The plots included a hearty helping of the fantastic, with Bond thwarting an Arctic weather machine in Storm Bringer. In Blackclaw's Doomsday Plot, 007 tangles with a mad SMERSH scientist who has an island lair and a laser that would be the envy of Dr. No and Scaramanga. For the record, the Bond Girls are named Yvete LaRue and Dr. Margaret Manfield.
The Play Value Books were licensed by both Danjaq and Glidrose and published by Grosset & Dunlap, a member of The Putnam Group, which was Bond U.S. publisher at that time. Maybe it was just a coincidence that these were released in the year that there was no official James Bond continuation novel from John Gardner.
The back of the Play Value books advertised a total of four James Bond storybooks. However, as far as I know, Operation Big Brain and Target: 007 were never released.
It's one of the big regrets of my 007 collecting life (we all have them) that I didn't buy Operation Big Brain and Target: 007 when I had the chance. You're right that they weren't released, but they were created, and the author and artist were selling galleys at the Spy-Fi convention in NYC back in 1995. I had the other two, and there were more compelling things to spend money on at that convention, so I didn't get them, and I've never seen them again anywhere. (I also regret not buying the penciled galleys of the unpublished issues of the GoldenEye comic from Don MacGregor at a convention in Long Beach in the early 2000s.)
ReplyDeleteOh, wow, that was a big miss. But thanks for confirming for me that they were never published. I've never been 100% sure.
DeleteWas the Long Beach convention on the Queen Mary by any chance? I was there. :)
I do have the unpublished GoldenEye galleys.
Yep, the Queen Mary one! Was that where you got them? I haven't seen him at another show since.
DeleteLike how the Lotus on the Storm Bringer cover has the PPW306R licence plate.
ReplyDeleteA pity you never got Operation Big Brain. For some reason I'm imagining Dr. No's salvaged brain being put into a robot body (I'm sure there must have been at least one unlikely villain resurrection - Dr. No or Goldfinger, probably - featured in the quartet).
Did notice the license plate. That's fun.
DeleteYeah, villain resurrection. I could see that in these. They do feel a bit like the Daily Express strips.
SO HOW CAN WE READ THESE BOOKS ?
ReplyDeleteFIND THEM ON EBAY.
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