Young Bond: The CHARLIE HIGSON years

In less than 24 hours, Charlie Higson will hand over the Young Bond series to new author Steve Cole at a special event at the Hay Festival in England. As we wait to learn the title of Steve's first Young Bond novel (due for release November 6, 2014), let's take a look back at the history of Charlie Higson's five books and how this extremely successful series came to be.

I published these five installments about "The Secret History of Young James Bond" here on The Book Bond in 2011. Below are links to all five parts. You can also move to the next installment via a link at the end of each post. I'm proud of these posts as it's pretty untypical to get such a good look behind the curtain of a creation of a Bond novel, let alone an entire series.

So enjoy the history of Charlie Higson's Young Bond, and I'll see you back here tomorrow when we will all ring in the start of the Steve Cole era.

I. Young Bond Begins (SilverFin)

II. Fever Pitch (Blood Fever)

III. Name Game (Double or Die)

IV. Gold Standard (Hurricane Gold)
V. In Command (By Royal Command)

Charlie Higson era Young Bond logo.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART V

In Command

In many ways, Young Bond 5 was always the book most anticipated by fans. Not only would it wrap up the loose ends of the series, but it promised to reveal the details behind the infamous "maid incident" referenced by Ian Fleming in James Bond's obituary in You Only Live Twice.

"When they first approached me and said they wanted a series of five books to deal with the Eton years, in studying Fleming and reading the obituary, I knew it would have to lead up to the incident with the maid," author Charlie Higson explained in 2008. "Obviously, the implication in Fleming’s original obituary was, basically, he shagged her and got thrown out of school. But I thought it would be fun to do a little bit more with it and say more was going on. It had to do with national security and protecting the Royal Family."

The author decided to name the maid Roan Power and make her Irish, a first for a Bond Girl. Higson, who is a quarter Irish himself, explained, "I wanted her to be closer to home, and I wanted there to be a reason for her to be threatening the English national security. I could have made her English, but by making her Irish, it gave her an automatic reason to hate the English and the whole kind of English upper class system."

Higson would also bring back a villain from SilverFin, Dr. Friend, whom he had first considered bringing back in Double or Die. "I knew I always wanted to bring him back at some point. He’s an interesting character, and because he was kind of secondary in the first book, it was nice to bring him back and put him into a starring role."

The working title for Young Bond 5 was The Shadow War, a title that found favor with the fans. However, publisher Puffin liked Diamond Heart and proposed an idea in which the hardback would have an inset diamond in each cover. The diamonds would be plastic or crystal, but one copy would have a real diamond. However, Higson put his foot down, feeling this was "purely marketing and cover design-lead title idea, and it really doesn't have anything to do with the contents of the book."

The title they settled on was revealed on March 6, 2008 -- the same day Higson completed the manuscript -- and was one the author considered very Flemingesque: By Royal Command. (The Shadow War would ultimately be used as the title of a Young Bond online RPG game launched to promote the release of the book.)

Originally Charlie Higson had planned his fourth book to be a snowbound adventure, but when he sent Young Bond to Mexico in Hurricane Gold, he decided to work his Alpine action into By Royal Command. The specter of World War II and the Cold War also loom large over this novel. By Royal Command is full of political and historical references. Bond even meets a young Queen Elizabeth -- a scene inspired by a real-life encounter involving Charlie Higson's father-in-law -- and encounters the Prince of Wales, a scene Higson reworked after a discussion with the Fleming family.

"I had [the Prince] being quite distant and awkward with James. Because he had no kids of his own, I’d written a character who couldn’t relate to kids. But then the Fleming family read it and, actually, there are members of the Fleming family who knew the Prince of Wales and they said, 'No, no, he wasn’t like that at all. He was actually very friendly with kids, he got on very well with us, he was a very friendly character.' So I had to rewrite it."

Higson admits he had to "tone down" a couple other scenes having to do with the Royal Family because their friendship with the Flemings. "I had to be a little bit careful about what I said. But I still think I’ve screwed up my chances for a knighthood."

With By Royal Command Higson brought the Young Bond series in for a picture perfect landing, touching down cleanly and evenly on every aspect of James Bond's past and future life. It's a surprisingly profound, introspective, and somewhat tragic book. At the same time, By Royal Command doesn't have the level of gruesome violence that had become a hallmark of the series, and even contains a love story.

"I have tried to give it some emotional depth," Higson explained before publication. "It’s a great way to finish off the series, and at the end of it we really feel that James is poised for the next phase of his life."

But as Higson was finishing up the manuscript, tragedy hit the Young Bond Team. Kate Jones, who had brought Charlie Higson to the attention of Ian Fleming Publications and had worked so hard launching the series, was again diagnosed with cancer. Charlie Higson recalls the details:

"Kate left IFP while I was still working on the series to take up a job as a literary agent at ICM. She was very happy there and quickly made her mark in this new field. Luckily she agreed to look at each new Bond manuscript and make her comments for which I was always very grateful, but then, while I was out of the country working on By Royal Command, I heard the devastating news that Kate's illness had returned out of the blue and that she had gone into hospital. By the time I got back to England she had sadly died. This was a huge shock to everyone and it was an enormous tragedy, not only for her family and many friends, but also for the literary world. Kate was a truly brilliant editor and I'm sure would have become one of our biggest literary agents. Some measure of her importance is the fact that all the major British newspapers ran obituaries (they are all still available online). Like many other authors I think I can say that I wouldn't be where I am today without Kate."

Kate Jones

By Royal Command was released in the UK on September 3, 2008. Charlie Higson launched the book during an appearance at the Edinburg Book Festival. Puffin had kept the cover art, which featured a wrap around Union Jack, a secret until publication. As part of a tie-in promotion with the Young Bond online RPG, The Shadow War, all copies of the book contained a secret hidden codeword, "Fastnet", concealed in one of the Young Bond logos on the back boards. However, 20 copies contained a different codeword that promised to unlock more game information. It might have been a little too well hidden, because to my knowledge, no-one ever came forward with the alternate word or revealed what it unlocked.

