Raymond Benson's Choice of Weapons released

Raymond Benson's second anthology of 007 work, Choice of Weapons, has been released by Pegasus.

The collection includes 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." Until now, "Live At Five" had only been available in a 1999 issue of TV Guide.

Choice of Weapons can be purchased at Amazon.com. For news about Raymond's current and upcoming original work visit his official website.

Danger Society US release remains unlikely

It’s starting to look less and less likely that the Young Bond companion book, Danger Society The Young Bond Dossier, which was recently released in paperback in the UK, will be released in any form in the USA.

I confirmed at Comic Con that there are still no plans by Disney to publish this latest Young Bond release. However, they did spark to my suggestion that they consider including the original Charlie Higson short story, “A Hard Man To Kill”, in their paperback edition of By Royal Command, due out in May 2011. (Of course, they might have just been humoring this mad fanboy.)

The good news is the UK paperback edition of Danger Society The Young Bond Dossier is currently 38% off at Amazon.co.uk, so U.S. fans who want this excellent book can purchase it for about the same total price as a U.S. hardcover.

Lost James Bond short story uncovered

A long forgotten James Bond short story, possibly written by Dr. No/From Russian With Love screenwriter Johanna Harwood, has been revealed on The Young Bond Dossier.

The story is called “Some Are Born Great” and was first published in the September 3, 1959 issue of Nursery World. The story details an intense card game with Bond facing off against an unseen opponent, only to reveal in the end that it's a game of "Snap" and this is a prepubescent James Bond playing against a nanny.

The story was discovered by author Charles Helfenstein while researching in his major new book, The Making of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Amazon, Amazon.co.uk).

Click here to read "Some Are Born Great" at The Young Bond Dossier.

Top Secret Project X event today in London

Ian Fleming Publications and Hodder & Stoughton invited “a very small handful of people” to a "Top Secret" meeting with new James Bond author Jeffery Deaver today.

In true Bond style, the one-on-one meetings with the author took place in the crypt of St Andrews church in Holborn, London. The location was only revealed to attendees after they RSVP'd, and it was not revealed in advance that the meeting would be with Deaver (who recently arrived in the UK to start his latest book tour).

UPDATE: You can now read a first hand account of this ultra-mysterious meeting at the CommanderBond.net forums.

Was the future of Young Bond decided today?

Is Charlie Higson going to return and pen a Young Bond series 2? That decision could very well have been made today, according to a tweet from Charlie Higson himself @monstroso.

“Various meetings today to discuss the future of Young Bond, the Enemy, Monstroso & 1 with an academic to discuss the past -Randall & Hopkirk”

Unfortunately, this tweet was logged 9 hours ago, so we were unable to redirect our Book Bond spy satellite on London and listen in.

Guess we will just have to wait for some official word about the future of Young Bond, but here’s hoping the meeting went well!