The James Bond Bedside Companion (2 page)

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
(1996—called
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.

Other authors have joined the family since my tenure.
 
Charlie Higson wrote a series of popular young adult novels (the "Young Bond" series) beginning with
Silverfin
in 2005.
 
Samantha Weinberg, writing as "Kate Westbrook," wrote three novels from the point of view of the Miss Moneypenny character (
The Moneypenny Diaries
).
 
Official original adult Bond novels resumed with Sebastian Faulks'
Devil May Care
in 2008 and Jeffery Deaver's
Carte Blanche
in 2011.

Since I had the good fortune to be a member of this dynasty of authors, I cannot be the one to update
The James Bond Bedside Companion
.
 
It would be inappropriate and unethical for me to make critical judgements on other writers or the film series.
 
Therefore, the
Bedside Companion
appearing here is the unchanged 1988 edition.

The book is presented "warts and all."
 
By this I mean that there were some errors in the original version.
 
Quite a few, in fact, mostly dumb spelling mistakes.
 
I've always known about them.
 
When I tried to get them corrected for the 1988 update I was told that the publishers couldn't revise the already-existing text because of the cost to re-do the plates.
 
So I left them.
 
Some of the more glaring ones are:
 
the character's name is "Osato," not "Osata" in the film
You Only Live Twice
; the sisters are named Jill and Tilly "Masterton," not "Masterson" in the
Goldfinger
novel (as opposed to the film); Bond impersonates Peter "Franks," not "Francs," in the
Diamonds Are Forever
novel (but it's spelled correctly in the film section); it's Sheik "Hossain," not "Hussain" in the film
The Spy Who Loved Me
… things like that.
 
There may also be some odd comments within the film section.
 
When I wrote the book in the early 80s, it was a time when VCRs were not commonplace.
 
For those who owned them they were expensive, elite toys.
 
By the time I obtained my first VCR I had already written the book, and even then not all of the Bond films were available on videotape.
 
I didn't have the luxury of repeat viewings.
 
Hence, all of my reflections on the films were from memory.
 
When I was researching the book in 1981 and 1982, I traveled to the Library of Congress to review the films, and even then I was able to watch them only once.
 
So, if there are some discrepancies with what
you
remember about the pictures, there's a reason!

Perhaps new revelations regarding Ian Fleming's life or the historical facts behind Bond history and the making of the motion pictures have been presented in the years since this book was published. For example, I claimed that Joseph Wiseman voiced the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the film
Thunderball
.
 
Now I know this is not true; it was Eric Pohlmann, the same actor in
From Russia With Love
.
 
That said, I still stand by my opinions and analyses of the books and films with one exception:
 
I was probably too harsh on John Gardner.
 
I was in my twenties when I wrote this book and, like many of my own critics, I was a fussy Bond fan.
 
When I was in the hot seat, I began to appreciate the truly difficult task John had in coming up with a new and original James Bond adventure every year.

Writing the
Bedside Companion
changed my life.
 
I am continually grateful to the heirs of the late Ian Fleming and to the people at Ian Fleming (Glidrose) Publications Ltd. for putting their trust in me not only to do the
Bedside Companion
back then, but also to continue the Bond novels for seven years.
 
It was indeed an honor and one that I don't take lightly.

Whether or not the book is still a "Bond Bible" is not for me to judge.
 
I just hope it continues to enlighten readers and bring new fans to the table.

Raymond Benson

December 2011

I
an Fleming was of the twentieth century and indeed, his creation, James Bond, who emerged full-blown from his imagination as a Greek God from the brow of Zeus, may be one of the twentieth century's landmarks. The twentieth century marked the conflux of divergent forces, and a number of these forces converged within Ian Fleming. Typical of twentieth-century artists, Ian Fleming was many people, and indeed, some of the most pointed anecdotes of the century can be applied to him. Thus, in a debate with George Bernard Shaw, Graham Wallas read two contrary opinions by Shaw, adding sarcastically, "I suggest that on different occasions, Mr. Shaw speaks like two different people!" "What?" screamed the red-headed Irishman leaping from his seat "Only two?!"

Ian Fleming was the warmest kind of friend, a man of ready laughter, and a great companion (everything James Bond is not!). Fleming was really quite simple to understand, but only within the complex class structure of the British civilization into the upper stratum of which he was born. He was not English; he was a Scot by his father's line, only third generation in a class structure which reserves its highest accolades for the peerage. Ian was not a peer of the realm nor were any members of his family. He was the second son of a second son. This explains much of Ian Fleming's basic drive. One night at the White House, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, no admirer of the British caste system, questioned Prime Minister Winston Churchill about the rule of primogeniture, whereby the first-born gets everything and the others nothing. "Mr. President," Churchill said, ". . . in Great Britain, the first son gets all and thus keeps the family capital intact. The other children, witnessing and indeed sharing in the benefits, though not the ownership of the good things of life, are determined to acquire them for themselves, to go out and dig for it. In the digging out of their fortunes, they lay the foundations of our empire." (Having made his point, Churchill grandly added, with his captivating twinkle, "Moreover, the first son, being heavily endowed, marries not for money, but for beauty, which, Mr. President, accounts for my good looks!") This, it seemed to me, was the basic drive of Ian Fleming: money. He was brought up on the good things the British privileged class counts as its birthright, and actually, he was never without them as long as he lived.

Fleming was regarded by many as somber. It is a wonder he was able to smile at all. His father was killed during the First World War when Ian was nine. His brother Michael was killed in action in World War II as were many of his Eton friends. Thus, by the time he was thirty-seven, his life had been deeply affected by the two worst wars in the history of the United Kingdom. Fleming saw that though victor in both wars, the British Empire was dying of its wounds, suffering a hemorrhage of its capital as well as its blood. The effect on him was something akin to the gloom Nelson might have felt at Trafalgar had he been forced to watch his fleet defeated. Fleming felt it deeply. Furthermore, his personal fortunes were closely tied to the fate of his country. He desperately wanted to make money, big money, in the style of the banking house of Fleming founded by his grandfather. But, when the chips were down, he was as certainly Etonian as a West Pointer is a West Pointer: he sought no fate better than that of his country; he was more deeply troubled about England's future than his own.

Kierkegaard made a profound impression on Fleming, and to a certain considerable extent, his own life experience paralleled Kierkegaard's. One aphorism of Kierkegaard's had particular application to both Ian and his wife: "Rather well-hanged, than ill-wed."

There were four things of which Solomon himself said he knew nothing and one of them was "the way of a man with a maid." Ian was an experienced man when he met Anne. She was twice married before, when, née Anne Charteris, she was widowed as Lady O'Neill when Lord O'Neill was killed in action in Italy. She then married Lord Rothermere, one of Great Britain's press lords, and divorced him to marry Ian. In all human affairs, luck is an intangible factor. From an objective standpoint, luck is without blame. By almost any count, the Flemings' marriage was ill-fated from the first. There is evidence that Anne and Ian did not drift apart; they tore each other apart instead.