Apparently, IFP was unhappy with the story that Boyd came up with and the final version was quite a bit different from Boyd’s initial vision. From what I read, there a lot of tense meetings between Boyd and IFP to the point that it’s kind of a miracle the book even got finished.
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We don’t need closure when it comes to Bond. But neither did we need any continuation novels. Or for Horowitz to tell Bond’s ‘‘origin story’’.
Since he has though, maybe it would be worth his while to tackle the end of Bond’s career as well.
We don’t know how many more books Fleming would have written had he lived, or if he’d ever have given Bond a definitive ending. As it stands, TMWTGG is Bond’s ‘‘ending’’ and it actually sort of works as one in a loose sense - the novel ends with Bond being offered a knighthood (in a way a kind of culmination of all his work throughout the series) and he does contemplate settling down with Mary Goodnight. And much like SPECTRE for Craig’s Bond, it works.
But if Horowitz was to do a post-TMTWGG book, then maybe giving this Bond a definitive ending should be something on the cards? This is a version of the character who’s had his run. He is a period character now, a relic of the 50’s and 60’s in a way that Sherlock Holmes is of the 19th (and very early 20th) century. Retroactively giving him an ending shouldn’t be the taboo it maybe once was.
The reason I can see IFP not going with it is if they feel it ties their hands with regards to future post-TMWGG books, with Horowitz or anyone else. But I think they can have some wiggle room there as well…TMWTGG was set around 1963. If a ‘final’ Bond adventure is set, say, in 1969-70, then there’s over a half-decade into which any other missions can be slotted in.
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It’s surely something Horowitz could tackle. Nor would IFP need to be particularly nervous about it, whatever they say is Bond is just Bond.
Pearson’s ‘authorised’ biography (with Bond in the clutches of a rich Honey Rider before he takes off again after Irma Bunt); Gardner’s Boldbond in a MicroGlobe world; Deaver’s reboot and Boyd’s 45 year old 1969 version (without consequence for the plot) - it’s all officially approved by IFP and none of it takes away from enjoying Fleming’s work or that of any other continuation. If they decide Horowitz can show Bond in a care home in 1990 they can just as well let the next author - or Horowitz - revive Bond again in, say, 2025.
Indeed, Bond is now a period character - if we want him to be. But in the somewhat flexible reality fictional characters live in even period need not be a concern. Fleming cut Bond’s backstory to size over the years, MacDonald that of Travis McGee and Hamilton Matt Helm’s. If a series runs long enough the origins have to disappear in the fog of fiction.
It would be odd if Bond had started out as officer in the Napoleonic wars and still be going. But would it be much more bizarre than him turning 100 in 2024 and still beating up bad guys in NO TIME TO DIE (or any other production, comic, novel)? I’m not sure.
The conclusion - for me - is that it’s not of much consequence what exactly Horowitz plans or IFP agrees to let him do. As long as it’s a decent spectacle that appeals to the readers everything is fine.
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What a perfect sentence.
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I am fond of how Colin Dexter handled the end of Morse, and Rex Stout’s “A Family Affair” is one of my favorites of his novels, and certainly reads like a final Nero Wolfe tale.
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I haven’t yet read either I must confess. But it’s surely a bonus if an author has an idea about how to give his creation a meaningful destination.
In Dexter’s case that definite end of his series didn’t even prevent a rather ingenious and successful prequel series that could probably only have taken off because of our generation’s rose-tinted nostalgia for the late sixties and the cozy Oxford setting. And nonetheless it cleverly includes many tropes and problems of the period intertwined with Easter eggs and homages to genre works (HEAT, THE GRADUATE, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE to name but a few).
So here we have a case where the end of a series unexpectedly lead to a revival that is not a reboot and that feels, in spite of the period setting, remarkably fresh, almost modern.
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You Only Live Twice would’ve been the perfect ending for the Fleming novels, and indeed for any character. In many ways I still view it as ‘the ending’.
His arch nemesis killed.
Bond’s memories cleansed.
His obituary written.
A child providing him a legacy.
But Bond’s memories will return one day.
I don’t see anything topping that, to be honest. I see it as Bond’s TDK Returns.
I wouldn’t want Bond to die in his final story. I think that’s unnecessary. So that means there’s always going to be a hint towards the future of adventures unseen.
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I think the absence of his memory is a blessing. No recollection of past horrors and losses, no ballast of his former life tying him down with responsibilities and regrets. A simple life of outdoors work and rest in a tiny home with a woman he can love.
Leaving things there was a perfect idea that would have given readers the chance to imagine whatever they wanted.
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Reminds me of an article I read a good 10 years ago…maybe on the old CBN site.
It traced the evolution of Bond over the course of Fleming’s novels, with him being a blunt instrument working with machine-like efficiency in the earliest novels, and then gradually growing more sensitive and emotionally vulnerable over the course of the series.
YOLT is the culmination of his story, where he finally rids himself of the demons of his past in every sense - by killing Blofeld and avenging Tracy, and because of his memory loss. I even remember a line from the article - ‘‘Taro Todoroki (Bond’s Japanese alias, if I remember correctly) rises from the ashes of James Bond’’.
