REFRESHED 'YOUNG BOND' BOOKS NOW SHIPPING IN UK

Charlie Higson's five Young Bond novels with the newly refreshed cover art are now shipping from Amazon.co.uk. These new editions of SilverFin, Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold, and By Royal Command are published by Puffin Books. The official release date is April 5.

Released between 2005 and 2008, the Young Bond series was embraced by Bond fans young and old and are generally considered to be among the best of all the James Bond continuation novels. This is the first full cover refresh the books has received in the UK.

Read my five part THE SECRET HISTORY OF YOUNG JAMES BOND which covers the creation of the series and each of the five books, taking us right up to today's big refresh.

The JOHN GARDNER UK first edition hardcovers

Having posted the John Gardner U.S. hardcovers last month, I figured I'd continue with the John Gardner UK hardcover first editions from Jonathan Cape and Hodder & Stoughton. Certainly not as uniform as the U.S. set, but some nice covers.

Licence To Kill, GoldenEye, SeaFire, and COLD are the standout rarities in this batch. Licence To Kill was actually printed in the U.S. by Mysterious Press and distributed in the UK by Severn House in very limited quantities in April 1990, a year after the paperback release. The First Edition print run of GoldenEye is said to have been in the 2000 copy range. It went into subsequent printings very quickly. SeaFire was remaindered in the UK so almost all copies were price clipped and it's tricky to find a copy with the price intact.

Because SeaFire was not a big seller, COLD was printed on a demand basis. The bulk of the orders came from public libraries and these editions were bound in with plain boards of a different color. Only about 900 copies were printed and about 500 of these were library editions. Unless you pre-ordered this book, you were unlikely to get one. It's the rarest of all the Gardner hardcovers.

Publication:
Licence Renewed – Jonathan Cape, May 21, 1981.
For Special Services – Jonathan Cape, September 9, 1982.
Icebreaker - Jonathan Cape, July 7, 1983.
Role of Honour - Jonathan Cape, October 4, 1984.
Nobody Lives For Ever - Jonathan Cape, May 22, 1986.
No Deals, Mr. Bond - Jonathan Cape, May 21, 1987.
Scorpius - Hodder & Stoughton, June 2, 1988.
Win Lose or Die - Hodder & Stoughton, August 1989.
Licence To Kill – The Mysterious Press, April 1990.
Brokenclaw - Hodder & Stoughton, August 2, 1990.
The Man From Barbarossa – Hodder & Stoughton, August 18, 1991.
Death Is Forever - Hodder & Stoughton, July 2, 1992.
Never Send Flowers - Hodder & Stoughton, July 15, 1993.
SeaFire - Hodder & Stoughton, August 1994.
GoldenEye - Hodder & Stoughton, November 1995.
COLD - Hodder & Stoughton, May 2, 1996.

CARTE BLANCHE wins Japan's Best Foreign Novel of 2011

Ian Fleming Publications has announced that Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche has won Japan's Bouken-shouetsu adventure fiction award for the Best Foreign Novel of 2011.

Congratulations to Jeffery Deaver and Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju Ltd on winning this prestigious award.

The Japanese edition of Carte Blanche runs 456 pages with a translation by Makiko Ikeda. It can be purchased at Amazon.co.jp.

Mi6 Confidential looks at cover art by Michael Gillette

The new issue of Mi6 Confidential(#14) includes a treat for us literary Bond fans; a story on the cover designs for the 2008 Ian Fleming Centenary editions with work in progress artwork from Michael Gillette's own sketch books. The article also says that Gillette was asked to design the covers for the new John Gardner reprints, but declined.

You can purchase Mi6 Confidential (#14) at mi6confidential.com.

Thanks to Hugh Maddocks.

Vintage's new IAN FLEMING paperbacks hit Amazon UK

Vintage Books recently announced Ian Fleming reissues have hit Amazon.co.uk. The standard paperback set, which promises cover designs that will "engage people who have recently discovered the Bond brand through the films and computer games" is due for release on August 2, 2012. The "Vintage Classic" set will be released on September 6, 2012. Below are links for pre-order.

Vintage

(August 2, 2012)

Casino Royale

Live and Let Die

Moonraker

Diamonds Are Forever

From Russia With Love

Doctor No

Goldfinger

For Your Eyes Only

Thunderball

The Spy Who Loved Me

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

You Only Live Twice

The Man With The Golden Gun

Octopussy & The Living Daylights

Vintage Classics

(September 6, 2012)

Casino Royale

Live and Let Die

Moonraker

Diamonds Are Forever

From Russia With Love

Doctor No

Goldfinger

For Your Eyes Only

Thunderball

The Spy Who Loved Me

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

You Only Live Twice

The Man With The Golden Gun

Octopussy & The Living Daylights

I've launched a new stand alone page, Vintage Fleming, where I will keep up with any release date changes and also list Vintage's eBooks and non-fiction Fleming titles when they become available.

The fangs of ICEBREAKER

After posting my blog about the John Gardner first edition paperbacks, reader Dan Gale alerted me to something that I never knew. It's appears my UK Icebreaker is not a first edition after all, and this is obvious from the cover art. First editions of Icebreaker had an error in the artwork which resulted in the skull having "fangs". In actuality, they are not fangs, but sections of the artwork that should have been colored in black or cut out completely. This error was fixed on the second print onward.

Icebreaker fanged (first) and defanged (second).

Looks like I'm on a fang hunt. Thank you Dan!

Oxford Literary Festival presents CHITTY AND BOND this Saturday

Young Bond author Charlie Higson and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again author Frank Cottrell Boyce will participate in a special celebration of Ian Fleming this Saturday at the Oxford Literary Festival.

Chitty and Bond; An Ian Fleming Celebration will be chaired by Paul Blezard and held at 4:00pm at Christ Church: Hall. Higson and Boyce will discuss Fleming’s original novels along with their own sequels in this hour long talk.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit the official Oxford Literary Festival website.

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.

SKYFALL news inbound

I have some official Skyfall news to share today. Stand by...