Just got done reading Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis - the first of the Bond continuation novels. The middle lagged some but the ending was a wild ride. And I thought Bond was pretty IC, although there were a few places where I thought Kingsley Amis made him a little too honorable and upright. There’s a bit where he and his allies get a distress call from a nearby ship, and they all KNOW it’s a trap, but they’re like “well we can’t let them drown on the offchance” and like, I didn’t buy that. Plus a few other things. 

The torture scene was . . . something. 

I liked the villain, a lot, he was one of my favorites - maybe my favorite novel-based Bond villain so far. As per usual, I’m a sucker for villains who arguably have a crush on the hero, and, uh, yeah, Colonel Sun sure did. Put him up there with Alec and Silva. 

ROBERT MARKHAM COLONEL SUN

The first James Bond continuation novel, published in 1968. Written by English novelist Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), author of the literary analysis work The James Bond Dossier (1965), under the preudonym Robert Markham. The plan was to continue the Bond series using a succession of different writers under the Markham name, but that idea was abandoned after the publication of Colonel Sun.

A sequel by Amis, set in Mexico and featuring an assassination on a train, was planned for publication in 1970 but never materialised.

Colonel Sun is widely regarded as the best of the non-Fleming canon (although the recent Anthony Horowitz trilogy has challenged that).

The next continuation works came in 1973 (James Bond: The Authorised Biography Of 007 by John Pearson), 1977 (James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me by Christopher Wood) and 1979 (James Bond And Moonraker by Christopher Wood) before John Gardner took up the mantle with 14 original novels and two novelisations (1981-1996).

KINGSLEY AMIS COLONEL SUN

ROBERT MARKHAM COLONEL SUN (1968) UK book club edition