James Bond operates 'The Girl Machine'

CommanderBond.net has revealed details of Titan Books next collection of classic James Bond comic strips, The Girl Machine. The collection will contain the title story as well as "Beware Of Butterflies" and "The Nevsky Nude."

First published in 1973, "The Girl Machine," finds 007 and Bond Girl Zebeide Rashid traveling to Hajar to free an imprisoned Emir. In "Beware of Butterflies" Bond is once again teamed with agent Suzi Kew to influtrae an Eastern European spy ring. "The Nevsky Nude" finds 007 uncovering a SMERSH operation in Sussex.

The Girl Machine is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Release date is July 23, 2009.

Story info from The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson.

Raymond Benson's 'Choice of Weapons'

Great news. Pegasus Books will publish a second anthology of Raymond Benson's 007 work, tentatively titled Choice of Weapons (excellent Bond title, IMO).

The collection will include the novels Zero Minus Ten, The Facts of Death, The Man With The Red Tattoo, and the short stories Live At Five and Midsummer Night's Doom. Tentative publication date is late spring or early summer 2010.

For more news about Raymond Benson's current and upcoming original work, visit his official website.

'Devil May Care' promotion wins award

Lucy Chavasse and Jill Cotton of the PR firm Coleman-Getty have won The Bookseller award for Hardback Fiction for last year's spectacular launch of Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.

They will now go forward for The Galaxy British Book Awards ‘Nibbie' for the best campaign of the year, to be announced in April.

Congratulations!

TALK OF THE DEVIL

Talk of the Devil is a collection of rarely-seen journalism and other writing by Ian Fleming. It belongs to a special edition of his complete works published in 2008 by Queen Anne Press to commemorate the centenary of his birth. The edition is intended to celebrate Fleming not only as the creator of Bond but as an accomplished and vivid journalist, distinguished bibliophile and literary publisher.

No uniform edition of Fleming’s complete works has appeared before. Talk of the Devil, the last of eighteen volumes, is edited by his niece Kate Grimond and nephew Fergus Fleming.

“In preparing this volume our goal has not been to assemble every overlooked scrap of Ian Fleming’s writing, far less to make a definitive collection of his journalism. Instead we have tried to create a book that does justice to its author. The contents have been selected for their rarity, their historical and biographical value and the glimpses they give of his opinions and enthusiasms. Our overriding policy has been that they should be of interest and entertainment.

A few items have never been published, others have already appeared in print - as, for example, the articles that Ian Fleming wrote during his long association with the Sunday Times. In the latter case we have followed the original typescript rather than the published version, and where good lines were edited out we have put them back in. The title is taken from a notebook in which Fleming listed names and phrases that caught his fancy. Talk of the Devil, which was an early contender for Diamonds are Forever, caught our fancy too.”

At more than 400 pages Talk of the Devil is the longest work ever to bear Ian Fleming’s name.

Moneypenny makes it to America

Samantha Weinberg's excellent series of Miss Moneypenny novels are at long last making their way to America. Book 1, The Moneypenny Diaries, is published by Thomas Dunne Books and can be purchased now on Amazon.com.

Weinberg's "Diaries" comprise a trilogy of novels, all three of which have been released in the UK. No word yet on when the next two books, Secret Servant and Final Fling, will make it across the pond.

Read my exclusive interview with Samantha Weinberg aka "Kate Westbrook" HERE.

Birthplace of 'Devil May Care'

"I have worked in this room for six years. I wrote novels called Human Traces, Engleby and Devil May Care here, and have nearly finished a new one, provisionally called A Week in December. The room is part of a small flat in Holland Park, in west London. It's at the top of a building so there's no noise from above. I come here from home, 15 minutes' walk away, from roughly 10 till six every weekday. I sometimes stay later or come in at the weekend as well, so I guess I must like it here.

It faces east and overlooks a garden square with a pink horse chestnut. The room is not as seedy as the picture makes it look, though I admit that the decor - if that's not too strong a word - is the subject of some hilarity to female interviewers. I don't care what it looks like, only how it works.

The desk belonged to a furniture dealer called Simon Horn. It's too low to get my knees under, so the middle drawer has gone and the legs are propped up by copies of Charlotte Gray in Danish. The chair I got via the Wellcome Trust; it's the same as those in their library and very good for someone with a chronically painful back. I inherited the curtains from the previous owner.

On the coffee table are books and notebooks relating to the novel in hand. The buff envelope at the front of the upper in-tray on the desk is the next VAT return. The temperamental phone/fax machine doubles, when it fancies it, as a photocopier.

On the wall I face are a small cameo of Tolstoy that I bought in his house in Moscow and a bronze relief of Dickens, half obscured by the computer screen, that was my mother's. For each book I invoke a sort of patron saint. For A Week in December it's Orwell, just visible at two o'clock from Tolstoy. The message of the old wartime poster next to him gives solid advice on a slow day. The bag was a Christmas present from my wife."

Sebastian Faulks - The Guardian

Final HURRICANE GOLD U.S. cover art is here!

Thanks to our friends at Disney Publishing, today we can show you the final cover art for the U.S. hardcover edition of Charlie Higson’s Hurricane Gold, due for release on April 7, 2009.

This spectacular artwork is by artist Kev Walker who most recently illustrated SilverFin The Graphic Novel and provided cover art for new U.S. paperback editions of SilverFin and Blood Fever due out in March.

Prototype art for Hurricane Gold, first revealed back in June, showed Bond with Precious Stone in the jungles of Mexico. But in keeping with the new unified “Bond vs Villain” theme, Precious has been replaced with the brain-damaged henchman Manny the Girl.

The Hurricane Gold hardcover is available for pre-order on Amazon.com along with all the new Young Bond releases for 2009:

James Bond: The History Of The Illustrated 007

Now for the first time, the complete history of the illustrated James Bond is chronicled by pop culture historian Alan J. Porter in James Bond: The History Of The Illustrated 007. Porter’s new book examines James Bond’s adventures in newspaper strips and comic books.

Before Bond became world famous with his movie series, the character was the subject of successful English newspaper strips and later in comic books. With the explosion of Bond on the screen the character and his exploits become even more popular in comic strip and comic book versions all over the world. James Bond: The History Of The Illustrated 007 examines it all, and covers Bond’s newspaper strip and comic book appearances from the 1950s to the present.

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

Closer look at the HURRICANE GOLD prototype cover

Publisher Disney Hyperion have posted on their website Kev Walker’s prototype artwork for the U.S. hardcover edition of Hurricane Gold, due for release April 7, 2009. This is a much larger image than what was revealed on the official Young Bond site back in June.

Mind you, this is not the final art (as it says on the cover itself). The final art will reflect the “Bond vs. Villain” theme as seen on Double or Die and the new paperback editions of SilverFin and Blood Fever due for release next year.

Still, this is beautiful work by Walker (who’s work can be seen in the new SilverFin Graphic Novel) and it’s nice to get a closer look. We hope to bring you the FINAL cover sometime this month.

The Hurricane Gold hardcover is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

DOUBLE OR DIE cover concept sketch

Illustrated 007 strikes again, this time showing us Kev Walker’s original cover concept sketch for the U.S. hardcover edition of Charlie Higson’s Double or Die.

This art appeared largely unchanged on the hardcover released in 2007 and, as we revealed last week, will also appear on the paperback edition due out on March 10, 2009.

This cover proved so popular that Disney asked Kev to redesign the covers of SilverFin and Blood Fever using a similar “Bond vs Villain” theme for new paperback editions due next year.

Thanks to Illustrated 007 for sharing this rare art.