BOND UNKNOWN is the latest rogue 007 book

Once again a publisher is testing Canadian copyright law that appears to have made James Bond public domain in Canada. This time it's April Moon Books with a new novel, Bond Unknown, containing two 007 adventures: Mindbreaker by Edward M. Erdelac and Into the Green by William Meikle.

Bond Unknown can be purchased from April Moon Books of Ontario at the official website.

LINK: Donald E. Westlake's Sort-of James Bond Book Coming Out Next Year

Tanner over at the awesome Double O Section spy blog has details on a "sort of" James Bond novel by Donald E. Westlake coming out next year.

Titled Forever and a Death, the story was presumably adapted from an unused film treatment Westlake created for what would have been Pierce Brosnan's second James Bond movie.

Click here on the headline and read the full report on this rogue mission at Double O Section.

Another unofficial JAMES BOND novel hits the market

Another unofficial James Bond novel, BOND on the ROCKS by Curtis Cook, has been self-published under the Berne Convention's "life plus 50" rule of copyright, which, apparently, puts James Bond in the public domain in several counties (not just Canada, according to this book). Below in the cover and plot description:

James Bond faces his most diabolical challenge of all time -- modern life. The cultural icon that role-modeled behavior of men for generations was pushed into retirement 20 years earlier in a feminist rebellion at Regents Park. He has blown through the personal fortune he accumulated as an irresistible and heavy-drinking super spy and survives on a modest pension in a world stumbling toward globalization, privatization and war. He is a jobless senior citizen on the brink of losing his Chelsea flat to the bank. "Very sad, very troubling but actually very funny all at once. We witness the real-world frailties, humiliations, joys, quirks and anguish of human struggle that the mythical hero has always managed to keep off-camera."

Mary Goodnight calls on him and is appalled at the pathetic version of the man she had once served and loved. She connects him with the former 006 who is now CEO of a flourishing private corporation in the emerging international security industry. Despite misgivings over the loyalties and principles of private enterprise, Bond finds the incentives, perks and female staff highly appealing. He is dispatched to Saddam Hussein's Baghdad to locate and buy off a Russian physicist who absconded with plans for an advanced missile defense system. But the physicist is a stubborn, Soviet-era Communist who resists all offers to relocate to the West. With a major bonus at stake, Bond resorts to enhanced interrogation to uncover the missing plans - a bad move.

Banned in the U.S., "Bond on the Rocks" (unsanctioned by the Franchise) is still available at reasonable cost in Canada, Japan, Cuba, New Zealand, China and many other countries that adhere to the "life plus 50" rule of the Berne Convention.

Unlike the recently released Licence Expired, Bond on the Rocks is currently available on the U.S. Amazon. It also says inside that it's "Printed in the USA." Seems this one is pushing the Bern Convention rule, so if you want it, I would act fast. I'm still amazed this is happening at all.

Is there a new unofficial James Bond book out there?

The new anthology, Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond, was scheduled for release yesterday in Canada. Amazon.ca still shows the book as not yet released, but publisher ChiZine appears to have had a launch party in Toronto. Have any of our friends in Canada spotted one in bookstores?

Here's a rundown on the book (explaining how it even exists) as well as a listing of all the stories and authors from ChiZine:

In Paris, James Bond meets his match over appetizers and cocktails—with an aperitif of industrial espionage and chilly sadism. Off the coast of Australia, he learns about a whole new level of betrayal under the scorching light of a ball of thunder. In Siberia, he dreams of endless carnage while his fate is decided by one of his most cunning enemies and perhaps the greatest of his many loves.

And in Canada, James Bond finds freedom.

In January 2015, the world’s most famous secret agent entered the public domain in Canada—one of the few remaining countries in the world that subscribe to the Berne Convention and allow copyright to extend not 70 but just 50 years past the death of the work’s creator. Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond, lives in this shadow space of copyright law: a collection of 19 new, exciting, transformative James Bond stories by a diverse crew of 21st-century authors.

Collected herein are new stories about Secret Agent 007, as the late Ian Fleming imagined and described him: a psychically wounded veteran of the Second World War and soldier of the Cold War, who treated his accumulated injuries with sex, alcohol, nicotine, and adrenaline. He was a good lover but a terrible prospect.

He was James Bond.

