The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2018. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
Q is a fictional character in the James Bond films and film novelisations. Q, like M, is a job title rather than a name. He is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service. The use of letters as pseudonyms for senior officers in the British Secret Intelligence Service was started by its first director Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming (1859–1923) who signed himself with a C written in green ink.
SPECTRE is a fictional organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, the films based on those novels, and video games. Led by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the international organisation first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the film Dr. No (1962). SPECTRE is not aligned to any nation or political ideology, enabling the later Bond books and Bond films to be regarded as somewhat apolitical, though the presence of former Gestapo members in the organisation are a clear sign of Fleming's warning of Nazi fugitives after the Second World War first detailed in the novel Moonraker (1954). SPECTRE began in the novels as a small group of criminals but in the films became a vast international organisation with its own SPECTRE Island training base to replace the Soviet SMERSH.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to by the codename Number 1 within this organisation. The character was originally written by Fleming as a physically massive and powerfully built man, standing around 6' 3" and weighing 20 st, who had become flabby with a huge belly.
M is a codename held by a number of fictional characters in Ian Fleming's James Bond book and film series; the characters are the current or past heads of the Secret Intelligence Service—also known as MI6. Fleming based the character on a number of people he knew who commanded sections of British intelligence. Like Q for Quartermaster, M stands for "Mission". M has appeared in the novels by Fleming and seven continuation authors, as well as appearing in twenty-four films. In the Eon Productions series of films, M has been portrayed by four actors: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes, the incumbent; in the two independent productions, M was played by John Huston, David Niven and Edward Fox.
Felix Leiter is a fictional character created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books, films and other media. The character is an operative for the CIA and Bond's friend. After losing a leg and his hand to a shark attack, Leiter joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The name "Felix" comes from the middle name of Fleming's friend Ivar Bryce, while the name "Leiter" was the surname of Fleming's friend Marion Oates Leiter Charles, the then wife of Thomas Leiter.
Never Say Never Again is a 1983 spy film directed by Irvin Kershner. The film is based on the 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Fleming. The novel had been previously adapted in a 1965 film of the same name. Never Say Never Again was not produced by Eon Productions, but by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm. The film was executive produced by Kevin McClory, one of the original writers of the Thunderball storyline. McClory retained the filming rights of the novel following a long legal battle dating from the 1960s.
Ian Fleming Publications is the production company formerly known as both Glidrose Productions Limited and Glidrose Publications Limited, named after its founders John Gliddon and Norman Rose. In 1952, author Ian Fleming bought it after completing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale; he assigned most of his rights in Casino Royale, and the works which followed it to Glidrose.
Licence Renewed, first published in 1981, is the first novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. It was the first proper James Bond novel since Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun in 1968. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Richard Marek, a G. P. Putnam's Sons imprint.
For Special Services, first published in 1982, was the second novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Cover designed by Bill Botten.
Icebreaker, first published in 1983, was the third novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and is the first Bond novel to be published in the United States by Putnam, beginning a long-standing association. Part of the book takes place in Northern Europe, including Finland; to make his book as authentic as possible, Gardner even visited Finland.
Nobody Lives for Ever, first published in 1986, was the fifth novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Putnam.
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me is the official novelization of the 1977 Eon James Bond filmThe Spy Who Loved Me, which was itself inspired by the 1962 novel of the same title by Ian Fleming.
William Tanner is a fictional character in the James Bond film and novel series. Tanner is an employee of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) who acts as M's chief of staff.
James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty's Secret Service is a spy fiction tabletop role-playing game based on the James Bond books and films. It is designed by Gerard Christopher Klug and was published by Victory Games, a subsidiary of Avalon Hill. The game and its supplements were published from 1983 until 1987, when the license lapsed. At that time, it was the most popular espionage role-playing game.
In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 is considered the secret service's elite. A 00 is a field agent who holds a licence to kill in the field, at their discretion, to complete any mission. The novel Moonraker establishes that the section routinely has three agents concurrently; the film series, in Thunderball, establishes a minimum number of nine 00 agents active at that time.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to James Bond:
James Bond is a line of spy thriller comic book titles by Dynamite Entertainment featuring the eponymous character originally created by Ian Fleming. It is licensed by Ian Fleming Publications and debuted in November 2015. Additional series and graphic novels are planned.
