BBC - Culture - Ranking the James Bond authors after Ian Fleming Britain Ranking the James Bond authors after Ian Fleming Since Ian Fleming’s death, six authors have inherited the James Bond literary franchise and continued to write novels about the spy. Which is the best? Jane Ciabattari finds out. By Jane Ciabattari 8 August 2014 In 1953, Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale introduced one of the most popular literary characters ever: the secret agent with the blue eyes, black hair and “cruel mouth”, the persistent appetites (for women, food and that special “shaken, not stirred” martini) and the immortal line “Bond, James Bond”. By the time Fleming, a former journalist and naval intelligence officer, died on 12 August 1964 at the age of 56, he had written 14 James Bond books and established the basis for his estate to manage the franchise. Fleming’s 007 prototype has proven, indestructible, surviving through 23 films and also 24 additional novels written by six successive authors (not including the movie novelisations). The James Bond books have had their ups and downs.

Fleming was a shrewd and perceptive chronicler of a Cold War world much more dangerous than ordinary citizens understood it to be. He created Bond as a blunt instrument wielded by his superiors to preserve and protect. Fleming fleshed out his 007 with a flair for clothes and cars, a powerful athleticism and a fondness for women paired with a tragic inability to maintain love. When Fleming’s Bond was caught, as he always was, the villain made him suffer. Readers knew that at some point, however, Bond would always prevail. Fleming’s work was noir with a safe landing at the end. He wrote with a rare combination of clarity, action, sensuous detail, wit and fantasy. Kingsley Amis, author of the first post-Ian Fleming 007 novel and the first critical appraisal, The James Bond Dossier, coined the still useful term “The Fleming effect”, which he describes as “the imaginative use of information, whereby the pervading fantastic nature of Bond’s world, as well as the temporary, local, fantastic elements in the story, are bolted down in some sort of reality”.

Some of Fleming’s successors come up short when it comes to the crucial balance between imagination, authenticity and believability. Many are influenced as much by the film versions as by Fleming himself. Some have replaced Fleming’s Cold War plots with alternative wartime scenarios, to varying degrees of success. A few have lost the daring and witty Fleming flavour altogether. The most successful maintain his taut action style while adding psychological depth and a contemporary sense of humour. Here’s my ranking of the six authors to carry on Fleming’s literary legacy: 6. Raymond Benson Benson, author of the reference book The James Bond Bedside Companion (1984), wrote six Bond books between 1996 and 2002. He had two directives, he notes in the introduction to Choice of Weapons, a compendium of three of his 007 novels: “Make the character of M a woman (to stay in synchronization with the Pierce Brosnan/Judi Dench films), and to somehow blend more contemporary elements (more action, gadgetry, humor).” Zero Minus Ten, Benson’s first novel, was set just before the British handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.

Bond ends up allied with the head of a Hong Kong triad in a race to keep the handover from becoming an explosive international disaster. Benson’s settings are effective, but he replaces Fleming’s pithy two-sentence backstories with pages of exposition that slow down the action. (Compare Benson’s 20-page scene covering the rules of Bond’s Macau mahjong game to Fleming’s four-page explanation of the game of baccarat in Casino Royale during a dinner followed by champagne, strawberries and avocado pear.) His Bond seems a hollow man, devoid of the animating sense of Bond’s actions that play such an important role in Fleming’s books. View image of (Coronet) (Credit: Coronet) 5. Jeffrey Deaver In Carte Blanche (2011), bestselling author Deaver, author of the bestselling series of thrillers featuring NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme, takes Bond to Serbia, Dubai and South Africa to foil a “rag and bones” waste-disposal king with an unsavoury fascination for death and decay. Deaver sets up his 21st Century Bond as a veteran of the Royal Naval Reserve in Afghanistan recruited to a new post-9/11 secret-agent role.

Bond drinks craft bourbon (Baker’s, on ice, or the lighter Basil Hayden’s). His women are troubled. Deaver’s villain, the ghoulish Severan Hydt, relishes private moments with corpses from the killing fields he services (covering up genocide and murder through private recycling and waste removal). Creepy Hydt is a passive villain, hardly measuring up to Fleming’s ex-Nazi Hugo Drax, and the shape-shifting evil genius Ernst Stavro Blofeld, both of whom are entertaining baddies. Deaver’s is a dry read, thin in psychological and sensual texture, overloaded with acronyms that Deaver has to include a glossary. View image of (Hodder Paperbacks) (Credit: Hodder Paperbacks) 4. John Gardner Beginning with Licence Renewed in 1981, Gardner, a former Marine commando, espionage writer and author of a James Bond parody series about a cowardly British spy, wrote 14 James Bond novels.