And in Licence Expired, James Bond is back.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction by Matt Sherman
• Foreword: The Bitch is Dead Now by David Nickle
• “One Is Sorrow” by Jacqueline Baker
• “The Gale of the World” by Robert J. Wiersema
• “Red Indians” by Richard Lee Byers
• “The Gladiator Lie” by Kelly Robson
• “Half the Sky” by E.L. Chen
• “In Havana” by Jeffrey Ford
• “Mastering the Art of French Killing” by Michael Skeet
• “A Dirty Business” by Iain McLaughlin
• “Sorrow’s Spy” by Catherine McLeod
• “Mosaic” by Karl Schroeder
• “The Spy Who Remembered Me” by James Alan Gardner
• “Daedelus” by Jamie Mason
• “Through Your Eyes Only” by A.M. Dellamonica
• “Two Graves” by Ian Rogers
• “No Mr. Bond” by Charles Stross
• “The Man with the Beholden Gun: an e-pistol-ary story by some other Ian Fleming” by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
• “The Cyclorama” by Laird Barron
• “You Never Love Once” by Claude Lalumière
• “Not an Honourable Disease” by Corey Redekop
• Afterword by Madeline Ashby

Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond  is listed on Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca, although it appears it cannot be purchased if you have an address outside of Canada.

UPDATE: The book is indeed released, but get getting a copy outside Canada is a bit of a trick. Amazon.ca will only ship to addresses within the country. But copies are starting to circulate via secondhand dealers. Happy hunting!

LICENCE EXPIRED: The Unauthorized James Bond

It looks like independent publisher ChiZine is making good with their promise to publish an unauthorized anthology of James Bond short stories. Amazon.ca now has a pre-order listing for Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond along with pretty cool cover art. Release date is November 17, 2015.

An anthology of collected stories from various Canadian authors, based on Ian Fleming's fourteen published Bond novels, edited by Canadian genre authors Madeline Ashby and David Nickle. To be published in Canada only.

Back in January it was widely reported that James Bond had entered the public domain in Canada, clearing the way for unauthorized books. This is the first one out of the gate and up on Amazon. We'll see what happens!

Publisher announces plans for an UNAUTHORIZED James Bond anthology

Independent Toronto publisher ChiZine Publications has announced that it will release an unauthorized anthology of James Bond short stories in November called, Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond. The press release comes on the heels of an article on io9 which claims James Bond is now public domain in Canada.

"We want to feature original, transformative stories set in the world of Secret Agent 007," says co-editor David Nickle. "We're hoping our contributors will combine the guilty-pleasure excitement of the vintage Fleming experience with a modern critique of it."

"This is an opportunity to comment on the Bond universe from within it," adds Madeline Ashby. "We're specifically looking for writers and stories that would make Fleming roll in his grave."

So how real is this?

Well, if you check out this interview, you'll see that this is all a prelude to a Kickstarter campaign, so I'm skeptical. (I don't trust Kickstarter, having seen one too many scams.) I'm also skeptical of the claim of Bond being public domain in Canada. I think both Danjaq and IFP might have something to say about that.

When asked if they are worried about being sued, a representative of ChiZine states: "Of course I am. Isn’t everyone? But it’s worth the risk. After all. You only live twice."

I'll believe it when I see it.

Retro SOLO (fan art)

Here's a bit of speculative fun to kick off 2014. What if latest James Bond novel Solo by William Boyd was published as part of the classic Fleming series by Great Pan of the 1950s? It might have looked something like this.

This impressive design is by Gary Cook (artwork by Sam Peffer) who has a Facebook page devoted to speculative James Bond fan art designs from all eras called James Bond 007 Book Cover Designs.

Thank you Gary.

The mystery of THE KILLING ZONE

I first posted this in 2007, but as The Book Bond now has a larger readership, I thought this was worth a re-post for those who have never heard of this literary Bond curiosity. Enjoy.

One of the more mysterious stories in the world of the literary James Bond is that of the little-known 007 novel The Killing Zone by Jim Hatfield. The 251 page novel tells the story of 007 going after a drug lord in Mexico after he murders Bond’s friend and colleague, Bill Tanner. It's a plotline strikingly similar to the film Licence To Kill (still four years away when The Killing Zone was "published"), and includes the surprise reappearance of Major Anya Amasova from The Spy Who Loved Me. It also includes the even more surprising death of James Bond in its final pages!

The Killing Zone appeared in 1985 -- the year official continuation novelist John Gardner had off -- and claims on its copyright page to be officially licensed by Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications). But this book is far from official.

The Killing Zone was the creation of Jim Hatfield, a legitimate author of several books, most notably of the infamous George W. Bush biography, Fortunate Son, which claimed the former U.S. president was once arrested for cocaine possession. He was also a man who had his fair share of problems with the law.

