SOLO U.S. paperback due out June 3, 2014

The U.S. trade paperback edition of William Boyd's new James Bond novel Solo is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.  The book will be published by Harper Paperbacks on June 3, 2014. Cover art has not yet been revealed.

The UK paperback edition of Solo is also available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk. The release date is May 8, 2014. Publisher is Vintage.

You can read my review of Solo HERE.

Steve Cole on YOUNG BOND 6: "It feels REAL at last."

Steve Cole has posted a brief update about the progress of his first Young Bond novel on his blog at stevecolebook.co.uk. Says Steve:

"I’ve been talking to my editor about rewrites for the first Young Bond book. It’s got me really excited, thinking of new ways to improve it. It feels REAL at last instead of fun fan fiction!"

The yet untitled Young Bond 6 will be released in the UK by Random House Children's Publishers in Fall 2014. No word yet about a U.S. publisher or release date.

LINK: From a View to a Museum

Did you know there is a museum in Japan devoted to Raymond Benson's sixth original James Bond novel, The Man With The Red Tattoo? Well, there is, and Raymond Benson himself has written a piece about the museum and his original research trip to Japan his on his blog, Blog Benson. Click the headline to have a read.

The man himself in the 007 The Man With The Red Tattoo Museum

Ahead of his time

For some reason I've been feeling nostalgic for late '80s Timothy Dalton era James Bond lately, so I thought I'd scan and share this German edition of John Gardner's novelization of Licence To Kill (1989). This has always been one of my favorite paperbacks. Not only is it unique in that it's packed with color photos from the film, but this edition uses the final UK poster art on the cover. Most editions of LTK used the advanced poster art.

But what I find especially appealing about this cover is they've replaced Bond's clothes. Instead of the all black belted thingy from the UK campaign (which was weird even by '80s standards), they've put him in a traditional tuxedo, but with the bow-tie undone. This was also used in the French campaign. I remember thinking at the time that this was an excellent way to show Dalton as a more rough and ready 007, and I went out of my way to find any publicity material that used this version of the art, including this German novelization.

Of course, the concept of Bond with his bow-tie undone or no bow-tie at all would be used on posters for Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), and Skyfall (2012), so this can be seen as yet another example of how Dalton's 007 was ahead of his time.

Want the new YOUNG BOND novel dedicated to YOU?

Would you like to see your name in a James Bond book? Here's your chance. Authors for the Philippines is hosting a charity auction to raise money for the Red Cross Typhoon Haiyan Appeal and one of the items up for bid is the dedication in Steve Cole's first Young Bond novel due out in Fall 2014.

View auction here.

The bid currently stands at £745. Bidding ends at 8pm (GMT) on 20th November. CLICK HERE TO BID.

Roger's LICENSE

Here's a 1982 Norwegian trade paperback edition of John Gardner's first James Bond continuation novel, License Renewed. I love this cover art with a circa 1981 Roger Moore Bond and a very artfully done montage of images from the novel. One of my favorite Gardner covers.

Visit The Book Bond's special Gardner Renewed page for links to all the John Gardner James Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

WILLIAM BOYD on The Guardian Books Podcast

"To be honest I'm not a great fan of the Bond movies."

Solo author William Boyd talks to John Mullan "about the troubled soul of Ian Fleming's James Bond and the pleasures and perils of taking on the 007 franchise."

CLICK TO LISTEN at The Guardian website.

Which MOONRAKER?

Here's a badly battered French paperback edition of Christopher Wood's novelization of the 1979 James Bond film, Moonraker. What I like about this unglamorous edition is it doesn't at all tip one off to the fact that it's a novelization. The cover looks like any "girl and gun" series art that you'd find on the original Fleming paperbacks at the time. Even inside there's no reference to the film. In 1979 you could easily buy this book thinking it was the original novel. Maybe that was the idea. Kind of fun.

Christopher Wood's two novelizations were recently released as eBooks. Click here for more info and cover art.

UPDATE: Thanks to our friend Kevin Collette, you can see HERE that Fleuve Noir did publish the Fleming books with this series art, except for Fleming's Moonraker. This was published as stand-in for that title, so one would definitely be fooled into buying this as part of the "original" series. Wild.

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