By Royal Command would share the spotlight in 2008 with the Centenary James Bond novel Devil May Care written by Sebastian Faulks. Devil May Care was released on May 28, 2008, the same day as the paperback edition of Hurricane Gold, and Higson found himself doing as much promotion for Devil May Care and the Centenary events as he did for his own books. Faulks returned the favor by acknowledging the Young Bond series when 007 visits the Paradise Club in Iran and is "reminded of a similar club from his childhood." This was a nod to Bond's adventure at the Paradice Club in Double or Die. "I was very touched by that," says Higson. "I didn’t know he was going to do that."

By 2008, The Young Bond series had sold over a million copies in the UK alone and had been translated into 24 languages. The series even found its footing in the U.S. under Disney-Hyperion, who reissued the books with fresh new cover art by Kev Walker (Owen Richardson would provide the final art for By Royal Command). And even though By Royal Command marked the end of Higson's planned Young Bond series, it was not the last Young Bond publication.

As early as 2004 it was announced that a graphic novel adaptation of SilverFin would be created by artist Kev Walker. Artwork was previewed in new editions of the Young Bond paperbacks, and in October 2008, SilverFin: The Graphic Novel finally appeared to excellent reviews. Charlie Higson and Kev Walker made joint signing appearances at Forbidden Planet in London and at the London MCM Expo. Disney Books would published SilverFin: The Graphic Novel as both a paperback and hardcover in 2010, where it was showcased at the mammoth San Diego Comic Con and aggressively advertised in Marvel comics.

On October 29, 2009, Puffin released Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier, touted as "the complete and definitive guide to the world and adventures of Young Bond". The book contains sections on the characters, weapons, vehicles, etc., from all five books. But most exciting was that it contained a lengthy original Young Bond short story by Charlie Higson called, A Hard Man To Kill.

A Hard Man To Kill is a bridge story taking place between Hurricane Gold and By Royal Command and chronicles the adventures of Bond traveling back to England aboard the French Ocean Liner Colombie (a real ship of the time). Higson introduces an excellent new villain, Caiboche , and brings back Wilder Lawless from SilverFin who is transporting horses. A young Rene Mathis even makes an appearance. It's a terrific story, made even better with original illustrations by Kev Walker (the last work he did for the series). However, with no plans for a U.S. release of Danger Society, this could prove to be Young Bond's most elusive adventure for readers to find.

In 2009 The Herald Scotland reignited talk of a Young Bond movie in a brazen article by Brian Pendreigh that reported "secret discussions" where going on between the Fleming estate and Eon Productions ["James Bond set to go back to Scots roots… for his first kiss"]. Pendreigh stated that Wilder would be played by an unknown actress and that Higson had suggested actors Dougray Scott, Iain Glen or Timothy Dalton for Uncle Max. But Higson shot the story down as "Total bollocks. There is no film being discussed. I never made any casting suggestions."

However, while the topic may not have been films, there may have indeed been discussions going on between IFP and the Bond film producers that year. Keen-eyed fans noticed a change on the copyright page of new Young Bond publications. Now Danjaq LLC was shown as the "registered owner" of the individual book titles and the Young Bond logo, which were now being "used under license by Ian Fleming Publications." While I've never been able to get to the bottom of this, it appears Danjaq bought Young Bond outright, if for no other reason to control all incarnations of James Bond.

Even before the release of By Royal Command, talk had begun about the possibility of extending the series. Says Higson, "I always had a storyline that would run over five books and work as a complete series. But, you know, they say it’s done very well, done very well for IFP, done very well for Puffin, done very well for me, so obviously there is a great desire between the three camps to do more books."

Higson, who had embarked on a new series of horror novels for Puffin (currently up to four books: The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Sacrifice), shared his ideas during a book signing for the U.S. edition of By Royal Command in Washington D.C. on May 29, 2010. He confirmed a Young Bond Series II, should it ever happen, would be a trilogy of books set at Fettes, the school Bond attended after Eton, and for which Fleming provided tantalizing information in the same obituary that had guided the first series:

"Here the atmosphere was somewhat Calvinistic, and both academic and athletic standards were rigorous. Nevertheless, though inclined to be solitary by nature, he established some firm friendships among the traditionally famous athletic circles, at the school. By the time he left, at the early age of seventeen, he had twice fought for the school as a light-weight and had, in addition, founded the first serious judo class at a British public school. - Ian Fleming, Chapter 21, Obit, You Only Live Twice"

On July 8, 2010 Charlie Higson revealed on Twitter that he was headed to a meeting "to discuss the future of Young Bond." As of this writing, the results of that meeting, and the future of Young Bond, is not yet known. But the series has not gone entirely quite. In 2011, SilverFin was republished in a new Special Edition with added material and all five Young Bond novels are set to be re-released in April 2012 with terrific new cover art (below).

The upcoming 2012 reissues

In 2011 IFP and Jeffery Deaver rebooted the literary James Bond as a 21st Century hero in Carte Blanche. So does this mean they have moved on from period Bond adventures, which was such a key part of the Young Bond concept?

I put the question that question to Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications, who sent back this encouraging response:

"Don’t worry we haven’t left the past behind entirely, but it’s nice to do something different – and keep everyone guessing!"

My guess is that Young Bond Will Return.

Click here to revisit all five parts of The Secret History of Young James Bond

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART IV

Unused Kev Walker cover art

Gold Standard

In early 2007, right on the heels of the release of Double or Die, Bond fans were surprised to learn that the next Young Bond novel would be released in the summer of that same year. Until then, the series had been on a one book per year schedule.