The story (as uncovered by the now defunct 007Forever website) is that Hatfield told co-workers he had been named the new James Bond continuation author. In order to keep his ruse alive, he wrote and self-published The Killing Zone, which on close examination is a bizarre patchwork of original material mixed with plagiarized passages from the Bond novels by John Pearson and John Gardner and other spy novels.

Even the cover art is a patchwork forgery. Despite the claim on the back of the book that it was designed and hand lettered by David Gatti, the "James Bond" was lifted from the U.S. paperback edition of James Bond The Authorized Biography and the title design was taken from a novel of the same name by William Crawford Woods (I've yet to discover the source of the blood spots).

Despite all this, The Killing Zone is not entirely without Bondian merit. It features some clever action scenes, good use of Mexican locales (Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Sierra Madre), and a strong villain in Klaus Dobermann. The return of Triple X is fun in a fan fiction sort of way, but Hatfield does go a step too far with the name of his Bond Girl: Lotta Head.

Precisely how many copies of The Killing Zone were printed is not known. There have been rumors of large stashes tucked away, but like so much with Hatfield, the truth is elusive. Thus far, only two copies of The Killing Zone have ever surfaced, both signed by Hatfield to female co-workers. (I own one of these two copies, which I purchased from a mysterious seller, "A. Smith," on eBay in 2000.)

Plagued by problems with alcohol and facing arrest for credit card fraud, Jim Hatfield committed suicide in an Arkansas motel in 2001. Near the end, Hatfield believed he was under surveillance by the Bush administration, and there are those who suggest he was actually murdered by the minions of George W. Bush.

It all sounds like something out of a James Bond novel.

SILHOUETTE-GATE (UPDATED)

In yesterday's blog about the John Gardner U.S. hardcovers, some fans have wondered why The Man From Barbarossa uses a different silhouette of 007 on the cover art.

The story I read (although for the life of me I can't remember where) was that around the time of the release of Brokenclaw in 1990, Danjaq/Eon Productions complained that the silhouette Putnam was using on their Bond books looked too much like Pierce Brosnan. As we know, Brosnan had narrowly missed out on becoming Bond in 1986 and in 1990 Timothy Dalton was still the "Bond of record."

Eon's sudden sensitivity with any Brosnan-Bond connection might have also had something to do with a flurry of news reports around this same time that claimed Kevin McClory was once again planning to make an unofficial James Bond film, Atomic Warhead, with...Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was also being linked to a possible (unofficial) James Bond TV series.

So when the The Man From Barbarossa rolled around in 1991, Putnam used a different silhouette. However, it's still from the same batch of images that had been created for the 1980s Ian Fleming Berkley paperbacks (this one came off Doctor No), so all it might have accomplished was to smooth things over until Eon's anxiety passed. By 1992 the "Brosnan-like" silhouette was back, and by 1995 Pierce Brosnan himself would be James Bond.

Anyway, that's the story I heard, but like I said, I cannot find the original source, so maybe I'm just spreading gossip. But that oddball The Man From Barbarossa cover offers some evidence that this story could be true.

UPDATE: 

Okay, I've finally found the source. Interestingly, it was not so much the cover of Brokenclaw that caused the "problem", but a full page ad for the book in the New York Times Book Review that used the cover silhouette (wish I had that ad!).

According to Frank Swertlow's "Hollywood Freeway" column in the L.A. Daily News (Aug 3, 1990), Brosnan's spokesman Richard Guttman said that "Pierce has received at least 30 phone calls" about the Brokenclaw ad, which the article notes "bares a striking resemblance to Pierce." This same story, along with Guttman's quote, appeared in USA Today.

Now, this all seems to be part of a continued campaign by Brosnan's publicists to keep him in the public mind as 007 (and tweak Eon over their selection of Timothy Dalton over Brosnan in '86). This campaign had gone on for years. Brosnan had done two Diet Coke commercials in a Bondian persona (below), and also appeared in various print ads with a Bondian look. Also, as I stated above, in 1990 he was flirting with working with the dreaded Kevin McClory on a rival Bond film, Atomic Warhead.

So it's debatable whether this Brokenclaw ad was really drawing public comparisons, or if this was just Pierce's people finding another way to tout their man as the Bond of public choice.

And, yes, I think this small publicity flare up could have been the reason the traditional silhouette took a one book hiatus in 1991 with The Man From Barbarossa.

