Most eccentric.
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Bizarre to say the least.
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https://x.com/TheIanFleming/status/1924827459989483947
Cover reveal. One more week!
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Will the new Benson Leiter series be available as hard/paper back or only eBook?
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Looks like a paperback is coming out this fall. If I get sucked into getting this that’s what I’ll be buying.
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The way I understood it the piece will be published in instalments chapter by chapter for the different ebook platforms, then get a print run.
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That’s the way I understand it too Dustin.
Btw, the cover artwork looks good.
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There’s news, after a fashion…
Memorandum sent 27/5/2025
Classification: Gold level (For Your Eyes Only)
To our agents in the field,
It is a cause for much celebration when one of our own returns to the fold – we know well in our line of work that there is no substitute for the wisdom that comes with experience – and today we’re pleased to welcome back Agent Raymond Benson, whose excellent novels kept many of us company throughout the long missions of the mid-nineties, and into the early 2000s.
Today, Benson is back, with the start of an adventure that sees our dear American friend Felix Leiter embark on a thrilling road trip across 1950s America. Full of mystery and romance, The Hook and the Eyehas been the talk of the powder-vine. Publishing as a digital serialisation over the course of the summer, Episode 1 is out now, and new episodes will follow every two weeks, before a paperback publication of the full novel in October. For a taste of what’s in store, read the first chapter here, or you can listen to Benson himself reading it aloud here.
In other news, Talk of the Devil: The Collected Writings of Ian Fleming is now out in both the UK and US. This fascinating collection of rarely seen journalism and other writings includes a new introduction by Adam Gopnik, the short stories ‘The Shameful Dream’ and ‘A Poor Man Escapes’, in addition to a selection of archival black-and-white photographs. A must-read for fans of Fleming’s work, I understand that M’s copy has acquired several annotations in the section on Soviet espionage…
Sincerely,
Miss Moneypenny
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An interesting start. I like the first-person narration for Felix. I think I’m going to wait for the full book.
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Oh dear.
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But what I really want to know: will it be part of this year‘s 007.com Christmas calendar?
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The Sunday Times can reveal that the crime writer MW Craven has just been signed to write a new series of Bond books aimed at 8 to 12-year-olds. The first, James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy, will be published next June. It will feature a retired Bond, his licence to kill revoked, training a new generation of teenage spies.
Wasn’t on my bingo card for what IFP had in store for novels, but I’m not mad about it. I am curious where this will go. I appreciate that IFP is trying to do something to created the next generation of Bond fans. One of my first exposures to Bond was a Jane Bond Jr kids book. So it does work!
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Um…is there really a need for a school for teenage spies? Are there not enough adults to fill those jobs? Seems pretty daft to me.
On the upside, maybe if we’re back to seeing Bond as suitable for marketing to kids, we’ll finally get some Legos, action figures and other fun merchandise.
It is kind of funny that they chose to illustrate the article with an image of the one Bond that definitely did NOT manage to survive into retirement.
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Another underwhelming literary news item. Yay! We get James Bond–but wait, not really. He’s going to be instructing kids. So THEY will be the focus, not him. Yeah, that will get kids into James Bond. 
IFP would be better off continuing the Young Bond series.
Anyway, this is disappointing news for those of us looking forward to having James Bond 007 back on the literary pages again. Only six adult Bond novels since 2002! That’s six in 23 years and counting! If IFP are so worried about IP, why don’t they put out more of the original heroic character that everyone is interested in and which has built them into what they are today while they still have sole proprietorship?
I don’t understand their business sense.
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Amazon.
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Bizarre idea, Bond is easily the last member of SIS you’d want teaching kiddies about the trade. That’s not to say young spies don’t cut it with readers between 10 and, say, 14. Series from Langelot to Alex Rider and Young Bond himself attest to that. But to put Bond on the radar with the next generation of fans he ought to be the focus. While the game looks like something one can be cautiously optimistic about, this seems to go in a weird direction.
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Bond: „First: stuff my orders. Don’t listen to anybody, just do your own thing. This will make you the most sought after agent, and you will survive anything, even death. - Okay, that’s my lesson. Go home, slash your wrists or whatever.“
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I’m usually the first to defend IFP and to advocate for a “let’s wait and see” approach (Q mysteries), but this move is indeed bizarre. At least the other spinoffs (Moneypenny Diaries, 00-trilogy, Q, Felix) made sense within the world Bond inhabits. But does Bond live in a world where teenagers are trained to be spies? “Were you expecting an adult government agent? We don’t really go in for that anymore.”
Speaking of IFP, why hasn’t this been announced (or confirmed) by them? Usually they’re the ones to break this type of news.
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Closest I can find to a confirmation is this post from them on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DKoyCKWqnkX/?igsh=MW0wb2tmdDdyemo3OA==
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It’s also debatable whether Bond - any Bond, literary, film, game, comic book - has any of the necessary qualities (let alone qualifications) for intelligence work. Over the entire Fleming canon he’s in some form of intelligence function exactly twice, both times in connection with cipher technology, and both times getting ahead only because a) Smersh marks him as a target, and b) Tiger Tanaka recognises Bond can do his dirty work in exchange for Magic 44 access.
Other than that, Bond has no experience in either analysis or handling of agents and sources. His social skills are rudimentary and his connection to Tanaka, Kerim Bey, Columbo and Draco is solely based on personal sympathy. His awareness of security, surveillance and counter-surveillance is entirely basic - he doesn’t notice Draco’s men until it’s too late, nor does he spot the door in his wardrobe in Scaramanga’s tourist trap. And the times when he is successful spotting enemy action, the two men in Royale getting ready to throw the bomb, the reports about a gypsy camp in the woods near where the courier was killed, it’s either sheer luck the opposition bungles the attack or he’s overpowered anyway and his negligence nearly kills him.
It has to be pointed out: Bond is no intelligence operative but rather a counterintelligence agent. And he’s not generally very good at that particular side branch of the trade either. What kind of education or guidance is he supposed to give, even in the fantasy superspy world of whatever this is supposed to be set in? How to ruin your health and physical condition with cigarettes and booze cannot ordinarily figure very high on the curriculum of our hopeful SIS up-and-comings.
Bond is no Smiley, not even a Jackson Lamb. Keep him out of the kindergarten - and the kindergarten out of Bond affairs.
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