Gardner says he set out to "to transport 007 into the 1980s." He ,focussed mostly on nuclear threats and the machinations of SPECTRE (Fleming’s Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). Gardner introduces memorable American settings in For Special Services – a Louisiana bayou hideout guarded by giant pythons and a private Texas town where a resurrected SPECTRE’s top brass meet to plot destruction. Gardner kept the thriller pace going. And he maintained Fleming’s approach and tone. But he lacked Fleming’s animating imagination and verbal panache. (A typical Gardner line: “James Bond was always amazed by New York.”) He gets extra points for endurance, though. View image of (Orion) (Credit: Orion) 3. William Boyd Literary star Boyd’s Solo, just out in paperback, is a well-crafted novel, set in 1969, with 007 on the front lines of a civil war between Zanzarim and Dahum, a semblance of Nigeria’s Biafran War of the late 1960s.

Boyd’s villain – mercenary Kobus Breed, who treats his victims like fish, hooking them through the jaws and hanging them in trees – is suitably vile. And Boyd sketches in an authentically bumptious press corps. But the fictionalised African civil war seems a misstep. Bond’s directive, to intervene in favour of oil interests on behalf of the US and the UK, while plausible, lends 007’s mission a moral ambiguity that may be appropriate to the historic moment, but not to Bond as we have known him. View image of (Jonathan Cape) (Credit: Jonathan Cape) 2. Kingsley Amis, writing as Robert Markham Amis’s novel Colonel Sun, the first post-Fleming 007 book, finds M rendered powerless after being kidnapped by Colonel Sun of China’s People’s Liberation Army. Bond teams up with Ariadne, an alluring Greek communist, as he unravels a Chinese plot to deal a blow to Russia and lay the blame on Britain. Amis set out to defy the “adolescent fantasy” of the Bond films.

He dismissed the cinematic 007 as “that rakish non-entity who drops yobbo-style throwaways out of the corner of his mouth before or after escaping by personal jet-pack or submersible-car fitted with missile-launchers….” Amis’s Bond realises, grimly, “that the tools he basically had to depend on were invisible, intangible, inside himself”. This is a somber Bond, with painful memories and a future clouded by the rise of new enemies in the sabotage game. Amis captures Fleming’s elegantly tight style, his carefully etched characters and panoramic views of Athens and the invented Aegean island of Vrakonisi. He gets the details right as Bond samples ouzo, retsina, crayfish and olives. He adds psychological depth by giving Bond complex reactions to fear, pain and killing, and threading a personal revenge motive through the narrative. Amis balances well the Fleming formula a reviewer identified in a 1958 review of Dr No: “sex, sadism, snobbery”. View image of (Titan Books Ltd) (Credit: Titan Books Ltd) 1.

Sebastian Faulks Faulks’ Devil May Care was published in 2008 to honor the centenary of Fleming’s birth. Faulks, a well-respected literary author, maintains Fleming’s Cold War timeframe, setting the novel in the late 1960s in Paris, Rome, Tehran and Moscow. Bond is following Dr Julius Gorner, a pharmaceutical company head involved in global heroin distribution. Faulks brings a welcome fluidity to Bond’s thoughts and actions, and creates a strong, versatile character in Bond’s love interest, Scarlett Papava. Faulks tops my list because he succeeded in his stated mission to stay faithful to three enduring elements of Fleming’s Bond books: “the sense of jeopardy Fleming creates about his solitary hero; a certain playfulness in the narrative details; and a crisp, journalistic style that hasn’t dated”. In keeping with Fleming’s Bond, Faulks creates a character, as Kingsley Amis put it, capable of “indignation, compunction, remorse, tenderness and a protective instinct towards defenseless creatures”. Devil May Care is the best Bond reboot to date.

If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter . James Bond History - Discover The Secret Agent's Origins And More SEE ALSO – Top Ten James Bond Cars That I Would Love To Own A new novel, written by William Boyd, is planned for release in 2013. Additionally, Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The fictional British Secret Service agent has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, and video game formats in addition to having been used in the longest continually running and the second-highest grossing film series to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of 2013, there have been twenty-three films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Skyfall (2012), stars Daniel Craig in his third portrayal of Bond; he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series.