"Actually, what happened was Book Four was not meant to be out until next year," author Charlie Higson explained in 2007. "I had various other writing jobs, so I delivered Book Four early to Puffin, and pushed it through to make sure it was finished well in advance so that I could clear the decks to get on with other writing before I started on Book Five. But, of course, publishers being publishers, they got the book early and said 'Well, we’ll publish it early!' So they brought publication forward by about four or five months, which basically means that I’m four or five months behind on Book Five."

This time Puffin couldn’t keep the title under wraps, which leaked on Amazon a few days before the official announcement on April 24, 2007 of Young Bond 4: Hurricane Gold.

"Well, as with all the other titles, it came very late in the day after many, many different titles," says Higson. "In fact, my working title for the book was Lagrimas Negras, which was very quickly rejected by the publishers as being incomprehensible to English readers. But the publishers had got very excited about the idea of gold and they said 'we'd love to have gold in the title somewhere' because they were working on this concept of making a gold book."

Original press release

As the book featured Bond struggling amid the ravages of a hurricane, Higson suggested a combination of these two major themes. "It’s quite a nice combination for a title. So I suggested [Hurricane Gold] to them and they jumped at it, at which point, as with SilverFin, I had to go back and work it into the book a bit."

The all-gold hardcover (a first for the series) would also have a wrap around banner with the title. Along with the original press release came a photo of Charlie Higson holding the book. But on this photo we see a banner with the silhouette of a crocodile, which continued the creepy critter themes of the other covers. However, it was soon decided this spoiled a surprise in the book, so the crocodile was eliminated come publication. (Happily, the crocodile would return with a vengeance on the paperback edition.)

Another surprise was the book's location. Higson had previously said that Book 4 would be set in the Alps. But the teaser announced Book 4 would feature "A treacherous road trip in Mexico."

Higson explained the reason for the change. "After Double or Die which was cold, grey England at Christmas, I really thought it was important to send him off somewhere hot and glamorous for the next one. And in fact, that was kind of the reaction Ian Fleming got after Moonraker. He got lots of letters from people saying 'We don’t want to see Bond in Kent. We want to see him somewhere nice and sunny.'"

For his "sunny" locale, Higson was initially torn between Mexico and North Africa. But then he discovered that Ian Fleming dismissed North Africa as a location for Bond.

"I don’t know what his objections were but he didn’t like the idea of North Africa," says Higson. "So I thought well, Mexico. And then I can start in Mexico and end up in the Caribbean. Geographically it makes sense. I thought I really had to have something in the books of the Caribbean because it was such a big deal for Fleming."

Feeling that the structure of the books were becoming "a little bit obvious that you’d have the first third of the story in Eton, and then he’d go off, out for a big adventure," Higson decided to shake up the formula in his fourth book. In Hurricane Gold there would be no scenes set at Eton. The change allowed Higson to create a faster, more action-packed novel. "I thought, yeah, let’s switch it around a bit and just launch him straight in at the beginning fully into the adventure," says Higson.

Launch he did. Hurricane Gold has a relentless pace and some truly spectacular set pieces. The book finds Bond on vacation with his Aunt Charmain in Mexico, where he quickly becomes involved with a gang of brutal American gangsters led by the villainous, Mrs. Glass.

A female villain is a rarity in a Bond novel, and, in fact, the character started out as male. But Higson decided a woman worked better and made the change. "Not during the book," he quipped. "Although perhaps he should. It’s about time we had a sex-changing Bond villain."

Another one of Higson's most colorful characters in the book is the brain damaged henchman, "Manny the Girl." In the novel it's explained that Manny received his nicknamed because his M.O. of robbing banks dressed as a woman. But in reality the name is rooted in Fleming. Higson discovered the name in an unpublished Ian Fleming notebook, among other unused gems like Betty Freshette, Pearl Dazzle, Pelikan Strat, and Doctor Thong.

The Bond Girl also sports one of the more Bondian names of the series, Precious Stone. "Actually in the first draft of the book she wasn’t called Precious, she was called Amaryllis Stone," says Higson. "I like the name Amaryllis and, obviously, there was a Fleming connection. A cousin, I think she was a cello player, who is alluded to in From A View To A Kill rather cheekily by Fleming."

However, because the character starts off as somewhat unpleasant and spoiled, IFP were a worried that it might upset the Fleming family, so Higson went searching for another name and decided Precious worked just as well.

"It’s quite good for the character, this kind of southern belle who lives with her father who absolutely dotes on, and so he's called her 'Precious' and she's lived up to her name." (Higson would later use Amaryllis as the name of yacht in his Young Bond short story, A Hard Man To Kill.)

Another nod to Fleming came in the form of the books climatic "Avenue of Death", an endurance test that recalled Doctor No's climatic maze of death. Says Higson, "To a certain extent the whole book is structured like that when James starts off, and he’s got to work his way through these series of disasters and problems, and eventually he arrives at the island and then he has to do the whole thing again in miniature in the Avenue Of Death."

Charlie Higson signing the 1500 copies of Hurricane Gold

After the success of Double or Die’s "name the book" promotion, the publishers decided to go all out for Hurricane Gold. The book itself would be solid gold in color, even down to the page edges. A selection of 1500 copies would be signed and numbered by Charlie Higson and distributed to independent bookstores with the promise that somewhere in the batch would be the desirable "007" edition. (It was ultimately discovered in a small bookshop in Lytham St Ann's in Lancashire, and sold on eBay for a tidy £156.50...to me.)

The gold book

Furthermore, the publisher commissioned "jeweler to the stars" Theo Fennell to create a 24-caret solid gold copy of the book, which opened up to reveal an inner compartment with an inlay of ebonized wood containing a secret message from Charlie Higson. This special Gold Book would be displayed at the Ian Fleming Centenary exhibition at the National War Museum in 2008.

