Preorders for Bond Unknown from April Moon Books are live.
https://www.aprilmoonbooks.com/bond-unknown
Bond Unknown pits Ian Fleming’s creation James Bond against threats from the Mythos of HP Lovecraft in two novelettes, Mindbreaker from yours truly, and Into The Green from Willie Meikle.
I’m an longtime fan of James Bond, dating back to reading my dad’s old water damaged Fleming paperbacks from college, and later, the movies, so when April Moon set out to hire authors to write in the original literary continuity, I jumped at the opportunity with both feet.
Although this is an unlicensed mashup and I recognize the concept may be inherently absurd to diehard fans, I feel compelled to stress that I approached this with as much diligence as I have my Zora Neale Hurston stories or any of my historical fantasy novels. My primary sources in this case were Fleming and Lovecraft, and I hope that I’ve written something aficionados of either writer will enjoy. I know this isn’t the first foray into unlicensed Bond fiction either, and that other publishers have offered wry, postmodern interpretations of the character. I have no interest in nor patience for ‘deconstructions’ of Fleming, and can’t think of a bigger waste of time than writing about something I don’t innately love….except maybe reading it. The draw in this was for me was putting Fleming’s 1960’s era Bond in a situation he could never be in otherwise. All that said, it was a helluva lot of fun to write, probably the most fun I’ve had writing in a while, and I hope you’ll give it a read.
In my offering, Mindbreaker, a royal princess is kidnapped from her private school in the English countryside and 007 is seconded to a classified subsection of MI6, headed by the enigmatic D. He is ordered to Egypt to locate two missing field agents on an archaeological dig along the First Cataract of the Nile, but soon finds himself in a race across the Mediterranean to stop an ex-SMERSH double agent and a dark occult organization from using the blood of a royal to activate a long dormant antedulluvian weapon left over from the ancient conflict between two unimaginable ancient civilizations. It’s a mission that will test Bond’s mind and body, and bring him into contact with old friends and new, terrifying enemies.
Here’s an excerpt – –
“You came recommended.”
“By whom?” said Bond. Surely not M.
“Simone Litrelle.”
Solitaire. Bond had long wondered what had become of her. He leaned forward in his chair.
“She’s not here, 007,” D. said, with a hint of amusement. “She is assigned to one of our forward divinatory stations. She only half believed in her abilities when she was recruited, but O Section brought out her powers quite admirably.”
Bond blinked. Divinatory?
“In answer to your query, you were selected partly because you have a favorable birth sign. And your code number. 007. Did you know that 007 was how the celebrated magus and intelligence agent John Dee signed his secret correspondences to Queen Elizabeth? The double 0’s represented his eyes, which he dedicated to her. And seven. A very fortuitous number. A god number in ancient Egypt. Seven days, seven seas, seven heavens, in antiquity, seven planets.”
“Yes and seven sins,” Bond said. He shifted in his chair, frowning.
“There are no coincidences, Bond,” said D. evenly. “Prior events in your life, as well as events prior to your life have been ordered whether by human or preternatural design to place you into a unique confluence of destinies. Have you studied your family history closely, Bond? Did you know that John Dee’s daughter Madinia emigrated to France and herself had a daughter named Marie by one Charles Peliot, a privy maid to Queen Henrietta Maria?”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Bond exclaimed. He was babbling like that book-rabid fellow at the College of Arms, Griffin Or.
D. leaned forward, his eyes fervent behind the lenses, fingers interlaced now, that damnable ring glinting in the lamplight.
“Lineage aside, Bond. The death of your parents when you were eleven, your expulsion from Eton, your education at Canterbury and Fettes, and Geneva, all uniquely qualifying you for acceptance in the Special Service. Which brings us to your career thus far. Your encounter with agent Litrelle in New Orleans, her subsequent recruitment and suggestion of you for this mission; the little bits of esoteric wisdom you’ve unwittingly picked up over the years from your first secretary Loelia Ponsonby and your housekeeper. The death of your wife and your subsequent brush with mental collapse. Yet through your reconditioning at the hands of the Russians and your unlikely recovery, you have proven yourself possessing of a remarkable mind, both malleable and resilient. All of these things have led you here. You truly are a blunt instrument, yet I believe you can also be tuned for more delicate work if need be. I have on occasion required the service of men of your ilk. Other 00 agents have sat where you are. I’ve never seen any of them again.”
“What is this?” Bond said finally, gesturing to his surroundings. “What is all this?”
“For as many years as you have been privy to the secrets of crown and country,” said D., “did you never suspect there were secrets even you, even your beloved M., weren’t told? Section O has existed in its present form since 1940, when my father convinced British intelligence that the war, like other wars before it, was being fought on multiple planes of perception, not only with modern technology, but with ancient tools which man has utilized since first he heard the word of God through His angels, and was tempted away by darker, older powers. This is Occult Section, Bond. 00 fights in the shadows. O fights the shadows themselves.”
Bond smirked and rose from his chair. He badly needed a cigarette.
“Ridiculous,” he chuckled.
“Orbis non sufficit.”
“What?” Bond started.