There have also been two independent productions of Bond films: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball). The Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and one win. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond’s cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch. James Bond History As the central figure for his works, Ian Fleming created the fictional character of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. James Bond Name Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies.

Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond’s guide and he later explained to the ornithologist’s wife that “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born”. He further explained that: “When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument … when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, (James Bond) is the dullest name I ever heard.” —Ian Fleming, The New Yorker, 21 April 1962 Inspiration Fleming based his fictional creation on a number of individuals he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, admitting that Bond “was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war”. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war.

Aside from Fleming’s brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond’s make up, including Conrad O’Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill “Biffy” Dunderdale. Tastes Fleming also endowed Bond with many of his own traits, including sharing the same golf handicap, the taste for scrambled eggs and using the same brand of toiletries. Bond’s tastes are also often taken from Fleming’s own as was his behavior, with Bond’s love of golf and gambling mirroring Fleming’s own. Fleming also used his experiences of his espionage career and all other aspects of his life as inspiration when writing, including using names of school friends, acquaintances, relatives and lovers throughout his books. Background It was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice, that Fleming gave Bond a sense of family background. The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Sean Connery’s depiction of Bond affected Fleming’s interpretation of the character, to give Bond both a sense of humor and Scottish antecedents that were not present in the previous stories.

In a fictional obituary, purportedly published in The Times, Bond’s parents were given as Andrew Bond, from the village of Glencoe, Scotland, and Monique Delacroix, from the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Fleming did not provide Bond’s date of birth, but John Pearson’s fictional biography of Bond, James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, gives Bond a birth date on 11 November 1920, while a study by John Griswold puts the date at 11 November 1921. Ian Fleming novels Whilst serving in the Naval Intelligence Division, Fleming had planned to become an author and had told a friend, “I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories.” On 17 February 1952, he began writing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he wrote all his Bond novels during the months of January and February each year. He started the story shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris, in order to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials.

After completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming showed the manuscript to his friend (and later editor) William Plomer to read. Plomer liked it and submitted it to the publishers, Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming’s older brother Peter, an established travel writer. Between 1953 and 1966, two years after his death, twelve novels and two short-story collections were published, with the last three books – The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy and The Living Daylights – published posthumously. All the books were published in the UK through Jonathan Cape. 1953 Casino Royale 1954 Live and Let Die 1955 Moonraker 1957 From Russia, with Love 1958 Dr.

No 1960 For Your Eyes Only (short stories) 1961 Thunderball 1962 The Spy Who Loved Me 1963 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 1964 You Only Live Twice 1965 The Man with the Golden Gun 1966 Octopussy The Living Daylights (short stories) Post-Fleming novels After Fleming’s death a continuation novel, Colonel Sun, was written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) and published in 1968. Amis had already written a literary study of Fleming’s Bond novels in his 1965 work The James Bond Dossier. Although novelizations of two of the Eon Productions Bond films appeared in print, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker, both written by screenwriter Christopher Wood, the series of novels did not continue until the 1980s. In 1981, thriller writer John Gardner picked up the series with License Renewed.

Gardner went on to write sixteen Bond books in total; two of the books he wrote – License to Kill and GoldenEye – were novelizations of Eon Productions films of the same name. Gardner moved the Bond series into the 1980s, although he retained the ages of the characters as they were when Fleming had left them. In 1996, Gardner retired from writing James Bond books due to ill health. 1981 Licence Renewed 1995 GoldenEye (novelization) 1996 COLD In 1996, American author Raymond Benson became the author of the Bond novels. Benson had previously been the author of The James Bond Bedside Companion, first published in 1984. By the time he moved on to other, non-Bond related projects in 2002, Benson had written six Bond novels, three novelizations and three short stories.

1997 “Blast From the Past” (short story) 1997 Zero Minus Ten 1997 Tomorrow Never Dies (novelization) 1998 The Facts of Death 1999 “Midsummer Night’s Doom” (short story) 1999 “Live at Five”[60] (short story) 1999 The World Is Not Enough (novelization) 1999 High Time to Kill 2000 DoubleShot 2001 Never Dream of Dying 2002 The Man with the Red Tattoo 2002 Die Another Day (novelization) After a gap of six years, Sebastian Faulks was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel, which was released on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth. The book—titled Devil May Care—was published in the UK by Penguin Books and by Doubleday in the US. American writer Jeffery Deaver was then commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications to produce Carte Blanche, which was published on 26 May 2011.