The Hurricane Gold launch event would even out shine the Double or Die launch. Once again Waterston's Piccadilly would host the event dubbed "Gold Thursday." For a day leading up to the launch, actors dressed in gold costumes and face paint were planted around London with copies of the book in hand. Things kicked off behind closed doors with a photocall where Higson posed with the golden actors and members of Puffin's Young Bond publishing team.

Then, approximately 100 Young Bond fans, many dressed in gold clothes and cowboy hats, arrived to be greeted by the golden actors while Mariachi music played and hors d'oeuvres of tortilla chips and golden cupcakes where served. Charlie Higson made his entrance dressed in a gold jacket and tie, then read an excerpt from the book in which Young Bond attempts to negotiate the flooding streets of a Mexican village behind the wheel of a super-charged 1933 Duesenberg SJ, truly one of the novel's most exciting sequences. After a Q&A, during which Charlie teased the possibility of a Young Bond short story and also delivered a Book 5 bombshell (video below), he signed copies of Hurricane Gold in gold pen.

Hurricane Gold shot to #2 on the UK bestsellers chart, but was held at bay by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which kept a strangle hold on the #1 spot. Still, Hurricane Gold sold an impressive 6056 copies in only a half week of sales and proved another monster hit for Puffin.

The backlist was also proving to be gold, with Puffin releasing the first four books as hardcover "Limited Collectors Editions" signed and numbered by Charlie Higson and housed in attractive slipcases. A signed Collectors Box Set of the first three paperbacks was released exclusively through Borders, and all the titles were released as audiobooks with Charlie Higson reading the abridged versions and actor Nathaniel Parker doing the unabridged versions. There was also talk of releasing the series in Adult Editions, a plan which, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

The success of the series was also having a liberating effect on Charlie Higson himself. "It’s interesting, as the books go on, I’m less worried about pleasing the kind of James Bond purists," Higson told me in an interview on CommanderBond.net shortly after the UK release of Hurricane Gold. "Over here in England, Young Bond is very much seen by the kids as character in his own right. They’re not constantly relating it back to James Bond and the adult Bond and all that. They enjoy the books for what they are, and the character in the books for who he is. And that sort of gives me a little bit more freedom."

But then Higson gave a taste of what was to come next. "That being said, book number five probably will be the most similar in themes and plot elements to a Fleming book. And it certainly moves much more into the world of the Secret Service."

Continue to Part V

Charlie Higson delivers his Book 5 bombshell

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART III

Name Game

Charlie Higson's third Young Bond novel would be somewhat of an experiment. First off, the book would be confined in time and space, taking place entirely in London over the course of a few days in December. It would also play host to a bold promotional idea that would excite fans, challenge the publishers, and bring some criticism from the press.

Higson explained his approach to his third book in a Q&A with fans on the official Young Bond website. "I wanted to send James to a big city, as the first two books had mostly taken place in the countryside. I chose London because I live in London, I know it well and I love it. There are some fascinating unknown corners, and I wanted to do a sort of Da Vinci Code about the city, in which James has to follow a series of cryptic clues to find out what’s going on and save the day."

Technology would also play a major role in the book, as Higson continued, "I wanted to write about computers and code-breaking, so this is at the heart of the book. Proper computers weren't built until the Second World War, but people were thinking about them in the thirties. I also wanted to bring back a character from an earlier book [Red Kelly]. It’s as different to Blood Fever as that book was to SilverFin."

Higson's working title was Shoot The Moon. "That idea of shooting the moon, of risking everything in order to win everything, seemed to me to sum up James Bond's character," he explained in 2006. "He’s willing to take risks like that and go out on a limb. I thought the title Shoot the Moon was very appropriate, but it was felt that it sounds a little bit wet. There’s something about the 'moon' sound that's a bit soppy, so that was rejected. That means that we’re now stuck in the position where we don’t know what the book will be called."

Six Days in December (referencing the compressed time frame), and The Big Smoke (slang for London), were also rejected. It was then that Puffin came on the idea to open up the title selection to fans.

The idea was proposed by marketing officer, Justin Renard, who explains, "As I was developing plans to promote the yet untitled book, there was a lot of correspondence discussing what to name it. It occurred to me that since fans of Young Bond consider him just as much a British Icon as they do James Bond, that it would be an original ploy to give them the chance to decide instead of us. I think my exact words are why should it just be to us who decide. Bond belongs to everyone. And once I pitched that initial idea, more great ideas started rolling in and the rest just sort of fell into place."

The competition was announced on the official Young Bond website on October 3, 2006. Fans could vote online for one of three possible titles: Double or Die, N.E.M.I.S.I.S. or The Deadlock Cipher. To help them decide, the site included an extract from the book and a note from Charlie Higson about the three titles. The winning title and cover art would be kept secret until the day of publication. Even the proof edition was jacketed only as "Young Bond 3" (which now makes for a nice collectible). The challenge was keeping the winning title a secret.

"Well as a matter of fact, the entire campaign timing was a challenge," says Renard. "The book was scheduled for publication just after the winter holidays and normally in book publishing all the advanced information for books—their title, jacket, spec, etc—are not only released to the public months in advance of publication, but the books themselves are printed well in advance. In fact book jackets can be printed as many as 6 months before the book goes out. We couldn't afford to do that and pull off this campaign, so we decided to throw all the old rules out the window."

Penguin assembled a task force to oversee the entire operation to ensure that not a single book would appear in advance of publication. Confidentiality agreements had to be signed to keep the outsourced marketing materials and distribution under wraps. All delivery staff were sworn to secrecy, and the factory workers who would do the individual book wrapping had to sign non disclosure agreements.

Still, Renard says, "There were so many close calls."

To facilitate the printing process, three different covers were designed with the three titles, all featuring the same skull and cross bones image. At the moment the votes were tallied, Puffin would call up the printer and tell them which one to proceed with.

(Interestingly, German publisher Arena Verlag went ahead and selected their own title, GoldenBoy, and used cover art featuring poker chips, a motif that actually seemed to fit the book better than the UK's ultimate skull and crossbones cover.)

