On The Double O Section

Some fascinating news in The Bookseller today: Ian Fleming Publications (IFP) has commissioned novelist Kim Sherwood (Testament) to write a trilogy about the Double O Section, with the first to be released in 2022:

‘The publisher said: “James Bond is missing, presumed captured or even killed. All of Bond’s contemporaries are gone and a new generation of Double O agents has been recruited to replace them and battle a global threat. At the same time, M and Moneypenny are searching for a mole in MI6. Will the truth be uncovered in time—or is this the end of the Double O section?”’

Kathryn Cheshire of HarperCollins in the UK and David Highfill of William Morrow in the US are both quoted in the piece:

‘Cheshire said: “James Bond is one of the most recognisable names in the world, and I was so excited when the Double O project came across my desk. Kim is steeped in the world of James Bond, and this trilogy is fresh, contemporary and thrill-a-minute, with a new generation of spies everyone will love. It’s going to be so much fun to publish, and I cannot wait for readers to be introduced to the new Double O world.”

Highfill added: “Kim Sherwood has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of writing a new Bond novel that is both respectful of Fleming’s original genius and yet refreshingly modern. The book is audacious, pacy, sexy and just irresistibly entertaining. People are going to be talking about this one.”’

I have long thought this would be an idea worth pursuing. My thought was to set these in the past, and it’s clear Sherwood’s books will be set in the present, but otherwise this is very much something I was hoping for, and which I think could be extremely successful and open things up further. So just for fun, I’ve dug up the specific ideas I had on this way back in (gulp) 2004. Obviously, I’m not suggesting IFP has read these obscure ramblings, but it’s perhaps interesting to see where they overlap, and perhaps some of the possible advantages and pitfalls of the ideas. (One of these ideas also looks to have fed into my creation of Paul Dark.)

In those distant days, most online conversation about James Bond did not take place in podcasts or on Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, but in discussion forums, one of which was alt.fan.james-bond, which had many active users. One, Keith Gow, posted a thread titled ‘New James Bond novels - what do you want to see?’ with the following challenge:

‘Here’s a new thread idea, then -- if you could have IFP listen to you for fifteen minutes, what idea would you pitch at them?’

People started to kick ideas around, and Tim Pollard suggested

‘a series of ‘World of James Bond’ books, each penned by as series of guest authors in the ‘Robert Markham’ style as discussed elsewhere - books set in the ‘Bond universe’ but perhaps only briefly relating to Bond himself, or having him make a ‘special guest appearance’. Maybe (and most obviously) they could be the adventures of the other, mostly unsung as yet ‘00’ agents, or even some Felix Leiter adventures. Test the ground with an anthology of short stories in the same mould first maybe, but ‘World of Bond’ stories set contemporarily with our hero sounds a damned sight better than ‘Harry Potter joins MI6’.’

I liked this idea, and expanded on it, suggesting a Sixties-set series about the other Double-0 agents:

‘To really succeed, I think you’d need several books out there, and they’d all have to be very well distributed and promoted. You’d want the covers to be eye-catching and professional and appealing to today’s audience - but at the same time, they’d need to be classy and respectful to Fleming. The books themselves, I think, would have to be straightforward thrillers that could *almost* exist if they had all the Fleming-esque elements removed - but have enough of his world in them so that the branding isn’t hollow. That way, they can happily be devoured by Bond fans around the world, but comfortably stand outside the canon, content that they will never be in it and that they aren’t affecting any of Fleming’s work, and unencumbered by writers anguished at being compared to Fleming.’

I then gave a couple of examples:

‘IAN FLEMING PUBLICATIONS PRESENTS

DOUBLE-0 SECTION: YEAR 00

This could be the first book in the series, and it’s the story of how the Double-0 Section originated. What is an MI6 like when agents don’t have a licence to kill, then?

