Licence Expired: the Unauthorized James Bond

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  • WalecsWalecs On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Posts: 3,157
    @stag? Terrible? I enjoyed it a lot.
  • Where is the best place to get this for someone based in the UK?
  • ClarkDevlinClarkDevlin Martinis, Girls and Guns
    Posts: 15,423
    I don't think outside Canada you can. It's illegal every place else where Bond isn't public domain.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,730
    Jaggedpulp wrote: »
    Where is the best place to get this for someone based in the UK?

    It seems there are channels on the Internet...

  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    Posts: 1,187
    Walecs wrote: »
    @QuantumOrganization

    It's just awful fanfiction.

    Cool username and pic, by the way. Welcome to the boards.
    Thanks! I like your family crest!

  • stagstag In the thick of it!
    Posts: 1,053
    Walecs wrote: »
    @stag? Terrible? I enjoyed it a lot.

    Personally I found it tedious in the extreme. As one commentator pointed out at the time, had the British government not made such a fuss it would have sold just a few copies before disappearing into oblivion.

  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited January 2020 Posts: 12,916
    Picking up on this Canada scenario playing out, so I'm aware Fleming and Bond material became public domain in Canada. 2015, Independent Toronto ChiZine Publications published an anthology of short stories Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond. Only available in Canada as noted in the OP. And including a contribution from Ian McLaughlin.

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    A Dirty Business
    in Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond
    https://www.iainmclaughlin.co.uk/james-bond
    A Dirty Business
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    In Paris, James Bond meets his match over appetizers and cocktails—with an aperitif of industrial espionage and chilly sadism. Off the coast of Australia, he learns about a whole new level of betrayal under the scorching light of a ball of thunder. In Siberia, he dreams of endless carnage while his fate is decided by one of his most cunning enemies and perhaps the greatest of his many loves.

    And in Canada—where Ian Fleming’s work has entered public domain—James Bond finds freedom.

    Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond lives in this shadow space of copyright law: a collection of nineteen new, exciting, transformative James Bond stories by a diverse crew of 21st-century authors. Collected herein are new stories about Secret Agent 007, as the late Ian Fleming imagined and described him: a psychically wounded veteran of the Second World War and soldier of the Cold War, who treated his accumulated injuries with sex, alcohol, nicotine, and adrenaline. He was a good lover … but a terrible prospect.

    He was James Bond.

    And in Licence Expired, he’s back in action.
    Introduction by Matt Sherman
    • Foreword: The Bitch is Dead Now by David Nickle
    • “One Is Sorrow” by Jacqueline Baker
    • “The Gale of the World” by Robert J. Wiersema
    • “Red Indians” by Richard Lee Byers
    • “The Gladiator Lie” by Kelly Robson
    • “Half the Sky” by E.L. Chen
    • “In Havana” by Jeffrey Ford
    • “Mastering the Art of French Killing” by Michael Skeet
    • “A Dirty Business” by Iain McLaughlin
    • “Sorrow’s Spy” by Catherine McLeod
    • “Mosaic” by Karl Schroeder
    • “The Spy Who Remembered Me” by James Alan Gardner
    • “Daedelus” by Jamie Mason
    • “Through Your Eyes Only” by A.M. Dellamonica
    • “Two Graves” by Ian Rogers
    • “No Mr. Bond” by Charles Stross
    • “The Man with the Beholden Gun: an e-pistol-ary story by some other Ian Fleming” by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
    • “The Cyclorama” by Laird Barron
    • “You Never Love Once” by Claude Lalumière
    • “Not an Honourable Disease” by Corey Redekop
    • Afterword by Madeline Ashby
    Notes
    There are some characters that become part of your life without you really becoming aware of it. They're part of the social consciousness. I am immensely fortunate to have written for a number of them... Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, Dennis the Menace, The Broons... and in 2015 I was incredibly pleased to add James Bond, 007 himself, to the list. Licence Expired, The Unauthorised James Bond was published in November 2015 in Canada where Bond has dropped out of copyright and into public domain. There's a real buzz in writing for a flawed hero like Bond. My story was titled "A Dirty Business".