 

Brosnan's best "tweak"

THE JAMES BOND LEXICON promises a comprehensive look at 007

I've pretty much stopped buying books about the James Bond phenomenon, but I WILL be picking up The James Bond Lexicon: The Unofficial Guide to the World of OO7 in Movies, Novels, and Comics by Alan J. Porter when it is released by Hasslein Books in late 2012 or 2013.

This looks like it's going to be more in lines with Raymond Benson's classic The James Bond Bedside Companion or Simpson & Lane's The Bond Files in that it will cover the entire Bond phenomenon in books, films, and comics. It's been a long time since we've gotten a truly comprehensive reference book on 007 (one that doesn't limit Bond's entire history to twenty-something films), and the word "unofficial" doesn't trouble me one bit. In fact, I see that as a plus. Really looking forward to this.

Thanks to Anders Frejdh and his awesome From Sweden With Love website for the tip. You can follow the latest on this book at The James Bond Lexicon on Tumblr.

Spy novel pulled for plagiarizing Fleming and Gardner

The L.A. Times reports that the new spy novel, Assassin of Secrets by Q.R. Markham, was pulled today after publisher Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown, said it discovered that numerous passages where "lifted from a variety of classic and contemporary spy novels", including the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming and John Gardner.

In a statement, Michael Pietsch, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Co., said: "Upon investigation, it was clear the passages in question were lifted, and Little, Brown determined that the only course of action was to immediately recall books from retailers across the country."

While the publisher did not say how they discovered the plagiarism, some of the detective work appears to belong to the crew over at the CommanderBond.net forums, who spotted several passages in the book that where lifted directly from John Gardner's Licence Renewed and Nobody Lives Forever.

Even the author's name, Q.R. Markham, appears to be lifted from a Bond novel. "Robert Markham" was the pseudonym used by Kingsley Amis for his continuation Bond novel, Colonel Sun.

Simon Gardner, son of the late John Gardner, wrote today on Facebook:

"I do hope the exposure of this act of plagiarism will act as a lesson to others that think they might try to dupe publishers and the public alike. Whether the authors are alive or dead, there are enough fans of popular fiction to come down fast and hard on anyone who tries to rip off their favourite authors. That is the power of fans and I salute and thank you all on behalf of John Edmund Gardner."

Now I think we need to find out who is hiding behind the name Q.R. Markham?

UPDATE: According to publishers Marketplace news director Sarah Weinman, Q.R. Markham is really Quentin Rowan, a co-owner of Spoonbill & Sugartown in Williamsburg. The blog Reluctant Habits (which posted his photo below) reveals that he also plagiarized some of Raymond Benson's Bond work.

"Q.R. Markham" aka Quentin Rowan

The Heart of Erzulie

Fant art.

In an exclusive interview on CommanderBond.net, former James Bond continuation author, Raymond Benson, revealed the existence of a never published James Bond short story, “The Heart of Erzulie.”

Says Benson, “There was another Bond short story I wrote in-between Never Dream of Dying and The Man With The Red Tattoo. It wasn’t very good. I did it on spec, just for something to do during the off months between the outline and research trip for Tattoo. It was called "The Heart of Erzulie," and it took place in Jamaica. IFP thought it was too much of a Fleming pastiche. I guess I agree. Oh well, it kept me busy for a month.”

According to the website Encyclopedia Mythica, “Erzulie is the Voodoo love goddess and goddess of elemental forces, as well as of beauty, dancing, flowers, jewels, and pretty clothes. She lives in fabulous luxury and appears powdered and perfumed. She is as lavish with her love as with her gifts. On her fingers she wears three wedding rings, her three husbands being Damballa, the serpent god, Agwe, god of the sea and Ogoun the warrior hero. As Erzulie Ge-Rouge, she huddles together with her knees drawn up and her fists clenched, tears streaming from her eyes as she laments the shortness of life and the limitation of love. She is personified as a water snake. She is also called Ezili.”

“You’re correct,” says Benson. “The story had a voodoo theme to it. Believe me, it shouldn’t see the light of day!”

Benson also revealed that he’s written a book chronicling of his adventures in the world of 007. “Last fall I wrote my Bond memoirs, a small autobiography so to speak, that relates my lifelong experiences with 007. It’s called James Bond and Me–A Memoir for lack of a better title. I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I can’t imagine anyone really being that interested. It would probably have to be one of those limited edition books that private presses have done, like Richard Kiel’s book, or Syd Cain’s book. Maybe I can get a thousand copies printed and sold. I haven’t decided.”

Here’s hoping someday one, or both, of these unpublished Benson works will become available for Bond fans to read.

This article first appeared on CommanderBond.net.