“The World Is Not Enough. There are world within worlds, Bond. Can you peer outside this one? Will you shrink from what you see? I wonder….”
In the wake of earning the 00 prefix, MI6 agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) follows a twisting trail of a Ugandan terrorist organization’s millions back to criminal financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkselsen). After foiling Le Chiffre’s plan to double his money via the destruction of an international airline, Bond and Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) are tasked by M (Judi Dench) with going head to head with the desperate Le Chiffre in a high stakes game of Texas hold ‘em at the Casino Royale in Montenegro to keep the money out of the terrorists’ hands and force the financier to give up his shadowy criminal employers.
The opening of Casino Royale brought the thunder. Shot in brutal, stark black and white, we’re treated to the ‘origin’ of Bond, or at least, the initial two kills which earn him his license to kill. This sequence was an epiphany for me. The savage bathroom fight is harsh and dirty. This is Ian Fleming’s scar-faced assassin, terrifying in one instant and magnetic in the next, as we cut to his confrontation with the rogue section chief. In contrast to the bleak, disheveled whiteness of the restroom, Bond emerges from blackness like a shot out of the Third Man, neat, cold, merciless as he cuts off his quarry’s advice with a suppressed bullet.
Then, like Dorothy stepping out of her house into Oz, the screen floods with brilliant colors and the opening strains of one of the fiercest Bond themes since Live And Let Die, the skin prickling You Know My Name by Chris Cornell. The lyrics are pure Bond. Are they a continuation of the section chief’s warning to the fledgling assassin, or are they a weathered, cold hearted Bond speaking dismissively to Le Chiffre or to his younger self?
The plot is taut, the action gripping. That parkour chase through the construction site I dismissed in my first viewing is absolutely killer, with Sebastian Foucan (and his freerunning doubles) moving with sublime kinetic grace as Bond pursues his character like a juggernaut, smashing through drywall and finally chasing him down to an embassy which he leaves in flames. The crash of the DBS V12 when Bond nearly runs over Vesper in the road is spectacularly shot, and the tense battle inside a sinking Venetian edifice is a great climax.
Gone are the campy sexploits of stiffly mugging Bond. This is the cold blooded international assassin, slipping a blade into a man at a museum exhibit in the midst of unsuspecting civilians, downing a whisky to quell the shakes after battling to the death in an empty stairwell, then cleaning his cuts and chaning his shirt in time for the next multimillion dollar hand down in the casino. The only gadget on display is a believable adrenaline shot and dashboard defibrillator, the closest thing to a joke in the wake of the action an exultant but exhausted grin as a terrorist mistakenly blows himself up instead of the world’s largest jet liner.
Yet despite the superhuman feats Bond pulls off, this is not an untouchable superman. This Bond doesn’t shrug off bullets or car crashes. He nearly succumbs to poison, and after suffering grueling ‘advanced interrogation techniques’ at the eager, sadistic hands of Le Chiffre, he earns a hospital stay. Likewise, this Bond, we are to assume a young Bond early in his career, still feels enough for Vesper’s betrayal to cut out his heart in the end. We’re witnessing a crucible firing. The fat is cut away, and at the end, the man who blows out Mr. White’s knee and stands over him with a silenced submachinegun, truly is Bond, James Bond.
The supporting cast of Casino Royale is fabulous. Of course Judi Dench’s return to the role of M is welcome (if a bit puzzling in terms of series continuity, until you arrive at the conclusion that these should basically be viewed and enjoyed the same way as the Godzilla series, where the origin and basic tropes are the same and each subsequent installment unrelated, groups of miniseries within the overall series). Eva Green believably pulls off the arc of a seemingly inexperienced field agent who is also in league with the Devil the whole time, alternately vulnerable and necessarily cruel, tragically beautiful and regretful. This is the movie that introduced me to the great Mads Mikkelsen, whose bleeding-eyed Le Chiffre seems as cool as the other side of the pillow when he’s at the table playing with other people’s money, but is suitably sweaty and frantic when those people come to collect. His scenes with Bond around the table are terrific, and the cringe inducing torture sequence appropriately hard to watch. Jeffrey Wright’s been a favorite actor of mine since Ride With The Devil, and his turn as series mainstay CIA agent Felix Leiter is a welcome casting choice. I like him here and in Quantum of Solace, and have missed his return since. I especially like Giancarlo Giannini in the role of Rene Mathis, a likable, sophisticated mentor for Bond whose loyalty is called into question late in the game. Bond movies are known for their lovely actresses and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the absolutely stunning Caterina Murino as Solange, the satiny, neglected wife of one of Bond’s kills who pays the ultimate price for betraying her slimy husband’s doings.
As for Daniel Craig himself, he’s the best Bond since Timothy Dalton, and captures the look and feel of the literary 007 possibly better than any of his predecessors. Sure he’s a sophisticate and a connoisseur of various fineries, but the drinks and the pills are holding him together, and beneath that veneer he’s the scary killer smashing through the dry wall to get at you. Those freakin’ eyes!
Has to be that opener, one of the best of the series.
Delirium Tremens 