Not Sebastian Faulks. I don’t think many of us thought he’d come back, but theBookseller got a year-later comment from the author of James Bond’s latest adult adventure Devil May Care:

“My contract did offer me a second go, but definitely not,” he told The Bookseller. “‘Once funny, twice silly, three times a slap’, as the nanny saying goes. But I think it would be a good gig for someone to do.”

Devil May Care wasn’t that bad in my opinion, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as I thought it should have been. Read some of Faulks’ most celebrated books like Birdsong and so on and you’d see that Faulks in his own style would have been great for the job. But that’s not what happened.

So who is up next? Charlie Higson? Someone new? Nobody knows, but Simon Trewin (Ian Fleming Publication’s literary agent) is quoted in the same article saying “options are open.”

This coming September Hutchinson (aka Random House) will publish Sebastian Faulks’ next novel, A Week in December in the UK. It’ll be published later in October in the US. Here’s the synopsis:

“A Week in December” is Sebastian Faulks’ first wholly contemporary novel. Set in London, it’s a brilliant social satire, structured like a thriller, that takes place over the course of a single week at the end of 2007. It brings together an intriguing cast of characters, each apparently in his or her own world but – as gradually becomes clear – ultimately intricately related. The anti-hero, John Veals, is a shadily successful and boundlessly ambitious Dickensian figure who is trading billions and other characters include a teenage Muslim fanatic, a Polish footballer, a female tube driver, a literary critic, a care worker and a chutney tycoon. As the story builds to its climax, Faulks pulls together powerful ideas about family, money, religion, and the way we live now.

The title is actually quite close to the rejected Young Bond title “Six Days in December”. Instead we got the fan selected title Double or Die.

US edition: Amazon.com – October 27, 2009
UK edition: Amazon.co.uk – September 3, 2009

Mentioned in March of 2008, but according to CommanderBond.net, the reprints for The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities – two of Ian Fleming’s non-Bond books (though Thrilling Cities did include the James Bond short story “007 in New York”) will be reprinted in 2009.

Just a quick bit of news there. Also, note that Ian Fleming Publications has redesigned their site. Looks like they took my advice here because they moved from www.ianflemingcentre.com to just www.ianfleming.com which actually makes sense.

I wasn’t so sure this would ever happen, but I guess Young Bond is more popular over here in the states than I thought or maybe Disney just thinks the different type of media will do good. Regardless, the YoungBondDossier reports today that SilverFin: The Graphic Novel which was released in the UK last October will land stateside in July 2010. If that news isn’t good enough, Disney has decided to not only release it as a paperback, but as a hardcover as well. SilverFin: The Graphic Novel, the first book in the Young Bond series, was illustrated by Kev Walker. Further graphic novels have yet to be announced, but several images by Walker have been released – not to mention that Walker has designed the cover for every Young Bond novel in the US (all the recent paperback re-releases and all the hardcovers with the exception of SilverFin).

Here’s a review by Matt Weston of CBn for the UK edition: Young Bond Comes to Life.

Today marks the 101st birthday of Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964) , author of the James Bond books and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Every year I’ve written up a little bio, but this year I’ll just point you to those older posts:

• 99 Years Old
• 100 Years Old

If you really want some good books to read about Fleming check out:

• The Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson
• Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett
• For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond by Ben Macintyre (my review here)

And there are many many more.

Over in the UK Young Bond’s fifth adventure was published in paperback. Included is an excerpt from Charlie Higson’s upcoming Young Bond short story “A Hard Man to Kill” which will be included in the non-fiction book Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier later this year. You can get an excerpt of the excerpt over at the Young Bond Dossier.

Buy By Royal Command at Amazon.co.uk or if you’re in the US and want to wait for the US edition, it’ll likely be released in April 2010 with the Young Bond Dossier following perhaps a year later.

K1Bond007.com is officially 2 years old today. I’m sort of surprised I’ve made it this far. Shall we go for 3? I don’t know. Stay tuned.

I guess I had it in my head that they were going to release this on May 28, 2009, which would be the 101st birthday of Ian Fleming. Turns out the US went ahead and published Devil May Care in paperback form on May 19th. You can get it in two different flavors: mass market paperback or a trade edition. Odd they did this because, well, they never do. Not with Bond anyway.

UK folks can probably get Devil May Care on bookshelves now in paperback too. The official release for it is May 28th, but Amazon.co.uk is shipping now and according to the official Penguin007 site, which has gone through another makeover by the way, says it’s out now.

Raymond Benson announced that a new short story titled “On the Threshold of a Death” has been published in CrimeSpree Magazine (Issue 30, May/June 2009). It’s part of the Spike Berenger series of books by Benson that includes A Hard Day’s Death (2008) and Dark Side of the Morgue (2009). Staying in theme the short story is referred to as a “single” and is likely a take on The Moody Blues’ album On the Threshold of a Dream.

Author Nigel West and The Scarecrow Press will be publishing the Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s James Bond on September 28, 2009.

Twelve novels and nine short stories define one of the most extraordinary fictional characters of all time, creating the basis for the most successful movie series in cinematographic history, watched by more than half the world’s population. The single person probably more responsible than any other for glamorizing the murky world of espionage is Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, who himself lived a remarkable double life of spy and writer. Everyone has an opinion on why 007 became so successful, but one possible explanation is the ingenious formula of fact, fiction, and sheer fantasy. Certainly the author drew on friends and places he knew well to provide the backdrop for his drama, but what proportion of his output is authentic, and what comes directly from the author’s imagination?

These questions and more are examined in the Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on actual cases of espionage, real-life spies, MI5, SIS, CIA, KGB, and others. It also contains entries on Ian Fleming’s novels and short stories, family and friends, his employers and colleagues, and other notable characters.

Nigel West is an editor of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence and teaches at the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, VA. He’s also written the Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence, Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence and Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. i.e., this guy apparently knows his stuff on the subject so this should be a pretty fascinating read – if you can afford it. The book will retail for 80 bucks, though Amazon currently has a sale going: $67.31. I think that’s a discount.