Money never dies
Adam Sherwin

Their creators are long gone, but that hasn’t prevented the publication of a new
James Bond book and a new Jason Bourne book — on the same day

DO you expect me to talk? No, Mr Bond, I expect you to revitalise the high street book trade by winning a deadly publishing battle with your greatest espionage rival.

James Bond and Jason Bourne go head-to-head with the launch of new novels that extend the narrative of the famous spies, who have long outlived their literary creators.

Jason Bourne

First published The Bourne Identity – 1980

Our hero Highly intelligent government-trained CIA assassin, betrayed by his bosses and troubled by his conscience, Bourne will use all his combat skills to survive.

Literary reincarnation Bourne creator Robert Ludlum died in 2001 leaving the Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum trilogy. New York writer Eric Van Lustbader has since penned five sequels.

Total book sales Eight books generating 80 million sales.

Latest entry in the Bourne Dominion. The secret Severus Domna cabal vows to destroy the one person who can threaten their plan to destabilise the world economy – Bourne.

Film franchise gross $1 billion.

James Bond

First published Casino Royale, 1953.

Our hero Suave 00 British secret service agent. Licensed to kill. Prone to gambling, womanising and wrecking up Air Miles. Speciality—tracking down megalomaniacs bent on holding the world to ransom in exotic locales.

Literary reincarnation Original author Ian Fleming died in 1964 after writing 14 books. Kingsley Amis, Raymond Benson, John Gardner and Sebastian Faulks and have written authorised ‘continuations’.

Total books sales 37 books from a range of authors, over 100 million sales.

Latest entry Jeffery Deaver’s Carte Blanche ‘reboots’ Bond, plunging 007 into a 21st-century world of techno-gadgetry, resourceful women and Dubai’s glitzy landmarks

Film franchise gross $12 billion.

Model Chesca Miles rode a BSA Spitfire motorbike to launch the new James Bond book Carte Blanche at  St Pancras station in London
Model Chesca Miles rode a BSA Spitfire motorbike to launch the new James Bond book Carte Blanche at St Pancras station in London Photo: Reuters

 

Carte Blanche is the 25th Bond book published since the death of Ian Fleming in 1964. In a "reboot" of the franchise by the American thriller writer Jeffrey Deaver, Bond is reinvented as an Afghanistan veteran, thrust into a post-9/11 world where "the other side doesn’t play by the rules anymore".

Carte Blanche hits stores alongside The Bourne Dominion, the latest instalment in the adventures of the amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. It is the sixth novel written by Eric Van Lustbader, since the death of Robert Ludlum, the Bourne creator, in 2001.

"Continuations" of a best-selling series, authorised by the estates of the original authors, are giving publishers a much-needed boost at a time when high street chains like Waterstones are struggling to meet the challenge from online retailers.

Hodder & Stoughton, UK publisher of Carte Blanche, took delivery of the first copies of the book at St Pancras International from a team of abseiling Royal Marines Commandos.

Millions of copies will be dispatched to 20 countries. An initial UK print run of 2,30,000 copies has been ordered for the book, which is predicted to beat the sales of Devil May Care, the previous Bond "continuation" by Sebastian Faulks, which became Penguin’s fastest-selling hardbook novel in 2008.

Waterstone’s is selling a signed, numbered and slipcased limited edition of Carte Blanche for £100. But Bond completists will want the Special Edition produced by Bentley, to mark 007’s choice of the marque’s Continental GT as his new favoured wheels. The 500 copies, set in a metal case, cost £31,000 each.

Lustbader’s Bourne novels, which pick up where Ludlum’s trilogy left off, have sent sales of the series to an estimated 80 million copies. The publisher, Orion, is hoping that shoppers driven to bookstores by Bond will also leave with a new Bourne. "If the publishers get it right, they can create a franchise which operates in tandem with the new films and renews itself every two years," said Neill Denny, editor-in-chief of The Bookseller. "These are massive worldwide brands."

However, Denny warned that the spy genre may never match its Cold War heights. "How do you reinvent the spy story in a world where drone pilots fight wars from the Nevada desert? It’s not as romantic as Bond saving the world from a global holocaust."

Faulks retained Fleming’s period setting for his novel but Deaver opted for a contemporary storyline. He said: "When we sat down with the Fleming estate we decided it would be best to have Bond track down a modern villain. That would have more emotional impact for the modern reader."

The next blockbuster in the "continuations" industry arrives in September, when Orion publishes a new full-length Sherlock Holmes novel, written by Anthony Horowitz, who was commissioned by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. The new novels inevitably lend themselves to screen adaptations. Mr Deaver said: "I do write cinematically. It’s a very visual book with sharp dialogue in exotic locations. I hope the Bond studio will have a serious look at it." Hence the contemporary setting. (The studios ignored Faulks’s book, partly because of the period setting.)

But who will win the battle between Bond and Bourne? "I don’t see it as a competition," said Deaver. "I hope folks can still afford two books, or go to the library and read them."

Denny believes Carte Blanche will have a head start with fans of the Fleming originals. "Deaver may be a better Bond choice than Faulks," he said. "He fits the plot-driven ethos of the Bond books whereas Faulks’s approach is more literary." —The Independent





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