The book updated Bond into a post-9/11 agent, independent of MI5 or MI6. James Bond For TV And Movies In 1954 CBS paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($8,549 in 2013 dollars) to adapt his novel Casino Royale into a one-hour television adventure. The episode aired live on 21 October 1954 and starred Barry Nelson as “Card Sense” James ‘Jimmy’ Bond and Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre. The novel was adapted for American audiences to show Bond as an American agent working for “Combined Intelligence”, while the character Felix Leiter—American in the novel—became British onscreen and was renamed “Clarence Leiter”. In 1962 Eon Productions, the company of Canadian Harry Saltzman and American Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, released the first cinema adaptation of an Ian Fleming novel, Dr. No, featuring Sean Connery as 007. Connery starred in a further four films before leaving the role after You Only Live Twice, which was taken up by George Lazenby for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Lazenby left the role after just one appearance and Connery was tempted back for his last Eon-produced film Diamonds Are Forever. In 1973, Roger Moore was appointed to the role of 007 for Live and Let Die and played Bond a further six times over twelve years before being replaced by Timothy Dalton for two films. After a six-year hiatus, during which a legal wrangle threatened Eon’s productions of the Bond films, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan was cast as Bond in GoldenEye, released in 1995. Brosnan remained in the role for a total of four films, before leaving in 2002. In 2006, Daniel Craig was given the role of Bond for Casino Royale, which rebooted the series. The twenty-third Eon produced film, Skyfall, was released on 26 October 2012. The series has grossed just over $6 billion to date, making it the second-highest-grossing film series (behind Harry Potter), and the single most successful adjusted for inflation. Dr.

No 1962 Sean Connery From Russia with Love 1963 Goldfinger 1964 You Only Live Twice 1967 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 1969 George Lazenby Diamonds Are Forever 1971 Sean Connery Live and Let Die 1973 Roger Moore The Man with the Golden Gun 1974 The Spy Who Loved Me 1977 Moonraker 1979 For Your Eyes Only 1981 Octopussy 1983 A View to a Kill 1985 The Living Daylights 1987 Timothy Dalton Licence to Kill 1989 The World Is Not Enough 1999 Die Another Day 2002 Casino Royale 2006 Daniel Craig Quantum of Solace 2008 Skyfall 2012 James Bond Music The “James Bond Theme” was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962’s Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years.

A Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers. Several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”, Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better”, Sheena Easton’s “For Your Eyes Only” and Adele’s “Skyfall”. Adele won the award at the 85th Academy Awards. For the non-Eon produced Casino Royale, Burt Bacharach’s score included “The Look of Love”, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. James Bond Video games In 1983, the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64 and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines. In 1997, the first-person shooter video game GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64, based on the 1995 Pierce Brosnan film GoldenEye.

The game received very positive reviews, won the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for UK Developer of the Year in 1998 and sold over eight million copies worldwide, grossing $250 million. In 1999, Electronic Arts acquired the license and released Tomorrow Never Dies on 16 December 1999. In October 2000, they released The World Is Not Enough for the Nintendo 64 followed by 007 Racing for the PlayStation on 21 November 2000. In 2003, the company released James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, which included the likenesses and voices of Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Judi Dench and John Cleese, amongst others. In November 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of 007: From Russia with Love, which involved Sean Connery’s image and voice-over for Bond. In 2006 Electronic Arts announced a game based on then-upcoming film Casino Royale: the game was canceled because it would not be ready by the film’s release in November of that year.

With MGM losing revenue from lost licensing fees, the franchise was removed from EA to Activision. Activision subsequently released the 007: Quantum of Solace game on 31 October 2008, based on the film of the same name. In October 2012 007 Legends was released, which featured one mission from each of the Bond actors of the Eon Productions’ series. James Bond Guns For the first five novels, Fleming armed Bond with a Beretta 418 until he received a letter from a thirty-one-year-old Bond enthusiast and gun expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd, criticizing Fleming’s choice of firearm for Bond, calling it “a lady’s gun – and not a very nice lady at that!” Boothroyd suggested that Bond should swap his Beretta for a Walther PPK 7.65mm and this exchange of arms made it to Dr. No. Boothroyd also gave Fleming advice on the Berns-Martin triple draw shoulder holster and a number of the weapons used by SMERSH and other villains. In thanks, Fleming gave the MI6 Armorer in his novels the name Major Boothroyd and, in Dr.

