GOLDENEYE getting a Cross Cult release in 2024

German publisher Cross Cult, who have been re-releasing all the John Gardner James Bond novels with new cover artwork by Michael Gillette, will release Gardner's GoldenEye novelization in June 2024. I love this cover!

Thanks to Double O Section and The GoldenEye Dossier for the alert.

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

JOHN GARDNER German Bond paperbacks

Here is a collection of John Gardner James Bond paperbacks published in Germany. I've always enjoyed the original movie inspired artwork on the Heyne editions. Notice the publisher produced two versions of GoldenEye using different posters. They would do the same for Raymond Benson's Tomorrow Never Dies.

The books show above (in order) are:

Licence Renewed - published 1987

For Special Services - published 1984

Icebreaker - published 1988

Role of Honor - published 1987

Nobody Lives Forever - published 1987

No Deals Mr. Bond - published 1988

Scorpius - published 1990

Win Lose or Die - published 1991

Licence To Kill - published 1989

Brokenclaw - published 1992

GoldenEye - published 1996

GoldenEye - published 1996

I am thinning out my collection and selling many of my foreign language books, so I will be making several of these editions available on eBay soon.

UPDATE: I've now listed several of these for sale on eBay.

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.

JOHN GARDNER 5-book box set

Simon Gardner has discovered and shared on Facebook this 5-book box set of some of the new John Gardner James Bond reprints from Orion. This appears to have been released in January 2012, but this is the first I'm hearing of this!

The set contains GoldenEye, COLD, Death Is Forever, Icebreaker, and Licence To Kill. A strange combination of "classics", but there we go.

John Gardner 5-book box set on Amazon.com (U.S.)
John Gardner 5-book box set on Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Benson's BOND - UK hardcovers

Over the weekend I shared the Raymond Benson James Bond U.S. hardcover first editions. Here now are the UK hardcover firsts from Hodder & Stoughton.

The Hodder books featured striking cover art with series art established on the 1995 Coronet paperbacks and first used on a hardcover with John Gardner's COLD. However, the publisher changed it up with the last two books, producing covers that were a bit disappointing in comparison (IMO). Hodder also published Benson's three film novelizations in hardcover. Tomorrow Never Dies remains the rarest of all the Benson UK firsts.

Publication dates:

Zero Minus Ten – Hodder & Stoughton, April 3, 1997.
Tomorrow Never Dies – Hodder & Stoughton, November 6, 1997.

The Facts of Death - Hodder & Stoughton, May 7, 1998.

High Time To Kill - Hodder & Stoughton, May 6, 1999.
The World Is Not Enough – Hodder & Stoughton, November 18, 1999.

Doubleshot - Hodder & Stoughton, May 4, 2000.

Never Dream of Dying - Hodder & Stoughton May 3, 2001.

The Man With The Red Tattoo – Hodder & Stoughton, May 2, 2002.
Die Another Day - Hodder & Stoughton, November 7, 2002.

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.

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.

Chris Moore's little known novelizations of OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL

Pop quiz, hot-shot! Name two novelizations of Roger Moore James Bond films written by an author named Chris?

If you answered The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker by Christopher Wood...okay, you're not wrong. But did you know another Chris -- Chris Moore -- wrote novelizations of Octopussy and A View To A Kill!?

These were Dutch novelizations written in the '80s and released with their respective films. They were never published in English. Both books are profusely illustrated with color photos from the films. While Octopussy is somewhat slight at 95 pages, A View To A Kill is a nice trade paperback coming in at 175 pages.

I've long had a copy of Octopussy, but I've never been able to score a copy of A View To A Kill. But now Edwin de Jonge, a reader from The Netherlands, has hooked me up with that elusive second Moore novelization.

So now I can share with you images these two largely unknown James Bond novelizations. Enjoy.

Thank you again, Edwin!

Final JOHN GARDNER paperback covers revealed

Orion has revealed cover art for the final four John Gardner paperback reprints. Never Send Flowers, SeaFire, GoldenEye and COLD will be released in the UK on November 8, 2012.

Visit our special Gardner Renewed page for links and release date updates for all the Gardner-James Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK. 

Thanks to Louisa Gibbs at Orion for the first look.

