Raymond Benson - The James Bond Bedside Companion

By Raymond Benson

First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

Copy-edited by: David Dodd

Cover design by David Dodd

Digital Edition Copyright 2012 by Raymond Benson
Original edition copyright 1984; updated edition copyright 1988

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Fiction

A Hard Day's Death

Artifact of Evil

Dark Side of the Morgue

Evil Hours

Face Blind

Sweetie's Diamonds

The Black Stiletto

The Rock 'N' Roll Detective's Greatest Hits

James Bond 007 Novels

The Union Trilogy (anthology)

The Man With the Red Tattoo

Never Dream of Dying

DoubleShot

High Time to Kill

The Facts of Death

Zero Minus Ten

Die Another Day (based on the screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade)

The World is Not Enough

(based on the screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein)

Tomorrow Never Dies (based on the screenplay by Bruce Feirstein)

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (written as "David Michaels")

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Tom Clancy's Splinter CellOperation Barracuda

Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid 2Sons of Liberty

Non-Fiction

The Pocket Essentials Guide to Jethro Tull

The James Bond Bedside Companion was written in memory of IanLancaster Fleming, for whom the world was not enough.

It is dedicated to my father (who made the mistake oftaking me to see Goldfinger when I was nine), and to my English "aunt," who made much ofthis possible.

Ian Lancaster Fleming. May 28, 1908August 12, 1964. (Photo by Douglas Glass.)

A mong the many people who have helped shape this book, I must first thank those on the business side: Patricia Berens, Peter Janson-Smith, Norman Kurz, Ruth Pollack, Maryann Richichi, Eric Roper, Haydee Santiago, Miriam Spaulding, Cynthia Vartan, Victoria Woods, and Lydia Zelaya.

For certain photographic material, I owe gratitude to John Bianchi, Fred Cantey, Paul Dantuono, Morris L. Hallowell III, Pamela Cunningham Hampton, Giorgio Levi, Mama Libbey, Bob McGee, Steven Jay Rubin, Pete Sansone, Richard Schenkman, Rick Sylvester, Michael Van Blancum, the Lilly Library of Indiana University, and especially Mary Slater.

A great deal of appreciation goes to Kingsley Amis, Clare Blanshard, John Brosnan, Ivar Bryce, Josephine Bryce, Naomi Burton, lain Campbell, Lady Mary Clive, Kenneth Corden, Violet Cummings, Ernest Cuneo, John Gardner, Robert Harting, Al Hart, Kevin McClory, Florin Morgan, and John Pearson.

Finally, on a personal basis, I must thank George Almond, Andy East, Janet Kroll, Doug McGrath, Kenneth Siegel, Richard Schenkman and the James Bond 007 Fan Club, everyone at Technimetrics, Inc. (for their tolerance), my supportive parents, and all my friends who have been behind the project, especially James Goodner and Stuart Howard, whose encouragement, enthusiasm, and advice I couldn't have done without.

The author and publisher wish to express their deep gratitude to Glidrose Publications, Ltd. for permission to use quoted material from the James Bond novels.

Additional acknowledgments to 1988 edition: Reg Abiss at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Inc., Maureen Heffeman, Dr. Kevin Parsons at Armament Systems & Procedures, Inc., and my wife Randi.

T he James Bond Bedside Companion was originally published in America in 1984. A second edition came out in 1986, and then an updated version was issued in both the U.S. and U.K. in 1988. The book went out of print in the early 1990s. Since then, the various editions have sold for big bucks on eBay and other resale outlets. In 2001, a firm produced an e-book and print-on-demand version of the book. The problem with that one was that none of the original plates existed. A facsimile had to be created from a scan of a copy of the book. At the time, scanner software wasn't what it is today, so there were numerous, and sometimes laughable, errors in the text. For example, a word like "burns" was misread by the scanner as "bums!" ("Bond suffered multiple bums")

Now, not quite thirty years after its original publication, comes a new and improved e-book, audiobook, and print edition of what many 007 fans have called, I'm humbled to say, a "Bond Bible." Since its first appearance, numerous authors have published books on the James Bond phenomenon, mostly dealing with the films. In 1984, however, there wasn't much out there that also dealt with the life of Ian Fleming and his novels. My book filled that gap for a time.

It's obvious that James Bond continues to be very popular. When the 1988 edition of the Bedside Companion was published, Timothy Dalton had just made his debut in The Living Daylights . He went on to make one more, hard-edged Bond film, Licence to Kill , in 1989. This picture has proven to be the most controversial of all the pictures in the series because of its gritty, realistic approach to the character. While it has divided fans, I consider it one of the better entries. After a six-year hiatus because of legal complications with studios and distributors, EON Productions brought Bond back in 1995 with GoldenEye , Pierce Brosnan's first entry in the saga. Brosnan proved to be immensely popular in the role, and his four titles (including Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997, The World is Not Enough in 1999, and Die Another Day in 2002) broke box office records. The series was successfully rebooted in 2006 with Daniel Craig starring as a younger 007 in Casino Royale (to which EON Productions finally got the rights) and its follow-up Quantum of Solace in 2008. At the time of writing, the third Daniel Craig Bond, Skyfall , will be released in 2012. Ironically, the reboot features a grittier, more realistic approach to the character, much like the attempt made in 1989 but to which audiences failed to respond.

On the literary side, John Gardner continued his string of Bond novels with Win, Lose or Die (1989), Brokenclaw (1990), The Man From Barbarossa (1991), Death is Forever (1992), Never Send Flowers (1993), SeaFire (1994), and COLD (1996called Cold Fall in the U.S.). He also penned two film novelizations Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995). After COLD was published, Mr. Gardner decided to retire from the gig.

In 1996, I was hired by Ian Fleming (Glidrose) Publications Ltd. to continue the series. I wrote Zero Minus Ten (1997), The Facts of Death (1998), High Time to Kill (1999), Doubleshot (2000), Never Dream of Dying (2001), and The Man with the Red Tattoo (2002), as well as the film novelizations for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World is Not Enough (1999), and Die Another Day (2002). Two of my short stories, Blast From the Past and Midsummer Night's Doom appeared in Playboy, and Live at Five was published in TV Guide Magazine. The Union Trilogy and Choice of Weapons , anthologies of my Bond works, were published in 2008 and 2010, respectively.