry Ellison. Ellison likes his toys -- ocean-going yachts, and his little supersonic runabout that the FAA won't flight-certify (because they don't like civilians owning aircraft that can outrun and probably out-fight an Air National Guard F-16). And he's clearly got some long term game in mind which will culminate in the announcement "all your data are belong to us!!"

Except Bond wouldn't know his shift key from his caps lock -- that's what Miss Moneypenny is there for. (Which is why Bob would be a more appropriate hero for this particular theme I'm planning on exploring.)

Steve: the gambling scene was the second one to suggest itself to me, a couple of years ago, when I began thinking about this book. Let's just say, it's going to be fun to write.

Just so long as its not followed by a Casino Royale style extrem beating to the goolies. Ouch!

I might have to make the odd excursion in the direction of Austin Powers territory, just to keep the Evil Overlord from MST3K'ing the canon, or launching on Kennebunkport, or something.

Ah, the misuse of Ian Fleming. A fine, fine thing.

Charlie's readers may be please to know that Dr Anthony Mayer's fine alternative history site http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~aem3/ah/history.html now has three Thomas More adventures:
 - On His Majesty's Most Secret Service
 - From Geneva with Love
 - Thou Art Only Born Again Once

[Anthony Mayer's site is more famous for hosting Jonathan Edelstein's superb Spinoza in Turkey as well as the more modest Thaxted, a novel that tells how the Iron Lady became a Trot and what happened next.]

Because, and this is something of an embarrassing admission, I've come to look down my nose at Bond. He's a snob, a poseur, and a borderline sociopath. The world has changed: the individualist anti-hero (or gentleman amateur, if you want to damn Fleming's creation with faint praise) is no longer in demand.

Damned straight!

[I'm in fine commenting company today - hi Syd, Marcus]

Charlie, if I bang on the wall of my office I can shake the bookcase of a mate who is an expert in all things Bond and most things Fleming. Let me know if you have questions for him. But what can be done with Bond that hasn't already been done? Don't answer that.

ObSF for the 'Bond is a Communist' theme is of course Mack Reynolds' _Subversive_.

Oh, and by the way, I finally read _Singularity Sky_. sporks. lovely.