RAYMOND BENSON U.S. paperbacks

I've been looking back at the John Gardner Bond books a lot lately, so I thought it was time to throw a little Raymond Benson into the mix. I'll kick off with his U.S. paperbacks because this one of my favorite sets. I love the uniformity of the design and the location specific backgrounds. These paperbacks were released by Jove, who after a one book break with Cold Fall, returned to their "James Bond in" series design (with the lightning bolt underline) with Benson.

Of course, Raymond Benson also produced three novelizations during his run as continuation novelist. Those paperbacks, released by Triangle, can be see below.

And as long on we're on the subject of Benson U.S. paperbacks, here's a bonus. Below are three prototype covers for Tomorrow Never Dies (using the Cold Fall series art), Zero Minus Ten, and Die Another Day. One thing I like about the DAD cover is that it uses a tagline that was never used for the film: "He's never been cooler." (Taglines pretty much vanished from Bond film marketing after GoldenEye.) And while books with these covers were never actually produced, you'll still see this artwork on listings at Amazon.com, etc.

Publication:

Tomorrow Never Dies – Triangle, November 1997.

Zero Minus Ten – Jove, July 1998.

The Facts of Death - Jove, August 1999.

The World Is Not Enough - Triangle, October 6, 1999.

High Time To Kill - Jove, June 5, 2000.

Doubleshot - Jove, June 5, 2001.

Never Dream of Dying - Jove, April 30, 2002.

Die Another Day - Triangle, November 5, 2002.

The Man With The Red Tattoo – Jove, April 28, 2003.

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.

OFFICIAL: NO 'SKYFALL' NOVELIZATION (DANG IT)

Well, I have a disappointing "exclusive" today. Ian Fleming Publications has confirmed for me that there will NOT be a novelization of Skyfall, the new James Bond film currently in production. This will be the first time a non-Fleming titled Bond film has not been novelized. The last novelization was Die Another Day by Raymond Benson in 2002.

I didn't press for the reasons why, but tradition has long been that the reigning continuation author does the novelizations, and at the moment there is no reigning continuation author. IFP is now contracting authors one book at a time, as we've seen with Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care) and Jeffery Deaver (Carte Blanche).

So it looks like we will be experiencing Skyfall on the screen and not the page. But I'm sure it will still be good. ;)

Thanks to the always awesome Corinne Turner for giving me the scoop.

Orion reveals five more JOHN GARDNER covers

Orion Books have pulled the wraps off five more covers for their John Gardner James Bond paperback reprints. Scorpius, Win Lose or Die, Licence To Kill, The Man From Barbarossa, and Death Is Forever will all be released on August 2, 2012.

Being Saturday, these low res images are the best I could get from the Orion website. But come Monday I should be able to score much better images. I'm also looking into whether cover art for Brokenclaw is available, as that has now been moved up to July 5 along with No Deals Mr. Bond. These cover designs are all by Dan Mogford.

Visit our special Gardner Renewed page for links and updated release dates for all the Gardner-Bond reprints in the U.S. and UK.

Now UPDATED with higher res images. Click to enlarge.

JAMES BOND UK first edition paperbacks 1955-1979

Here are the James Bond UK first edition paperbacks spanning 1955 (Casino Royale) to 1979 (James Bond and Moonraker). These are all from my own collection. I thought it might be nice to not only show to the covers of these book, but the backs as well. Notice that the back of Moonraker refers to the filming of Casino Royale? Click on each image to enlarge.

It might surprise you to know that the rarest and most valuable book is actually On Her Majesty's Secret Service (followed by Octopussy). For whatever reason, the later books are very hard to find as true UK paperback firsts. The key is to find copies without a price on the cover. Check out page 122 of Bond Bound and you'll see that even their OHMSS -- which is captioned as a first edition -- has a price on the cover.

I should also point out that my You Only Live Twice, which is noted on the copyright page as a first edition, came with a wrap-around dust-jacket featuring the UK tie-in movie art and says on the back "Not for Sale in the UK", so I'm not sure what the story is with this edition. Also, my Live and Let Die is from 1957, but I've never seen an earlier edition so it's possible it was published out of order and this was the true first.

I'll take us into the 1980s and '90s next.