Young Bond’s dog got the boot

During his appearance at the London Apple Store last week, Charlie Higson revealed an interesting piece of Young Bond/Ian Fleming trivia. He originally intended to give James Bond a companion dog in SilverFin. Says Charlie:

“In the first book, in SilverFin, I thought I’d give James Bond a dog. Every boy in an adventure story needs a dog. But then it came back from the Fleming’s that Ian hated dogs. So I took the dog out. Which was good because I couldn’t ever really think of anything very much for the dog to do in the books. So I was relieved in a way.”

Charlie’s talk is now available as a “Meet the Author” podcast via the iTunes UK store.