

In that sense dying on the job is not an implausible ending for the Fleming timeline. I do think the plan might indeed be to kill off the Fleming-Bond timeline coincident with the end of the '60s so that Bond never sees the '70s,and remains a cold-war literay icon of the '50s and '60s.įleming's Bond did not expect to see mandatory retirment age anyway. It does seem that Fleming advanced Bond's birth year to 1923 or 1924 circa YOLT so a 45ish Boyd-Bond circa 1969 does fit with Fleming's adjusted timeline. Do you?īoyd's Bond will be released by Jonathan Cape in the UK on Septem( .uk) and by HarperCollins in the U.S. Yes, I think this is just crazy enough to be conceivable. It would also be a way to make the Boyd novel yet another "event" book. But they are known for making bold and provocative moves with the literary Bond franchise lately. This would certainly be a bold and provocative move by IFP. Of course, this would mean the Pearson/Wood/Gardner/Benson novels exist in their own unique timeline, which would be fine because I think most fans agree these books were in a separate universe anyway.

Could this be because the plan is to now end the "classic Bond" timeline? Might IFP now go back and do more Young Bond novels (as has been rumored) and/or leap ahead and continue on with the new Carte Blanche timeline? Might Ian Fleming's James Bond never see 1970? We were all surprised when, after the much-hyped reboot of Carte Blanche, IFP announced that this new novel would be set back in 1969. But maybe there's something much, much larger in the works here. Of course, Bond could always "die" as he did in From Russia With Love and You Only Live Twice. Has IFP given William Boyd permission of kill off James Bond!?

But would they really set up betting on something in which the outcome is 100% assured? Did they do this for other Bond books or films? Might Ladbrokes have some deep insider information on the new Bond novel? Bookmakers take bets on just about anything that can be bet on (or so I'm told). I'm told that bookmakers Ladbrokes in the UK are taking bets on whether James Bond lives or dies in the new 007 novel by William Boyd due out Sept.