But not everyone was a fan of the poll idea. Under the headline "Poor Show Puffin", UK newspaper The Observer published a stuffy criticism, calling the idea "an unprecedented and quite shameful failure of imagination. [...] The whole exercise does make the Browser despair at the sort of creatives publishers employ these days."

Puffin's Rebecca McNally fired back in a letter to the editor: "The Browser somewhat missed the point of our nationwide vote to decide the title of Charlie Higson's third Young Bond book. This is an initiative designed to encourage young fans to interact very directly with their favorite book brand in ways that they are wholly accustomed to doing with brands outside the book world - text voting, e-flyers and on-line polls are very much part of our readers' lives, and a natural way for them to express their opinions, share ideas with friends and be active members of a community linked by shared interests. It also gives us as publishers of books for children a real opportunity to listen to their opinions." McNally concluded, "If the Browser really wants to be part of the decision, he could always vote."

The title reveal event was held at Waterstone’s Piccadilly on Wednesday, January 3, 2007, and was attended by the UK press and fans, including twelve year old Billy Jones from Manchester who earned the opportunity to be named in the book when he triumphed at the Young Bond Stunt Academy in January 2006 (a Blood Fever promotion). Incredibly, the entire first printing were sealed inside a protective Mylar bag to conceal the cover and winning title. Even Charlie Higson didn't know what the title would be, although he privately harbored a preference for The Deadlock Cipher. With cameras rolling and cameras ready, Higson pulled the book free – "It’s Double or Die!"

"I’m still slightly trying to work out why Double or Die is called Double or Die," Higson would later confess. "But if you ask a load of kids to give a title to a book that they’ve never read, what do you expect?"

Double or Die became the #1 Children's Bestseller for the week ending January 13, beating out Disney's juggernaut High School Musical Book. In-store promotions helped boost sales, with Waterstone’s exclusive "Decryption Competition" offering fans the chance to "Be Young Bond" for a day. This included a chartered flight in a helicopter over London, an original collector's copy of The Times newspaper from 1935, and dinner for four in a West End restaurant.

Double or Die delivered on Higson's promise to be different book than the first two, and Bond fans could not help but notice that he appeared to be echoing Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels, with Double or Die sharing characteristics of Fleming's own third book, Moonraker. "I’m not slavishly thinking 'Right, I’ve got to this in the next one and this in the next one'", Higson would later explain. "But it’s quite fun to go through that same process that he went through when he was reacting to readers' comments and what people like or disliked in the books."

Young Bond visits "Paradice"

With its London locations -- including Highgate Cemetery, the Royal College of Surgeons, and an illegal casino and prizefight den called "Paradice" (which would receive a mention in Sebastian Faulks' 2008 centenary Bond novel Devil May Care) -- Double or Die is the Young Bond novel that showcases its period setting the best. Higson peppers the book with delightful slang and idioms of the period. Long forgotten brand names are resurrected like product placement circa 1933. The book also doesn’t skimp on the gore, especially during the exciting climax on the London Docklands and inside an abandon pneumatic railway. The fact that the henchmen, Wolfgang, comes away from each encounter with young James missing another body part is grisly good Bondian fun.

But the biggest surprise in Double or Die comes at the very end when we get a postscript featuring the adult James Bond driving his Bentley and reflecting on his earliest encounter with code-breaking and computers.

"Well, I have to tell you I’m of two minds as to whether or not it was a good idea," Higson would say after publication. "I think it was quite fun to do. Unfortunately, some of the kids reading it think 'Oh, so he’s not going to be a kid anymore in the books. He's grown up now is he?' But as soon as they see the next one they’ll know that’s not true."

Double or Die U.S. edition again featured original Kev Walker cover art

It turns out the "next one" would come sooner than anyone expected. Released as a promotional tie-in with Double or Die was the now collectible The Young Bond Rough Guide to London. The clever guidebook tie-in featured locations from the book along with modern London tourist destinations. But it was an advert on page 63 that rang the dinner bell for Young Bond fans. It announced that the fourth Young Bond novel would be released in just eight months!

Continue to Part IV

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART II

Fever Pitch

With sales of the first Young Bond novel, SilverFin, hitting 125,000 in the UK and the book making the Top Ten Children’s Bestseller lists for 11 weeks, a second Young Bond novel was assured. The original plan was to have a different author pen each book, but once Charlie Higson delivered the manuscript for SilverFin, it was clear he was the man to write the entire series. "I was having too much fun to let anyone else have a go," says Higson.

The second Young Bond novel was originally scheduled to be released only six month after the first. In fact, an ad in the back of the first edition of SilverFin promises Book 2 in Fall ’05. This was mainly to take advantage of the release of the new James Bond film, Casino Royale. But when that film was delayed a year, Ian Fleming Publications decided they didn’t need to rush the release and pushed Young Bond 2 back to Jan ’06.

Charlie Higson's second Young Bond novel -- which had the working title Double M -- promised action in Sardinia with pirates, smuggling, a torture scene, and a major shootout climax inside a cave. "I wanted to set the second book somewhere reasonably exotic," Higson told the BBC. "James Bond is known for travelling to such places. But it had to be somewhere James could get to during the summer holidays. That’s why I chose the Mediterranean. I didn’t want to use somewhere overly familiar like Greece or Italy or Spain. People don’t know much about Sardinia. It’s an interesting island with a history of banditry. I’ve been there a few times and I really like it. I saw an artist’s impression of a cave there. Inside are the remains of a Neolithic village. I thought it would make a great villain’s lair."

On July 11, 2005 Puffin announced the official title of Book 2 on the Young Bond website: Blood Fever. This time a £120,000 marketing campaign would promote the book, including a television advertising campaign which Puffin noted was "a first for the literary James Bond." Francesca Dow, Managing Director of Puffin, said: "We are delighted with the success of SilverFin and anticipate a huge second bestseller in Blood Fever."