It’s 1946, and British intelligence is coming down from its euphoria after helping to defeat the Nazis. There are already new battles to face, and the various organisations are jostling for position. MI6 and SOE are at loggerheads. In Berlin, MI6’s most effective and ruthless agent hunts down a leading German businessman, who he has evidence committed particularly atrocious war crimes. He kills him. But it’s peace-time now, and his superiors in London refuse to sanction the murder. Our hero is on the run from the police in the streets of post-war Berlin. This is a suspense thriller in the vein of Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male. We would inter-cut with scenes back at MI6 headquarters in London, where we find a young novice agent called James Bond monitoring the situation. The book ends with our hero reaching headquarters and presenting his case. M announces a new assignation for agents who have a ‘licence to kill’ - ie will be sanctioned and supported diplomatically if necessary - and appoints our hero 001. He laconically remarks that the label might have helped him had he been awarded it a few weeks earlier.

IAN FLEMING PUBLICATIONS PRESENTS

DOUBLE-0 SECTION: ENGLAND EXPECTS

It’s 1964, and the mission is Crash-Drive and Ultra Hush. James Bond is missing, presumed dead, but MI6 can't let anyone know that - least of all their enemies.

Due to various diplomatic pressures, Moscow has agreed to hand over Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean - but only if Bond comes to collect them. 009 - who bears a close resemblance to 007 - takes a crash course in becoming James Bond. You can have a lot of fun here, of course. Lots of jokes at Bond’s expense. Have him go to the same tailor, lessons on how to seduce a woman - banter with Boothroyd and M galore. A riff on The Prisoner of Zenda, if you like.

I don’t think either of these would alter Fleming’s already existing world. They would be additions that could be taken or left without affecting what we already know of James Bond.’

The dates for these don’t quite work: we know from Casino Royale that Bond received his 00 assignation during the war so 1946 is too late, and I realized almost as soon as I’d written it that the dates I’d outlined for the England Expects idea weren’t quite right:

‘Just realised this one wouldn’t be possible *quite* as I’ve outlined here - Burgess died in ’63 and Bond was declared dead in The Times in November ’62! :) But these were just off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions to show the kind of thing that could be done. You could perhaps set it in mid-’62 and have a character loosely modelled on Burgess...’

Finally, exceeding the concept of a 15-minute pitch by some margin, I went all out and wrote a speculative article about the idea, writing as if this had already happened five years into the future:

‘The Fleming Factor

Licence rethought... Steven Crane reports on how Ian Fleming’s estate took on the James Bond films at their own game - and won

FIVE years ago, the idea that books put out by Ian Fleming’s literary estate would be best-sellers on both sides of the Atlantic would have seemed absurd. Fleming’s character - suave womanising secret agent James Bond - was still featuring in blockbuster films, of course. But Fleming’s books were largely out of print, and even handsome re-editions had lacked mass appeal. Sexism, homophobia and racism aside, the novels had too leisurely a pace to compete with either the Bond films or the glut of three-inch-thick techno-thrillers that crowded the best-seller lists. Novels featuring Bond penned by other authors had also failed to reach beyond die-hard fans, as had an ill-advised foray into the children’s market.

‘We were in a bit of a mess,’ admits Peter Hennessy of Ian Fleming Publications. ‘The success of the films had left us with very little room to manoeuvre. Not many people wanted to read James Bond books that had already been filmed - and fewer still wanted to read books that hadn’t been.’

But in just five years, IFP has staged a remarkable comeback: at the time of writing, four of its books are in the New York Times’ best-seller lists. Even more remarkably, only one of them - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - was actually written by Fleming. The rest are part of the World Of Bond series, penned by a team of anonymous writers and telling the tales of the other secret agents in MI6’s famous Double-0 Section. Teenagers in Iowa raised on the Bond films have done what seemed unthinkable until recently: they’ve fallen for Fleming.

‘Our research showed that a lot of people were reading thrillers that were very influenced by the Bond books,’ says Hennessy. ‘The films were still doing big business, and ironically many of the classic British brands that Fleming had written about in his novels were enjoying a renaissance. Jaguar, Aston Martin, Dunhill and Burberry were using advertising aimed at men who wanted to feel like they were James Bond. In short, everyone was making money off Ian Fleming’s character, spirit and ethos – except Ian Fleming’s estate!’