    Writing Bond was an interesting challenge. There are so many iterations of the character that if you're not careful they can seep into the thought process when I'm typing away. I definitely tried hard to focus on Fleming's Bond and re-read a couple of Fleming novels before starting. I wanted anyone reading it to recognise this as the 007 of Fleming, not the film version, not John Gardner's Bond or Raymond Benson's. Bond has flaws, he has failings, he has his duty and he doesn't always like it. He doesn't always follow orders exactly to the letter either.

    The brief for this book was to do something different with Bond, and some of the authors really took that to heart. I know that some of the stories received mixed reviews. That's unavoidable in a book like this. When I was wondering what to do, I was limited by the fact that I felt it needed to feel like Fleming. I've always had doubts about the UK being a bit too eager to please America. British politicians can't stop themselves from fawning over their counterparts from the States, whether it's Tony Blair with George Dubya Bush or the current (at the time of typing in September 2017 though I hope she won't be when you read this) Prime Minister and the current (who who will hopefully be in jail by the time you read this) President of America. Our politicians are just a bit too eager to please for my tastes, and I wondered about Bond landing a job that's actually Britain doing America's dirty work. That felt like a contemporary theme and that was enough for me to give me just enough separation from Ian Fleming while still using Fleming's tropes and attitudes in the writing.

    The first draft of this ran to about 6400 words but in tidying it up I brought it down to exactly 5000. The only trims I regret making are at the start. Bond's scene with M was originally longer and the travelogue of him going to the island was more extensive and went into his boredom and his dislike for nuns. It didn't give the plot a huge amount extra but it gave that extra flavour of Bond. Ian Fleming did these lovely bits that sometimes feel self-indulgent... but self-indulgence is a theme of the Bonds, so it works.

    I actually wrote first drafts of three pieces and then selected the one I thought best. One,
    "Spider in the Web", was the opening chapter of a novel and finished on a real zinger of a historical incident - the idea being that the reader would have been disappointed to get only that chapter - while the other was "The Enemy Within", which I think had something but needed a lot of polishing. They both needed more Bond-like titles. I had a fourth idea, for an ageing Bond in his 80s who realises that he's dying and who leaves the nursing home he's been forced into in order to take one final mission, knowing he would die on it. That never got past the first few paragraphs. I just didn't want to write that Bond.

    And there is the example Bond Unknown, two Bond stories by Edward M. Erdelac aka @DrNo.

    Bond-Cover.jpg?resize=169%2C267
    https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/18207/bond-unknown-from-april-moon-books-james-bond-vs-cthulhu

    On Iaian McLaughlin's website there is a promotion for his future Bond novels.
    More 007 in Canada in 2019

    FIREWALKER
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    FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY
    For-Queen-and-Country-cover-b.jpg

    I also see an updated timeline to publish.
    https://mediaprocessor.websimages.com/width/145/crop/0,0,145x224/www.iainmclaughlin.co.uk/For-Queen-and-Country-cover-b.jpg
    FIREWALKER
    Winter 2020
    More info as it becomes available
    Only to be available in Canada.


    Can any Nade in Station C tracking these developments give a report on what's been published by Canadia. Of course comments on quality are welcome.

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  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    So that is where the Mosaic title stemmed from.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited April 2023 Posts: 12,916
    Came across this Canada item, floated as parody and satire in 2013. I know some are already aware, sharing here for completeness.

    Click on the Amazon link, then the cover image to access some pages.

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    Contents
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    The Last Temptation of Bond, Kimmy Beach, 2013
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16249683-the-last-temptation-of-bond

    Poet Kimmy Beach has succeeded where every Bond villain has failed: to kill 007.