Dow had reason to be optimistic. It was clear to all who read the manuscript that with his second book Charlie Higson had written not just another fine Young Bond novel, but one the best James Bond continuation novels by any measure.

"I’d written most of Blood Fever—certainly the first or second draft—before SilverFin came out," Higson would later explain. "So it wasn’t influenced by the first book particularly. I just wanted to push it a bit more into the, kind of, Bond world."

For Higson, pushing it more into "Bond world" included introducing a gay member of James Bond's family with the characters of Uncle Victor and his partner Polyponi.

"It’s not anything that children would pick up on but that’s there for the adult readers," Higson explained in an interview. "They are obviously a gay couple, and why not? Ian Fleming’s best friend was Noel Coward and I think there’s a reference to him in the book. Ian Fleming moved in those circles and knew a lot of people like that. I was interested in that kind of upper class-gay-expats group that ended up in Tangiers a lot of them in North Africa and certainly around the Mediterranean. I quite liked that weird Bohemian slightly outside of society kind of setup. I didn’t want to labour the point though. Fleming was very open minded and as I say Noel Coward was one of his best friends, but he did have a few digs at homosexuals in his books which is perhaps slightly regrettable."

Blood Fever hit bookstores on January 5, 2006 and became the UK’s #1 bestselling children’s book for the week ending 14th January, knocking The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe off the top spot, and even bettering SilverFin which had only climbed as high as #8 on the same chart. The very effective UK cover art showed an extreme closeup of a mosquito drawing blood, continuing the "creepy critter" motif established with the eels of SilverFin.

Blood Fever would hold onto #1 for an amazing eleven weeks. A second edition was quickly released that boasted on its cover; "The Number One Young Bond Bestseller." In-store merchandise, such as a set of seven Young Bond collectors cards (from Waterstones) and a Young Bond pin (Ottakar’s), helped boost sales. Blood Fever was chosen by Nicolette Jones as the Sunday Times Children’s Book of the week. Once skeptical Bond fans praised the book as worthy of Fleming. Young Bond had arrived!

Blood Fever is a tougher, darker, much more violent book than SilverFin. The somewhat timid youngster of SilverFin has grown into a teenager with all the confidence, athletic skill, and luck of Ian Fleming's secret agent. He coolly defies the villain, finds kinship with bandits, and derives visceral excitement by diving off high cliffs and driving fast cars. When forced into a gladiatorial boxing match with a much larger boy, Bond relishes the opportunity to "get his fight on."

A highlight of Blood Fever was the promised torture scene, which involved James Bond being spiked to the ground and fed on by mosquitoes. Higson explained in detail how he came up with his torture scene in my second interview with him on CommanderBond.net:

"Well, obviously I’ve got to come up with a torture which isn’t too horrible because then we wouldn’t be allowed to use it in the books if it’s too graphic. I can’t have him having his testicle crushed in a nutcracker and things like that. So the idea of doing it via third party, by a mosquito, works very well. But it’s mainly having spent many holidays as a kid in the Mediterranean. Certainly for an English person, where we don’t have mosquitoes, one of the vivid memories of going on holiday in the Mediterranean is being bitten to shreds by mosquitoes. So I thought that’s something that kids could relate too. Always in the books I’m trying to think of things where a kid could think, 'Yeah, I can imagine that. I can picture being in that situation.' The thought of being tied down in the middle of a mosquito swamp is pretty unbearable, I thought. So it had some resonance."

The Young Bond series was a hit in the UK, but U.S. sales were less robust, despite two book tours by Higson and superb reviews, including one by the New York Times praising Blood Fever as the "far better" than the new Alex Rider novel, Ark Angel.

As with SilverFin, Blood Fever was released in hardcover in the U.S. by Miramax/Hyperion. This time, however, they didn't stick with the UK cover motif (despite using it on the proof edition) and instead commissioned original artwork by Kev Walker that featured Bond on the bow of a ship. A gun in his hand, which can be seen on the prototype artwork (right), would not make the final cover.

One oddity is that both SilverFin and Blood Fever were edited in the U.S. In SilverFin several gruesome passages are changed – such as when the eel comes out of the dead Meatpacker’s mouth (it emerges from his shirt collar in the U.S. edition). Even Bond’s innocent wrestling match with Wilder is toned down, removing a reference to Wilder’s "muscular legs gripping him like steel." All references to Red Kelly drinking beer and smoking are omitted, which results in almost a full missing page.

While the edits in SilverFin are somewhat understandable (considering Disney was the publisher's parent company), the edits in Blood Fever are perplexing. A particularly disappointing change for Bond fans is the omission of a clever nod to Fleming in Chapter 17. The villain hosts a dinner party where among the attendees is "Armando Lippe from Lisbon" – whom Higson confirmed was intended to be the father of Thunderball villain Count Lippe. But the U.S. edition, for reasons unknown, omits the name Lippe from the paragraph. Instead, Ugo’s dinner guest is now "Count Armando from Lisbon."

But the real issue behind the U.S. slow start seemed to lie with Miramax Books, who did not put nearly the promotional support behind the series as did Puffin in the UK. The reason for this was Miramax was undergoing a management shake up with parent company Disney. Matters came to a head when Harvey Weinstein split off his Miramax film production and distribution from Disney, leaving parts of the company, including Miramax Books, behind. With the issue resolved, IFP negotiated a new deal under Disney-Hyperion, but this would mean the series in the U.S. would trail a year behind the UK, a situation that would be exasperated when Puffin decided to shoot for two Young Bond novels in 2007.

Continue to Part III

THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND, PART I

On March 8, 2004, Ian Fleming Publications teased a major announcement on their website. It read:

"We know that many of you are waiting for news of our next publishing project and we’d like to thank you for your ongoing patience. We will be making an announcement shortly, so please keep watching this news page."