Research also pointed up a curious phenomenon: many fans on internet message boards for rival authors like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy were using Bond-themed “handles”. ‘What was astonishing was that these often referenced Ian Fleming’s work. We noticed internet users with names such as “Shatterhand6” and “MjrBoothroyd” – names only Fleming aficionados would have known.’ But the crunch came when statistics revealed an enormous affection for handles featuring the figures “00”: 003, 004, etc. ‘We realised that people liked the idea of seeing themselves as alternate Bonds, in a way - colleagues of Bond.’

This realisation was to lead to great changes at IFP. Under the leadership of Hennessy and a few other board members, meetings took place throughout the summer of 2004 that resulted in a radical plan.

‘We met with everyone and their aunt,’ he says. ‘Car manufacturers, fashion labels, drinks companies - you name it. At first, people were reluctant to talk to us, as we were seen as something of a lame duck in comparison with EON [who make the films].’ But Hennessy persuaded them that they were selling a different brand: “Ian Fleming” rather than “James Bond”. “It was James Macintyre at Condé Nast who opened my eyes to the potential of that,” he remembers. “He also told me about “stealth wealth”.’

Stealth wealth was a short-lived phenomenon at the start of the millennium, whereby wealthy young men began to tire of designer logos and began wearing frayed cuffs and monogrammed shirts. The idea was about quality and heritage rather than flashing one’s cash about. They bought classic cars, vintage watches - and first editions of Ian Fleming novels. ‘The fashion journalists we spoke to said that they felt the Bond films had become devalued by product placement – but only because they were the wrong products. Fleming always admired the best product, not necessarily the most expensive or the latest.’

As a result of this advice, IFP compiled a database of “Fleming-friendly” brands. ‘This was actually three separate lists. The first consisted of brands that Fleming tells us James Bond uses in the books. The second was made up of other brands he mentions – what the other characters drink and wear, for example. The third list was of brands not mentioned at all in Fleming’s work - but which we thought reasonably could have done so. This last, of course, was the hardest of all, and involved a lot of heated debate among the board members!’

The complete database became a kind of bible for IFP - every company in it was approached to see if collaboration might be feasible. ‘The result,’ says Hennessy with atypical understatement, ‘was heartening.’ Almost all of the brands were still around – and many were also in the process of remodelling themselves for a new era.

Having gauged an interest, the IFP board set about the real work: creating a new series based around the world of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Eight writers were hired, and set loose on Fleming’s original manuscripts. Their brief was to create eight new characters - 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 008 and 009. ‘It took a year,’ says Alexandra Gray of Cygnet books, who helped with the selection of writers. ‘A lot of the ideas were too outlandish, or self-referential. IFP wanted characters that could hold their own when compared to James Bond.’

(Gray scotches a rumour that all the writers have to take regular examinations on Fleming’s work. ‘There are regular research meetings,’ she says.)

With all the characters approved, the writers were each given six weeks to pen a thriller featuring one of them. ‘That’s how long Ian Fleming gave himself,’ says Hennessy. ‘We decided to play things Ian’s way this time, and see what happened.’ It worked: the first Bond books were ready to hit bookstores in early 2006. Now Hennessy went back to all the people he’d made contact with 18 months previously, and asked them to deliver on their interest, negotiating specific proposals based on the book outlines. In February 2006, a 16-page supplement on Marrakesh centred around the 003 novel The Devil Wears Black appeared in Condé Nast Traveller. Men’s magazine Arena went back to the Sixties for a cover story in which Gieves and Hawkes, Alfred Dunhill, Hilditch and Key and other prestigious British fashion labels dressed the ‘new’ agents. And Scotch whisky company Lagavulin ran a high-profile advertising campaign featuring quotes from the novel Fire with Fire, in which 005 rhapsodised about their product.

The stealth wealth campaign was a hit – but mainstream success proved more elusive. ‘It did what we wanted it to do,’ Peter Hennessy insists. ‘We never thought we’d have an overnight success on our hands. The idea of the first books was to introduce stylish thrillers in the Fleming mold to a new generation of fashion-conscious and educated men, as well as picking up quite a few older readers who were intrigued by the idea. It had always been planned as a stepping stone to a wider market.’

