A New Bond by Boyd

Taking advantage of Bond fever (Skyfall is still #1 in the box office, weeks after opening in November and has topped every new release since, including Spielberg’s Lincoln and even the final movie in the Twilight series), some news was released about the next title in the Bond book franchise, coming in fall, 2013.

It’s not much news, however. William Boyd, selected by the Ian Fleming estate to write the next novel, told the UK’s Radio Times, “All I will say is it’s set in 1969. Fleming died in 1964. He was in his mid-50s, so conceivably if he’d looked after himself a bit better, hadn’t smoked and drunk so much, he might have written a James Bond novel in that year.” The title of the upcoming book has not been released.

Boyd has not seen Skyfall, saying, “In the films Bond is a cartoon character, but in the novels he is far more troubled, nuanced and interesting.”

Carte Blanchecover-62Recent attempts at reviving Bond in print have not met with as much success as the films. Jeffery Deaver published Carte Blanche, in 2011 (S&S). It was a NYT hardcover best seller for 4 weeks. Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care (RH/Doubleday, 2008) also spent a few weeks on the hardcover list. 

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