James Bond fans were abuzz. The literary 007 had gone into eclipse after Raymond Benson’s The Man With The Red Tattoo and Die Another Day novelization in 2002. Now it appeared new Bond books were on the horizon. But what kind of books would they be?

A month later, IFP revealed the big news:

"In Spring next year James Bond will return as we’ve never seen him before. Ian Fleming Publications Ltd is thrilled to announce that in March 2005 Charlie Higson will take us back to where it all began in the first of his novels introducing the teenage years of the boy who was to become 007."

Bond fans were mortified.

"Oh dear God!" cried one post on CommanderBond.net, the largest online James Bond fan forum with a highly vocal and opinionated membership. Others joined the pack: "IFP, what are you thinking?" -- "Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea." -- "No Good Will Come of This" -- "The end of James Bond as we know it!"

The fans had reason to be skeptical. This wasn’t the first time James Bond has been aimed at the kids market. In 1967 Glidrose published The Adventures of James Bond Jr. 003, a book that featured James Bond's nephew, and Eon Productions had produced a James Bond Jr. cartoon series in the early 1990s, which included a plethora of tie-in merchandise. Both projects did not find great favor among the public or fans, so the idea of yet another "Junior James" series seemed ill-advised.

The choice of Charlie Higson, a well-known UK comedian and star of the popular The Fast Show, did not necessarily quell fears. True, Higson had written three critically acclaimed adult thrillers and won a James Bond trivia contest on the UK TV quiz show, IQ, but it was unclear of he had the chops to write a James Bond novel, let alone a proper children’s book.

Suspicion about the concept rained even in the popular media as talk show host Jonathan Ross spared with Higson over the concept on his BBC radio show:

ROSS: James Bond for kids?

HIGSON: Yep.

ROSS: Shame on them and shame on you!

HIGSON: No it’s very… it’s proper… cause..

ROSS: James Bond is for grownups!

HIGSON: But it’s James Bond as a kid.

ROSS: No don’t do it Charlie.

HIGSON: I’ve done it.

ROSS: Don’t do it.

HIGSON: It’s a very very good book…

ROSS: Then don’t send it in.


HIGSON: Well it’s done.

ROSS: I don’t want to see James Bond as a boy.

HIGSON: Don’t read it then…
ROSS: …well maybe with you writing it, actually it might work.

HIGSON: No, it does.


Young Bond Begins

The origin of what become known as the Young Bond Series lay in the reorganization of Glidrose into Ian Fleming Publications in the late 1990s. Until then, Glidrose, holder of the James Bond literary copyright, was owned by Booker PLC, a conglomerate that also owned the Agatha Christie estate and was involved in numerous other businesses. About three years into Raymond Benson’s tenure as the official Bond author, the Fleming family bought back the 51% of Glidrose from Booker and changed the name to Ian Fleming Publications (IFP). The new regime oversaw the last few Benson books as they started considering new ideas, including the idea to do a series of James Bond books aimed at the lucrative children’s market.

Charlie Higson

Kate Jones, a talented editor and publisher, played a critical role in the creation of Young Bond and the selection of Charlie Higson as author. Jones had worked with Higson on his four adult thrillers, King of The Ants, Happy Now, Full Whack and Getting Rid of Mr. Kitchen. "I learnt a great deal about pacing and structure from Kate and her suggestions were always very welcome and always improved the books," says Higson. Jones, who had courageously beat cancer in the '90s, developed the relationship between IFP and Penguin, which resulted in fresh reprints of all the Ian Fleming novels in attractive new paperbacks in 2002. She then joined IFP as a consultant and worked with them on their ongoing project to relaunch the literary side of Bond.

Higson recalls, "I was working on a sitcom [Swiss Toni] some time around 2002/2003 when Kate approached me with a top secret project. She explained that IFP wanted to remind the world that Bond had started life on the page, and also what a good writer Fleming was. Alongside a campaign to put Fleming back in the limelight, IFP were looking for respected ‘name’ authors to revamp the literary side of Bond, starting with a new series for younger readers. Kate had come to me because she thought I might be right for the job – although I was only one of a number of different writers she approached (including Anthony Horowitz, who, luckily for me, turned them down)."

Jones explained to Higson that they were looking for an established writer of either children’s books or adult thrillers who was a fan of Bond and Fleming, who understood boys, who was marketable, and would be willing to work within a strict framework. "I guess I ticked enough boxes for them because I got the job," says Higson. "Although at the time the plan was to have a different author write each installment."

Jones laid out IFPs outline of the proposed series to Higson. "I was to stick, as far as possible, to Fleming’s timeline and fit in with any facts presented in the original books. I was to set the series at Eton with a regular cast of characters. Bond was not to be a teenage spy, but he should have an important teacher in his life whose surname began with an M!"

At first there was debate about how much the "James Bond" name should be used in these new books, especially if there was any ambition to spin them off into a film series. It was suggested that maybe Higson could come up with a nickname for Bond that could be used in substitution. But Higson rejected this idea, feeling this boy had to be "James Bond" in name or the series really wouldn’t work. Nevertheless, there remained marketing restrictions on using the James Bond name on the covers, so Young Bond became the official brand name of the series (some foreign publishers, such as Arena Verlag in Germany, used the "James Bond" name regardless).