Deliberate strategy or not, it paid off: with Ian Fleming firmly repositioned as the classic British brand it had once been, the next set of books capitalised on the momentum. Whether by accident or careful planning, the 002 novel The Dying of The Light made headlines across the world when it was learned that the book ended with James Bond murdered. Had Ian Fleming’s estate gone mad? Was this an attempt to alientate EON (it would suggest that the majority of their films had featured an impostor)? The resulting publicity (which harked back to a similar stunt pulled by Ian Fleming himself with From Russia, With Love) led the book to leap to the top of the British best-seller lists. Interest in America also began to pick up. (Of course, the next novel in the series was to reveal that Bond hadn’t died at all, and that 002 had been the victim of a Smersh deception operation.)

The books now started to come quick and fast: distribution problems that had plagued IFP in earlier years when it had been behind the James Bond continuation novels of John Gardner and Raymond Benson were now a thing of the past, and thriller fans began to get used to seeing World of Bond novels in their local bookshops. ‘I’d thought from the start that part of the key to making this thing work was to simply hammer the door down,’ says Hennessy.

Under the watchful eye of IFP, the books ride a fine line. They are, on the one hand, uncomplicated thrillers offering sex, violence and the high life - a familiar formula offered by many of their competitors, but with the advantage of all the associations and recognition the Fleming name once again affords (and how the publishers of Clancy et al must envy the strapline that graces the covers, the unquestionable authority of ‘Ian Fleming Publications presents...’). But the books also pay their respects to their heritage, with evocative descriptions of Fifties and Sixtiess London and underplayed nods to the original adventures. ‘A London without James Bond is a London not worth living in...’ opens England Expects, in which Charles Urquhart, 009, is called upon to stand in for a presumed-dead Bond. Dexter Smythe, a villain in Ian Fleming’s short story Octopussy, appears in the World War Two-set novel Year 00, affording a deft sketch of Ian Fleming before he became a writer.

These and many other subtle references have laced the books with a sense of flair and exuberance that have long been missing from the big-selling thrillers - and from the James Bond films. It is perhaps no coincidence that it has now been three years since Bond was last in our cinemas; rumours are circulating that the oft-mentioned idea of returning the screen Bond to the Sixties may now finally happen. Some have even suggested that films featuring the other double-0s are in the works - Hennessy declined to comment with a smile. Nevertheless, the backlash over Bond driving a Toyota in the last Bond film, 2006’s Ashes to Burn, makes an ironic contrast to the reversal of fortunes of TVR, who have seen sales rocket as a result of 008’s penchant for the British-made sports cars.

Fleming aficionados have embraced the books - helped in part, one feels, by former Bond actor and Fleming fan Pierce Brosnan’s repeated endorsements of them. Not everyone is happy with the series, however – Robert McCrum wrote a stinging article in The Observer questioning IFP’s motivations. Hennessy shrugs when I mention it. ‘You can’t please everyone. But I don’t see why the films are seen as being above board but we’re thought of as seedy cash-in merchants. We are Ian Fleming’s estate – and these books are more faithful to Ian Fleming than the books have been in decades.’

Whatever the arguments for or against, there’s no denying the public’s verdict on the new agents. Charles Osborne, 002, has proved the favourite so far – his deep-seated hatred of 003 and his penchant for using his licence to kill above and beyond the call of duty have made him an unlikely anti-hero, and googling reveals several dozen sites devoted to his exploits. This month marks the launch of Shatterhand, the 20th book in the series – and Hennessy promises it will be a shocker. ‘The rumours are true,’ he says. ‘One of the double-0 agents dies.’ Is it wise to start killing off the geese that have laid the golden eggs? He laughs at the suggestion. ‘Fleming never said how many agents there were in Double-0 section, you know. And,’ he adds with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘There’s a 0011 mentioned in Moonraker...’

[From The Independent, April 18, 2009]’

If interested, you can read the original discussion from 2004 here.