JAMES BOND AND MOONRAKER at 45

Last weekend saw the 45th anniversary of the release of MOONRAKER on June 29, 1979. This is a Bond film I love more and more with every passing year. It was Cubby at the peak of his powers and pure fun. As with The Spy Who Loved Me, an original novelization by screenwriter Christopher Wood and released in hardcover by Jonathan Cape. Below is my Cape copy of James Bond and Moonraker.

The book also saw a paperback release with tie-in movie cover art. Below is the U.S. edition from Jove. I've always thought the way Bond is illustrated here kind of matched the then-current Jove series.

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GARDNER LIVES FOREVER

Here's a full page from the June 15, 1986, Muncie Star with a review of John Gardner's Nobody Lives Forever. This beautifully captures the world in which the book was released. The review even says that Pierce Brosnan will soon be making his first Bond film, The Living Daylights. Yep. And check out those movies! Like paging through my old Bond fanzines, I love seeing my favorite OO7 books and films frozen in time like this.

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OO7 MYRMIDON collected edition released

Dynamite has released a collected edition of their latest "OO7" series, Myrmidon by Phillip Kennedy Johnson with artwork by Marco Finnegan.

OO7 is back in action!

After a high-stakes rescue mission is mysteriously, violently sabotaged, Bond’s future at MI6 hangs in the balance. As he awaits his fate, James Bond is urgently contacted by an old flame and mentor: Gwendolyn Gann, formerly Agent OO3, who warns Bond of an existential threat to England and the global balance of power. But before they can meet, OO3 turns up dead, sending Bond on the most personal mission of his career: find Gwendolyn Gann’s killers, and expose the shadowy organization known only as “Myrmidon.”

Purchase Myrmidon at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. Dynamite's next collected edition will be For King and Country on July 30, 2024.

Thanks to Double O Section for the alert.

ON HIS MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE paperback released

The UK paperback edition of Charlie Higson's On His Majesty's Secret Service is released today by Ian Fleming Publications. The paperback features revised text, exclusive content, and dynamite new cover art. The book supports the National Literacy Trust.

On His Majesty's Secret Service was a special one-off Bond novella to celebrate the coronation of King Charles. Higson authored the popular and acclaimed Young Bond series and really delivered with his first adult Bond novel.

My hope is that IFPL and Charlie will settle down together in a marriage that was always meant to be, and Charlie Higson will become the new official continuation novelist. I so miss the days of Gardner and Benson when we got a new Bond book every year. I'd love nothing more than a decade of regular James Bond adventures from Charlie Higson.

In the meantime, On His Majesty's Secret Service can be purchased from IFPL, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

Spybrary interviews Charlie Higson

Spybrary's Shane Whaley is joined by special guests Charlie Higson and Mark Ashby to discuss the revised paperback edition of On His Majesty's Secret Service, and what could have been for Young Bond.

LINK: ‘Bond’s gone woke!’ Charlie Higson on the row around his ‘metrosexual’ 007

Nice article by Charlie Higson in The Guardian for those who care to read and think. Click the headline above.

"I believe that as long as Bond can remain an outrageous fantasy he will endure. No Time to Die experimented with grounding Bond and giving him a reality. I prefer the cocktail-fuelled rush of the night before."

Higson's superb On His Majesty's Secret Service is released in paperback in the UK this week.