In his own books, Ian Fleming was vague about about Bond's age, and never gave him a firm birthdate. The Young Bond team decided that Bond would be born in 1920 and the first book would find him in 1933 at the age of 13 (although the final book never actually states this). Respect for Fleming’s original literary canon would be key and a creative control that all would take very seriously. According to Higson,"It was decided very early on that James should very much not be a teenage spy figure; we didn’t want to go down the cheesy Cody Banks/Spy Kids route. We wanted him to be a real boy at a real school." The bible would be Fleming’s obituary of Bond which appeared in You Only Live Twice. In it, Bond’s Eton school days are recounted:

"It must be admitted that his career at Eton was brief and undistinguished and, after only two halves, as a result, it pains me to record, of some alleged trouble with one of the boys' maids, his aunt was requested to remove him." - Ian Fleming, Chapter 21, Obit, You Only Live Twice

Higson started his research at Eton. "The Flemings have a good relationship with the senior librarian there, Michael Meredith, who has incidentally created a fine Ian Fleming archive in the library, including many first editions. I think the college is quite proud of its associations with James Bond." Higson also consulted outside sources. "There is a wealth of material published about Eton, much of which I have read, but the most helpful book was one written by Bernard Fregusson [Eton Portrait, 1937] about what it was like to be a boy at the school in the early thirties."

Higson decided that eels would play a major roll in the book, and not just because they terrified his wife. "I needed a bad animal," he explained in an early interview. "Finding a new dangerous animal for a Bond project is tough. We’ve had all the obvious ones -- octopus, giant squid, tiger, sharks, crocodiles etc. etc. But I wanted something scary that kids could relate to and might actually think they could come across in their own lives. Eels were the obvious choice. But, as eels are fairly benign and would never attack a human, I had to make them mutated eels, which led me to some of the mechanics of the plot."

As with the other continuation novels, the title would be a collaborative/committee decision. "My working title was Out Of Breath," says Higson. "But this was a little too Elmore Leonard. We wanted something that sounded suitably Bondian but wasn’t too specific in it’s meaning. Between IFP, myself, the publishers and everyone else involved we came up with loads of titles – and in the end SilverFin was the one most of us agreed on." It was a title Higson felt perfectly captured the essence of a young James Bond novel. "It’s silver -- not quite gold."

Higson submitted his first draft to Kate Jones, who worked with him on the structure and the essential Flemingesque qualities of the book. IFP then had their read and made a few helpful comments. "For instance," recalls Higson, "my first draft had James with a dog – the family explained that Ian had hated dogs, so the dog bit the dust!"

The manuscript was then submitted to Puffin where it was edited by Rebecca MacNally. Higson points out, "Rebecca was less concerned with the authentic Bond/Fleming elements of the book, she was happy to let IFP worry about that side of things. She was a hugely experienced children’s editor – and let’s not forget that the target audience for these books is ten year old boys – and she just wanted to make sure that SilverFin worked as a novel for kids."

Higson had finished SilverFin before the series was ever announced to the public, and he faced his critics in his first pre-publication interview (with your truly), where he candidly revealing that he was well aware of the negative reaction from fans.

"I look at all the websites and have been following the arguments with great interest," said Higson. "It’s useful to know what people are thinking, though, of course, these books are aimed at a younger readership than the fans who take part in the forums. I fully understand the fans’ reservations and scorn – I’d have felt the same way if I’d heard that someone else was doing this project – but I hope I can prove a few people wrong."

Cover art for SilverFin, featuring an eel motif that IFP planned to use worldwide, was revealed on August 18, 2004. According to Penguin marking officer Justin Renard, "The look established with SilverFin was considered the perfect formula of clean, sharp design that is accented with a silhouette of an iconic creature to represent the darkness inside and imply that this will be no day at the beach."

Also revealed where plans for an ambitious publicity campaign by UK publisher Puffin Books. The "inescapable" £50,000 advertising blitz would include in-store displays, street posters, "invincible" trade advertising, bus-supersides, and a "Young Bond privileged access microsite." Puffin also confirmed that the second Young Bond adventure would be released in November 2005.

The U.S. rights were scoped up by Disney owned Miramax Books, a sale that garnered newspaper headlines. "The Miramax name coupled with the James Bond brand is a powerful combination," stated Miramax topper Harvey Weinsten. "It is an honor to be connected to the Ian Fleming estate and to be involved in one of the world’s most recognizable icons." (However, unforeseen circumstances would prove this partnership to be less than satisfactory, as we shall discover.)

SilverFin hit UK stores as a trade paperback original on March 3, 2005 to strong sales and excellent reviews. Even the most vocal critics had to admit that the book was a respectful of Fleming and successful as a James Bond novel for kids. The eel cover art was given a sparkling treatment on the first edition. In the U.S., SilverFin was released as a hardcover on April 27, 2005.

Talk of a film started almost instantly.

The Guardian reported that that the success of SilverFin "has quickly provoked fierce competition between film-makers" and that companies like Miramax and DreamWorks where making "heavy pitches." The paper also reported British film companies had approached the estate, including Heyday Films, the English company that makes the Harry Potter series for Warner Bros. The tabloid press quickly started speculating who would play the young James Bond, most suggesting (unimaginably) that Daniel Radcliff was a lock for the part. Some reported that a deal was already in place.

However, Corrine Tuner, currently the managing director of IFP, who along with Kate Jones and Zoe Watkins oversaw the creation of Young Bond, responded to the reports; "We are not doing a film deal yet because we are confident that the books can stand alone for a while. Book buyers everywhere keep telling us they would buy the title even if it was nothing to do with a strong brand like Bond, simply because it is so well written."

Charlie Higson would add, "We’ve certainly had a lot if interest from filmmakers. But we want to get the books established first and not rush into making films, otherwise people only know your characters from the films, and they may be different from how they are in the books."

The truth was while many film companies and filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, did express serious interest in Young Bond, making a deal that didn’t involve Danjaq/Eon Productions -- who own the cinematic rights to 007 -- was complicated. The plan would remain to see the book series a success before films were even explored, and despite occasional flare up in the media (who continued to flog the idea of Daniel Radcliff well into his 20s), the idea of a Young Bond films series remained (and remains) in a state of limbo.

But in 2005, books are what mattered, and while SilverFin silenced the critics, what came next would turn many into die hard fans.

Continue to Part II