No, M introduces him to Bond as “the greatest small-arms expert in the world”. Bond also used a variety of rifles, including the Savage Model 99 in “For Your Eyes Only” and a Winchester .308 target rifle in “The Living Daylights”. Other handguns used by Bond in the Fleming books included the Colt Detective Special and a long-barreled Colt .45 Army Special. The first Bond film, Dr. No, saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. In Tomorrow Never Dies and the two subsequent films, Bond’s main weapon was the Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol. James Bond Vehicles In the early Bond stories Fleming gave Bond a battleship-gray Bentley 4½ Liter with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. After Bond’s car was written off by Hugo Drax in Moonraker, Fleming gave Bond a Mark II Continental Bentley, which he used in the remaining books of the series. During Goldfinger, Bond was issued with an Aston Martin DB Mark III with a homing device, which he used to track Goldfinger across France. Bond returned to his Bentley for the subsequent novels.

The Bond of the films has driven a number of cars, including the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, during the 1980s, the V12 Vanquish and DBS during the 2000s, as well as the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. He has, however, also needed to drive a number of other vehicles, ranging from a Citroën 2CV to a Routemaster Bus, amongst others. Bond’s most famous car is the silver gray Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later featured in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Skyfall. The films have used a number of different Aston Martins for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in the US for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. James Bond Gadgets Fleming’s novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as the booby-trapped attaché case in From Russia with Love, although this situation changed dramatically with the films. However, the effects of the two Eon-produced Bond films Dr.

No and From Russia with Love had an effect on the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, through the increased number of devices used in Fleming’s final story. For the film adaptations of Bond, the pre-mission briefing by Q Branch became one of the motifs that ran through the series. Dr. No provided no spy-related gadgets, but a Geiger counter was used; industrial designer Andy Davey observed that the first ever on screen spy-gadget was the attaché case shown in From Russia with Love, which he described as “a classic 007 product”. The gadgets assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film’s success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond, although the increased use of technology led to an accusation that Bond was over-reliant on equipment, particularly in the later films. Davey noted that “Bond’s gizmos follow the zeitgeist more closely than any other … nuance in the films” as they moved from the potential representations of the future in the early films, through to the brand-name obsessions of the later films.

It is also noticeable that, although Bond uses a number of pieces of equipment from Q Branch, including the Little Nellie autogyro, a jet pack and the exploding attaché case, the villains are also well-equipped with custom-made devices, including Scaramanga’s golden gun, Rosa Klebb’s poison-tipped shoes, Oddjob’s steel-rimmed bowler hat and Blofeld’s communication and bacteriological warfare agents vanity case. James Bond Biography (Fictional Secret Agent) Fictional Secret Agent Birthplace: Best known as: Secret agent star of Goldfinger and other films James Bond was created by author Ian Fleming and remains one of the most famous secret agents in modern fiction. Bond is a cool, handsome, dangerous agent for British Intelligence; his code number, 007, indicates that he has a "license to kill" in the line of duty as a "double 0" agent. He travels the globe and uses his wits, fighting skills and a grab-bag of high-tech gadgets to battle super-villains often bent on world domination.

(The gadgets, which played only a small role in Fleming's early novels, became a Bond trademark in the movies.) A few of Bond's personal traits have become famous, including his preference for martinis made with vodka and "shaken, not stirred," his use of a Walther PPK handgun, and his habit of introducing himself as "Bond... James Bond." Fleming wrote about Bond in a series of novels that ran from 1953 to 1964, including Casino Royale (1953), From Russia With Love (1957) and Goldfinger (1959); later the series was carried on by authors John Gardner and Raymond Benson. The popular Bond movie series began with 1962's Dr. No and extended into the 21st century, with Bond played by a string of actors including Sean Connery , Roger Moore , Timothy Dalton , Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig . Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved. Category:James Bonds | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia "Bond... James Bond." ― The iconic James Bond introduction.