    Paperback, 114 pages
    Published March 1st 2013 by University of Alberta Press (first published January 1st 2013)
    Literary Awards: London Book Festival Nominee for Poetry (Runner-Up) (2013)
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    007 in Verse: James Bond Returns in New
    Book... of Poetry
    http://doubleosection.blogspot.com/2013/04/james-bond-returns-in-new-book-of-poetry.html

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    The Last Temptation of Bond (Robert Kroetsch Series) Paperback – March 1, 2013
    by Kimmy Beach (Author)
    https://www.amazon.com/Last-Temptation-Bond-Robert-Kroetsch/dp/0888646437

    ...you can't stop it. everyone's expendable, James. everyone's replaceable. even you. especially you. In a penetrating, violent, sexy, and often hilarious apocalypse, a world-famous superspy meets his demise at the hands of an audacious, painstaking poet. Kimmy Beach fuses popular culture and narrative poetry to astonishing effect in this, her fifth book. Feasting on the tropes, traps, and types of the James Bond mythos and doubling back on the incendiary narrative of Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ, Beach and her cast of loved-and-left Bond Girls dismantle the man and his mysteries. Fans of Beach's tenacious poetry and readers seeking redemption in explosive narrative and fearless wit will love The Last Temptation of Bond.
    Front Flap: Kimmy Beach's The Last Temptation of Bond is a frisky and erudite romp into the world of pop culture icon, James Bond. As 007 comes to terms with his own mortality, the women in his life (and there are many), circle in for the kill. Parodies of pop culture have long been Beach's trademark territory, but what sets The Last Temptation of Bond apart from her previous work is the ease with which she straddles the perceived divide between contemporary pop culture and modernist literature. Raunchy and irreverent, The Last Temptation of Bond will appeal to the rabble and the literary aesthetes.
    Back Cover:
    Quote 1: Especially You you can't stop it. everyone's expendable, James. everyone's replaceable. even you. especially you.
    Quote 2: Making a Vesper Martini for You you pull me to you. I feel the Walther P99 under your dinner jacket. (damn it, I always have a bruise there.) you take my mouth. I taste lemon and dry gin, the precursor to your leaving. the edges of your jacket brush me as you turn to go, the screen door banging behind you. I lock the door, pour myself another, watch The Spy Who Loved Me. looking for the real you.
    Back Flap: Kimmy Beach is the author of four collections of poetry. Her second, Alarum Within: theatre poems has twice been adapted as a stage play. Kimmy has served as Writer in Residence for the Writers Guild of Alberta, the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, and the Parkland Regional Library. Her work has appeared widely in journals across Canada and in the UK. She lives in Red Deer. Visit her online at www.kimmybeach.com. Other books by Kimmy Beach: Nice Day for Murder: poems for James Cagney, Alarum Within: theatre poems, fake Paul, in Cars.
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  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    For some unknown reason I was able to get this Canada product Bond Unknown, Kindle version.

    Contains stories "Mindbreaker" and "Into the Green". Described as Lovecraftian.


    https://www.amazon.com/Bond-Edward-M-Erdelac/dp/B0B2HN9MLZ?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER


    https://emerdelac.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/mindbreaker-is-back-in-bond-unknown/
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  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Not sure about the sound of that. Let us know how you find it. Seems the Erdelac story was the better received of the two.
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    edited April 2023 Posts: 12,916
    Read "Into the Green" during recent travel. It was pretty repetitive by design, violent at times even for Bond, dealing with mind control and other things. Mind control being a hard concept to present maybe.

    The first few pages of "Mindbreaker" seem much better in comparison.

