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All right for Paris, New York and Moscow, but not for Kingston. Jamaica was still a British colony (complete with a governor) when Bond started his career. The only time he was there post independance was in TMWTGG, which takes place in 1964. Just setting the record striaght, that's all.
I think my new favorite would be the Folio Society covers, love them.
Yes that is true, thank you for the correction. It does still stand though that it would be unlikely for Bond to do the sort of pre-war work he supposed did in Jamaica (I believe Fleming said stop Cuban drug smugglers or something of the sort) with the Royal Navy.
I haven't really had a closer look at the Gardner book covers, as I haven't read any of his Bond novels. I do quite like the first edition cover for No Deals, Mr. Bond. It might not be all that exciting, but it reminds me of the cover style of some 70's and 80's paperbacks I have, that I like the look of.
The Folio Society covers are really nice. I think that's the great thing about these sort of special edition books (both Folio Society and others); they don't have to look like the typical book covers we are so used to see. They can be more experimental, be illustrative or use patterns and shapes (like the Penguin Clothbound Classics).
That's why I mentioned "Naval Attache" as cover or something like that although I'm not sure the Navy would allow the MI6 to use that sort of cover.
But anyway, the reason why I don't think military intelligence would work with Bond is because their brief is very war-planning oriented/direct wars going on at the moment. Meanwhile Bond's pre-war jobs don't seem to have much to do with that sort of thing. The two jobs I know Fleming thought of were the the Monte Carlo cheating job with the Romanians (referred to in CR) and the Cuban infiltration of Jamaica labour unions (mentioned in LALD). Both operations have pretty much nothing to do with what Defence Intelligence would get their hands on.
TSWLM was in someways ahead of it's time for literary Bond. I say this based on the spinoffs, and I wouldn't be surprised if we get a Bond novel told in the first person from Bond's POV or another character's again one day.
I think writing Bond novels set in the past is not really risk taking. At least in Ian Fleming's timeline. It worked particularly well with Anthony Horowitz's novels, but it truly needs to have a rest for good.
I'm willing to bet that the next novel spinoff will be a classic villain origin story, hopefully set in modern day. My money is on Goldfinger or Blofeld, and their iconic evil allies.
IFP really should have written novelizations of some of the early 2000's videogames in particular Everything or Nothing. Either Raymond Benson or Bruce Feirstein could have easily wrote it. I would have liked to have seen Max Zorin make a surprise appearance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_uncollected_short_stories
Some new ones would definitely be appreciated though. By both Bond writing alumni and new authors. From all time periods, and different characters.
Should have stuck to non-Fleming novels for the list.
Also, we know that Raymond Benson tried to adapt the CR novel for the stage. I think someone should try that again. The time period should be the 50’s, but I wouldn’t mind a possible modern day version again. Another set of Bond stories that belong on the stage is the entire novel of Octopussy and the Living Daylights. They could be done realistically (and faithfully) on the stage as well. Honorable mention for the novel Moonraker, as there aren’t a lot of sets and it is fairly realistic. Too bad that the movie kind of destroyed its realistic style reputation.
At least Le Carré had few blunders compared with Ian Fleming who dubbed James Bond a "secret" agent yet simultaneously depicted 007 as an employee on MI6's payroll. You may say "so what" because Bond is fiction. So is Postman Pat but his creator John Cunliffe never called him an Uber or Deliveroo courier.
Now an MI6 secret agent would never have: (1) been an employee on MI6’s payroll who took holidays and submitted expense claims etc; (2) reported directly to the Head of MI6, had annual appraisals and been on extremely familiar terms with many other MI6 employees such as Q or Moneypenny; (3) been a frequent visitor to MI6 HQ and other MI6 buildings; and (4) even used his own name when he met ministers et al in Whitehall.
Given Ian Fleming's background in British naval intelligence in World War 11, that contradictory classification of 007 was about as absurd as calling a Brain Surgeon a Hair Dresser or a Navy Seal a Coastguard as noted in the latest intriguing news article in TheBurlingtonFiles (advert free) website which is a tad similar to a virtual espionage museum with no entry fee.
To quote from the article ... "As for 007 being “secret”, ... since everybody knew ... his favourite drink was shaken not stirred, I’m surprised he wasn’t poisoned more often … especially as he insisted on letting everyone know his name was “Bond, James Bond”! Perhaps Bond’s true skill lay in being so conspicuously ostentatious that no one believed he could genuinely be a spy!
And Fleming actually barely makes reference to MI6. While he does refer to SIS in OHMSS, there's enough deniability used to suggest the Bond does not work for them. Principally in the fact that Bond's Service is a part of the Ministry of Defence, while SIS/MI6 is responsible to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
While Bond in the novels does seem to frequent a building similar to MI6 HQ at the time, it's worth noting however that this building was hidden from the public, and of course many actual secret agents have frequented the much more public facing Vauxhall Cross building.
Bond in the novels is also not particularly familiar with a Q or any ministers of the government. I suggest you give the novels a reread to clarify these details. As for Moneypenny and other Secret Service staff, I don't think it makes sense for James Bond to operate entirely in a vacuum with no Service contact. Operatives require a briefing, equipment, and so on and Service staff (for security reasons) must give the government equipment.
I also don't think that Bond should be using a pseudonym in the line of duty: that sort of thing doesn't run with most operations because of natural instincts with one's own name, forgetting in vulnerable states etc (and Bond does use pseudonyms on the odd occasion, such as Hilary Bray in OHMSS and John Bryce in LALD). And as for Bond's fame, his fame in the novels is limited. Enemies such as the Russians know about him by photo and by name, but others such as Blofeld only know his name, and many others not in the intelligence community know nothing about him. Certainly, none of them know about a man who prefers shaken vodka martinis (which is probably not Bond's most consumed drink!).
I think the opinion is constructed more off of the films than anything
According to SIS.gov.uk they're called 'intelligence officers' ;-) And yes, afak 'agents' are those who share information, often not even knowing they do. In East Germany they were called 'informele mitarbeiter' or 'informal co-operators'.
I have the book on MI6's history upstairs, but that's too far a walk right now.
@FutureIntel as @Reflsin2bourbons rightly stated, most things you refer to are movie tropes that aren't in the novels.
And then there's the fact that in high society there have been 'agents' of whom it was very well known for which intelligence service they worked. This actually helped them in theri work, as people knew to whom to go to.