[src] Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR, is a fictional character created by British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games. The Bond character is a Secret Service agent, code number 007, residing in London but active internationally. Bond was a composite character who was based on a number of commandos who Fleming knew during his service in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, to whom Fleming added his own style and a number of his own tastes. The character of James Bond first appeared in the 1953 Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale , and appeared in the thirteen subsequent novels, as well as short stories by Fleming and other writers. He first appeared on the silver screen in the 1962 film Dr. No , portrayed by Sean Connery . He has since been portrayed by George Lazenby , Roger Moore , Timothy Dalton , Pierce Brosnan , and is currently helmed by Daniel Craig . He also appears in many video games and other branches of the James Bond franchise. There have also been legal disputes regarding Ian Fleming's works, so some non-EON versions of James Bond exist.

Contents Shared background Bond's Chelsea apartment. In the novels, James' parents (Andrew Bond of Scotland and Monique Delacroix-Bond of Switzerland) were tragically killed during a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven. He had acquired a first-class command of the French and German languages during his early education, which he received entirely abroad. After the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, where he completes his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but is removed after two halves because of girl trouble with a maid. After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. [1] Chart showing an estimate of the various 007's portrayals, body counts, women bedded and number of famous quote utterances. After leaving Fettes, the EON films note that Bond studied at Cambridge University. [2] [3] There, he achieved a first in Oriental languages. [4] In Fleming's novels, Bond alluded to briefly attending the University of Geneva (as did Fleming), before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel.

[5] Following his graduation, Bond joined the Ministry of Defence and became a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves, rising though the ranks to commander. Bond applied to M for a position within the " Secret Service ", part of the Civil Service, and rose to the rank of principal officer. Shared characteristics Personal tastes Bond has a number of character traits which run throughout the books and movies, including an enjoyment of cars, women, gambling, food and drink. In the novels, Bond is portrayed as a heavy drinker and smoker, largely mirroring Fleming's own personal tastes. Age Because the James Bond Film Franchise has lasted nearly sixty years, the characters do not age in relation to release of the first film. Rather, Bond is always mid-aged. Likewise, in Ian Fleming's stories, James Bond is in his mid-to-late thirties. Firearms & Gadgets Main article: List of firearms , Gadgets In the Fleming novels prior to Dr. No , Bond's firearm of choice had been the Beretta 418 . However, following suggestions from firearms collector Geoffrey Boothroyd, from Dr. No on-wards Bond was equipped instead with the Walther PPK .

Aside from this weapon, 007 also carried a revolver for long-range shooting and made use of weapons as an when he obtained them. From his first EON film appearance in 1962 through to 1997 Bond's primary firearm was the Walther PPK . Similar to his novel counterpart, M notes that Bond's Beretta almost cost the secret agent his life and insists that he replace it with the Walther PPK . Following 1997 the character was armed instead with the modern Walther P99 until Quantum of Solace , where the character was equipped once more with the PPK. Relationships Main article: Bond girl Bond has had many romantic encounters with women, although most have been short-lived. He was married only once, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, to Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo , but their marriage was short-lived as she was tragically murdered on their wedding day by Ernst Stavro Blofeld . Tracy's death would be a reoccurring theme over the course of the EON films, explicitly referenced in The Spy Who Loved Me , For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill .

References Products Archive - Ian Fleming Ian Fleming Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce Publisher - Macmillan Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce Publisher - Macmillan Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce Publisher - Macmillan James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies - Aug 12, 1964 - HISTORY.com James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies Share this: James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies Author James Bond creator Ian Fleming dies URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1964, the British author and journalist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, the world’s most famous fictional spy, dies of a heart attack at age 56 in Kent, England. Fleming’s series of novels about the debonair Agent 007, based in part on their dashing author’s real-life experiences, spawned one of the most lucrative film franchises in history. Ian Lancaster Fleming was born into a well-to-do family in London on May 29, 1908. As an adult, he worked as a foreign correspondent, a stockbroker and a personal assistant to Britain’s director of naval intelligence during World War II–experiences that would all provide fodder for his Bond novels.

The first Bond book, Casino Royale, was published in 1953. In all, Fleming wrote 12 novels and two short story collections about Agent 007, which together sold more than 18 million copies. According to The New York Times: “Bond himself, Fleming said, was ‘a compound of all the secret agents and commandos I met during the war,’ but his tastes– in blondes, martinis ‘shaken, not stirred,’ expensively tailored suits, scrambled eggs, short-sleeved shirts and Rolex watches–were Fleming’s own. But not all the comparisons were ones the author liked to encourage. Bond, he said, had ‘more guts than I have’ as well as being ‘more handsome.’” The first Bond film, Dr. No, was released in 1962; it starred the Scottish actor Sean Connery in the title role. Connery played Bond in six films altogether; From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964) were the only ones made during Fleming’s lifetime.