TMWTGG however basically ‘reboots’ Bond by returning him, or rather attempting to return him, to the machine he was at the start of the series. The article’s author reads between the lines a bit, and the parts about Bond’s deprogramming at the start after the assassination attempt on M and ‘‘the old loyalty to the Service coming back to him’’ is interpreted as Bond being basically brainwashed/regressed back into being the Service’s attack-dog again. Except…it doesn’t quiet work as well as planned, and Bond is not the perfect machine he once was, but a somewhat broken-down machine - who hesitates to complete his mission by terminating Scaramanga when he has his first chance but instead lets things drag on until he almost gets himself and Leiter killed.
Anyway, its interesting to think how Fleming would have continued to develop this more broken and worn-out version of Bond but we’ll never really find out now…
Incidentially, my ideal ending for Bond, whether it can actually make it to the context of a story or not, is Bond making it to his 45th birthday and being mandatorily discharged from the 00 Section. He hands in his gun, clears out his desk (having refused to be reassigned to a desk-job) and the last scene is him leaving the Service building, reflecting on how he never expected to live to see this day, and realizing that he has absolutely no clue what to do next…
If Horowitz can pull off something like this, then more power to him 
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Pearon’s Authorised Biography touches upon Bond’s future in a balanced way. When he’s doing the interviews in Bermuda he’s waiting for MI6 to call him back to duty. But they’re taking their sweet time, and this gives Bond time to relax and think.
A delegation is finally sent out to demand he returns for an important mission. Bond adamantly says no - he wants to stay with Honeychile. It’s actually Honeychile who urges him to board the plane and take the mission, believing he’d hold it against her in the future.
If the phone stopped ringing, and he deemed a woman worthy of his happiness, I could see him accepting retirement in a place like Bermuda, Jamaica or the Bahamas where he becomes a local legend, but holding on to his mystery and independence. Similar to the drinking game he plays when presumed dead in Skyfall. That would be the happy ending.
If he didn’t have such a companion in his life I could see his toxic lifestyle eventually getting the best of him, sadly like many of our returned soldiers.
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I mean, he’s seemingly in retirement in Jamaica in No Time To Die.
Thank for remembering my old post! It’s still online, despite the ravages of time. As Pearson wrote, Bond was really Fleming daydreaming about himself in third person. How Bond would have ended up after Fleming lived would very much depend on Fleming’s own state of mind and health.
Fleming seriously intended TMWTGG to be the last Bond, and even took the unprecedented step of postponing the book’s publication because he wasn’t happy with it and wanted to keep tinkering, though his draft was finished (the famous final paragraph was handwritten on the first typescript). I have the feeling that if Fleming’s health had improved, the success of the film of Goldfinger would have forced him to return to Bond after a slight absence.
Incidentially, my ideal ending for Bond, whether it can actually make it to the context of a story or not, is Bond making it to his 45th birthday and being mandatorily discharged from the 00 Section. He hands in his gun, clears out his desk (having refused to be reassigned to a desk-job) and the last scene is him leaving the Service building, reflecting on how he never expected to live to see this day, and realizing that he has absolutely no clue what to do next…
I think that’s an in-character and powerful ending. It works because it takes Bond into a new place but keeps his future open. With regard to official continuation novels, I don’t mind if there’s a “final” Bond story, but it will always remain in the phantom shadow of whatever ending Fleming himself would have devised, whether it was TMWTGG or an unwritten tale that never was in position to be born.
I have long had an idea for a short story that would be a bittersweet sort of final Bond adventure.
The main character is a policeman in provincial Japan named Taro Suzuki. Having left his home village with his (now deceased) mother many years ago, he became a police officer in a mid-sized town. Though mixed-race he thrived and built up an excellent reputation, especially when he had the opportunity to handle a high-profile case, as in our story.
Some Russian agents appear in town to help revive the Black Dragon Society. They are foiled after a spectacular firefight, thanks in part to Taro’s bravery and the assistance of a foreign “policeman” sent from England. Gray-haired but still handsome, the foreigner explains he is semi-retired but employed by his country on occasional “missions.”
He and Taro work together for only a couple of days, but they hit it off and enjoy dinner and sake before parting ways forever. As the mysterious foreigner gets up to leave, he says that before leaving Japan he plans on traveling south to see some Ama girls. Taro thinks the foreigner is joking and doesn’t say his mother had been an Ama girl many years ago.
Had James Bond known he’d left Kissy with child, he might have put two and two together. Had Taro Suzuki known his father’s real name, he might have instead. But all these things were, in Tiger Tanaka’s phrase, of as little account as sparrow’s tears…
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Sorry to jump in on this discussion page but does anyone know whats happened to MI6Community?
Sorry, no idea.
We are not affiliated in any way or form with the other site and cannot comment on anything happening there.
Of course many fans are members of CBn and one or several other Bond sites. But as far as customs, problems or glitches that may have befallen a site are concerned we are entirely as much in the dark as anybody else.
So my speculation is as good as your own. Past experience though would suggest it’s a temporary problem.
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Ah ok no worries, thanks @Dustin
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I think the problem happens occasionally on MI6 , it could be an update or work on the site, which shouldn’t last too long. A s Dustin has stated.
Thanks @Thunderpussy. Apologies for interrupting the discussion.
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There are other Bond sites?
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Unfounded conspiracy theories about something as absurd as the existence of an “outside world”.
tsk, tsk…
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Never heard of it.
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