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,730
    That reminds me of the comic where Bond battled dinosaurs. Can't remember the name of that one but it is one of the more bizarre Bond adventures, even considering some of the plots of the continuation novels. I think Ed Erdelac is a member here.
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 13,879
    Into the Green: Bond puts Felix' gift lighter to good use.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    That reminds me of the comic where Bond battled dinosaurs. Can't remember the name of that one but it is one of the more bizarre Bond adventures, even considering some of the plots of the continuation novels.
    That would have to be Serpent's Tooth. Bizarre indeed - even in the artwork and choice of Bond's sidearm, which despite being a real-world weapon, looked more like something from Star Wars. Yes, one of the 00 agents was brainwashed in that one.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,730
    QBranch wrote: »
    Into the Green: Bond puts Felix' gift lighter to good use.
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    That reminds me of the comic where Bond battled dinosaurs. Can't remember the name of that one but it is one of the more bizarre Bond adventures, even considering some of the plots of the continuation novels.
    That would have to be Serpent's Tooth. Bizarre indeed - even in the artwork and choice of Bond's sidearm, which despite being a real-world weapon, looked more like something from Star Wars. Yes, one of the 00 agents was brainwashed in that one.

    I think that must be the one where Bond wears a bizarre sci-fi style costume on the front cover and holds a kind of space gun. It's a real mishmash of genres and although science fiction can be an element in some Bond stories it shouldn't take over the whole narrative.
  • edited April 2023 Posts: 5,774
    The middle cover one, I think :

    serpents-tooth%2Bcopy.jpg

    I remember having had some trouble getting the third one in my comic shop. Apparently, the ones intended for France had been sent to Australia, IIRC. Still, Paul Gulacy did the art, and that's good enough for me.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited May 2023 Posts: 17,730
    Gerard wrote: »
    The middle cover one, I think :

    serpents-tooth%2Bcopy.jpg

    I remember having had some trouble getting the third one in my comic shop. Apparently, the ones intended for France had been sent to Australia, IIRC. Still, Paul Gulacy did the art, and that's good enough for me.

    Yes, I was thinking of the third cover in particular though I see they're all the same style of cover art. Apart from the first cover I think few people would even realise these comics featured James Bond at all, just judging by the cover art itself.
  • timdalton007timdalton007 North Alabama
    Posts: 154
    For some unknown reason I was able to get this Canada product Bond Unknown, Kindle version.

    Contains stories "Mindbreaker" and "Into the Green". Described as Lovecraftian.


    https://www.amazon.com/Bond-Edward-M-Erdelac/dp/B0B2HN9MLZ?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER


    https://emerdelac.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/mindbreaker-is-back-in-bond-unknown/
    51R7djdfLuL._SL500_.jpg

    I post about in it March over in its own thread. Still need to get around to reading it, though.
    Not quite sure how it’s happened but this has become available in physical and Kindle form in the States as of May 2022.

    https://www.amazon.com/Bond-Edward-M-Erdelac/dp/B0B2HN9MLZ/
  • RichardTheBruceRichardTheBruce I'm motivated by my Duty.
    Posts: 12,916
    I finished Mindbreaker by Edward M. Erdelac (aka @DrNo) a few weeks back.

    This was fun to read, some fine story ideas not least
    drawing on events and characters from The Man With the Golden Gun, anticipating how Horowitz did it more recently in A Mind to Kill.
    Received by me as smart and well-written. It helps that the Lovecraft-y elements are held to the end of the story, I admit that was less my interest.


    Here's a passage shared by the author:

    https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155091840793692&id=112183918691&__tn__=*W-R
    An excerpt from MINDBREAKER, in BOND UNKNOWN, with William Meikle's INTO THE GREEN. Next month from April Moon Books.....
    “This is all very fascinating, D.,” Bond lied. The whole thing had sounded like narration for a slideshow. “I still fail to see why you need me for this.”

    “The work of Dr. Bottoms and Dr. Sadat has been of a most sensitive nature. And as I said, you came recommended.”

    “By whom?” 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 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 the book-rabid fellow at the College of Arms, Griffin Or.

    D. leaned forward, his eyes fervent behind the lenses, fingers interlaced now, that damnable star 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 recommendation 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 attuned 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 worlds within worlds, Bond. Can you peer outside this one? Will you shrink from what you see? I wonder….”
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