JAMES BOND AND MOONRAKER at 45

Last weekend saw the 45th anniversary of the release of MOONRAKER on June 29, 1979. This is a Bond film I love more and more with every passing year. It was Cubby at the peak of his powers and pure fun. As with The Spy Who Loved Me, an original novelization by screenwriter Christopher Wood and released in hardcover by Jonathan Cape. Below is my Cape copy of James Bond and Moonraker.

The book also saw a paperback release with tie-in movie cover art. Below is the U.S. edition from Jove. I've always thought the way Bond is illustrated here kind of matched the then-current Jove series.

When OUTER SPACE belonged to 007

On this 50th Anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, here's a look back at James Bond's own space adventure. Moonraker, the film and novelization by Christopher Wood, was released 10 years after Apollo in the summer of 1979. Below is the U.S. paperback edition from Jove.

The first JAMES BOND novelization turns 40

It was 40 years ago that the great James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was released to theaters. Along with the film came the very first James Bond novelization. James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me (so titled to differentiate it from the Fleming novel) was penned by screenwriter Christopher Wood and is generally considered as the best of all the Bond novelizations. Some even compare it favorably to Fleming!

In the UK, James Bond , the Spy Who Loved Me was released in hardcover by the original Bond publisher Jonathan Cape, which make it seem all the more like a "legit" Bond novel.

UK hardcover.

The novelization also saw release in paperback in the U.S. and UK with covers more in line with what one expects from a movie novelization.

U.S. paperback

UK paperback

Christopher Wood, 1935 - 2015

Photo: Graham Rye, OO7 Magazine.

James Bond screenwriter and novelist Christopher Wood has died. Roger Moore announced the news on his Twitter. Wood was 79 years old.

Christopher Wood wrote two of the best Roger Moore James Bond films, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). He also penned the novelizations for those films. In the UK his novelization were published in hardcovers by long-time Bond publisher Jonathan Cape. Wood's novelizations remain fan favorites.

In 2006 Wood published a book about his experiences working in the world of James Bond called James Bond, The Spy I Loved.

You can read more about the life and work of Christopher Wood at his Wikipedia page.

CHRISTOPHER WOOD eBooks no longer available

Christopher Wood's two novelizations of the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker are no longer available as eBooks. The eBooks were released in 2013 and completed a full set of continuation eBooks. Now Amazon has no listing for either book. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe Drax and Jaws got 'em!

Thanks to @GhostAgentK on Twitter for the alert.

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.

Litterature Populaire

CHRISTOPHER WOOD novelizations released as eBooks

Christopher Wood's two novelizations of the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker are released today as eBooks by Ian Fleming Publications. This is the first reprinting of these books since their original releases in 1977 and 1979. They are available worldwide via Amazon, Sony and Kobo.

Below are the awesome covers by David Eldridge (which nicely match the recently released eBook of John Pearson's 007 biography). If we could only get print editions with these covers!

Purchase on Amazon.com (U.S.)
Purchase on Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Purchase on Amazon.com (U.S.)

Purchase on Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Almost all the James Bond continuation novels have now been released as eBooks. Vist our new page, Continuation eBooks, for links to all the post-Ian Fleming James Bond adventures!

Thanks to Jason Whiton of SpyVibe for the tip off and IFP for the images.

Requiem for a novelization

With the news that there will be no novelization of Skyfall, I thought I'd take a look back at the past James Bond novelizations. Looks like these seven (007!) books will now stand alone as "the novelizations."

What was nice about the Bond novelizations, and why I had hoped for a Skyfall novelization -- despite being aware that novelizations themselves on the way out -- is that they were always treated as something more than marketing knockoffs. The first two novelizations were written by the screenwriter, Christopher Wood. The final five were penned by continuation novelists John Gardner and Raymond Benson.

These were also quality books. In fact, many consider Christopher Wood's James Bond The Spy Who Loved Me as one of the very best continuation novels. John Gardner's Licence To Kill is a fan favorite as he fit the story into the literary continuity (yes, poor Felix is fed to sharks again!). Raymond Benson's Tomorrow Never Dies improves on a weak film by filling in plot holes and fleshing out the characters of Elliot Carver and Wai Lin.

The Bond novelizations were also printed in nice hardcover editions, at least in the UK, and that's what I'm showcasing here. The 007 Novelizations (see how that works two ways?). Let us have a moment of silent contemplation.

By Christopher Wood

By John Gardner

By Raymond Benson

The good news is 2012 will not be totally novelization free. Orion will be reprinting John Gardner's Licence To Kill and GoldenEye as part of their new paperback reprints.

UK novelizations (hardcover) publication:
James Bond The Spy Who Loved Me by Christopher Wood, Jonathan Cape, 1977
James Bond and Moonraker by Christopher Wood, Jonathan Cape, 1979
Licence To Kill by John Gardner, The Mysterious Press, April 1990. (Paperback published in 1989.)
GoldenEye by John Gardner, Hodder & Stoughton, November 1995.
Tomorrow Never Dies by Raymond Benson, Hodder & Stoughton, November 1997.
The World Is Not Enough by Raymond Benson, Hodder & Stoughton, November 1999.
Die Another Day by Raymond Benson, Hodder & Stoughton, November 7, 2002.

The JOVE paperbacks

Continuing our look back at the Ian Fleming paperbacks, here is an American series that divides fans. These eight paperbacks from Jove look like they belong to the 1970s, but were actually released in 1980-81. (Jove's first Bond book had been the Christopher Wood novelization of James Bond and Moonraker in 1979.)

At the time, I was not a fan. The artwork by Barnett Plotkin looked dated even back then, and the cover of Goldfinger (the first book released in February 1980) looked like it belonged on a Danielle Steel novel. But over the years I've come to like these covers and this series as a representative of the times. I also like how each cover carries a nice individual tag line -- "James Bond Takes on The Bomb." Nice.

Of this series, Live and Let Die is a tricky one to find. For Your Eyes Only was released with a cover blurb touting what was then the latest Bond film, For Your Eyes Only starring Roger Moore. I'm not sure if there was ever a version published without the blurb. Moonraker was the last book released in July 1981.

In 2008 the Royal Mail issued commemorative James Bond stamps, and used several of these covers as artwork. Barnett Plotkin's original art can be purchased as limited edition prints at James Bond Illustrations.

Jove U.S. paperback publication order:

Goldfinger - February 1980
From Russia With Love - March 1980
Diamonds Are Forever - April 1980
Dr. No - May 1980
Live And Let Die - June 1980
Casino Royale - July 1980
For Your Eyes Only - June 1981
Moonraker - July 1981

The Christopher Wood hardcovers

Recently there has been discussion on the CBn forums about these two books, so I thought I'd post them here for those that have never seen them (or even knew that they existed). What you see here are UK hardcover editions of the two novelizations of the Roger Moore classics, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). These were written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, and actually carry variant titles, James Bond, the Spy Who Love Me and James Bond and Moonraker -- probably to differentiate them from the original Fleming books.

While these were also released as tie-in paperbacks with movie poster art, Jonathan Cape published these now exceedingly rare hardcover editions with moody jacket art by Bill Botten, who would later do artwork for John Gardner's For Special Services and Icebreaker. What's nice is the books themselves are the same size as the Fleming hardcovers (and Colonel Sun), so they look terrific on the shelf.

They are also darn good books.