Since that time, five other actors–George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig–have played the superspy in some two dozen films from EON Productions. Fleming, who did much of his writing at his Jamaican home, Goldeneye, also penned a children’s book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and several works of non-fiction. Following Fleming’s death, a string of other authors were commissioned to write Bond novels. Related Videos James Bond books | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Fleming Ian Fleming at work After serving in the British Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, Fleming was inspired to write a novel about an international spy. Fleming bragged to his friends about how good he believed the book would be. Fleming chose a bland but masculine name for his main character and gave the character many of his own personal tastes including golf and gambling. He began writing his first Bond novel in 1952 in Jamaica over two months to take his mind off his upcoming wedding and pregnant fiancé. Casino Royale was published in 1953 to moderate reviews but great sales in the UK.

Fleming, who's full time job was a Forgeign Manager for a UK newspaper, used his yearly 3-month holiday to write each Bond book resulting in 1954's Live and Let Die , 1955's Moonraker , 1956's Diamonds Are Forever , 1957's From Russia with Love , 1958's Dr. No , 1959's Goldfinger , 1960's For Your Eyes Only -- a collection of short Bond stories -- 1961's Thunderball , 1962's The Spy Who Loved Me , 1963's On Her Magesty's Secret Service , and 1964's You Only Live Twice . Fleming was a heavy drinker and smoker and suffered heart disease. He suffered his first heart attack in 1961 and a fatal heart attack in August 1964. His final two books, 1965's The Man with the Golden Gun and 1966's collection of short stories Octopussy and The Living Daylights were published posthumously.

Gildrose Publications Kingsley Amis With the success and fortune found by Casino Royale , Fleming purchased the small publication company Gildrose Publications, which had only published his novel. Gildrose, latered renamed Ian Fleming Publications in 1999 continues to license the Bond franchise and expand the literary catalogue. Gildrose planned on having several authors use the pen name "Robert Markham" to continue to scribe more Bond books but the idea was scrapped after only one work, Colonel Sun , was written by English author and Bond fan Kingsley Amis in 1968. Amis also wrote a short story about an elderly Bond returning in a time of crisis, but was refused permission to publish it. Gildrose produced two novelizations to the EON films, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker in 1977 and 1979, respectively written by Christopher Wood . John Gardner Gardner After a thirteen year hiatus of original content (and recently after the death of Anne Charteris, Fleming's wife) Gildrose contracted John Gardner to scribe several Bond novels and to bring Bond in the modern 1980s.

In 1981 Licence Renewed was published to mediocre critical response and sales. Nevertheless Gardner wrote a total of 16 Bond novels, including two novelizations of feature films. In 1996 Gardner published his last Bond book, COLD . Raymond Benson Benson After Gardner's departure Raymond Benson was contracted by Gildrose to continue the Bond story. Benson, an American, was accused by fans of Americanizing the series but was also hailed as returning to Fleming's roots more than Gardner had managed. Benson wrote six original Bond novels, starting with 1997's Zero Minus Ten . Benson's novels, like Gardner's, featured James Bond in a modern year. He also wrote three film novelizations and three Bond short stories. In 2002 Benson left the Bond series. He is, to date, the only continuation author to release any short stories. Sebastian Faulks 2000's Ian Fleming Publications asked British author Sebastian Faulks to pen a new Bond novel in the early 2000's. Faulks delivered a novel set in the 1960's in 2008 titled Devil May Care .

Faulks chose to not continue and was replaced with American author Jeffery Deaver who penned Carte Blanche in 2011. In 2013 Ian Fleming Publications announced that William Boyd would pen the thirty-eighth Bond book in time for the 60th literary anniversary. Solo was released in September 2013 in the UK and October 2013 in the US. In 2014 it was announced that Anthony Horowitz would write the thirty-ninth Bond novel. He would be using previously unreleased material by Fleming as an inspiration. This would take the form of several plot treatments for a James Bond television series that was never made and ended up turning most of the plots into the short stories that formed the collections For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights . The book titled Trigger Mortis was released in September 2015.

Question: Which author created James Bond?
Answer: Ian Fleming