Friday, August 04, 2006

Booking a New Bond Author

J. Kingston Pierce of The Rap Sheet blogs:
With the 100th anniversary of Bond creator Ian Fleming’s birth coming up in May 2008, it’s been announced that “a very well-known and highly respected author” has been commissioned to “write a new James Bond novel,” which will be published in that same month.

Corrine Turner, a spokesperson for Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. (IFP), which “still administers Ian Fleming’s literary estate,” has been quoted as saying that “We are delighted to have secured this particular author who we have had in mind for some time now. He is the perfect writer for this project and we are greatly looking forward to his take on James Bond, in what we are convinced will be a stunning novel.” An IFP release adds that “A publisher has not yet been sought and the identity of the author will be a closely guarded secret until publication.”

I always figured the worry for anyone writing new Bond books was that of being tied down to James Bond's legacy, prevented from doing anything too innovative with the character. Perhaps the mystery author is someone so famous he doesn't have to worry about being trapped.

Let the speculation begin: Len Deighton, John le Carré...

2 comments:

Dave White said...

I know it's been speculated before, and I know he's denied it several times, but I really think Lee Child writes just like Ian Fleming.

Steve Allan said...

I'm thinking Nobel winner. Coetez? Garcia Marquez? Toni Morrison?