Here’s a curiosity which we couldn’t fail to mention – an iconic British secret agent, a book which could only be produced under a maple leaf, and two authors who went on a Lovecraftian mission to break the boundaries. We have exclusives from those authors, Edward M Erdelac and Willie Meikle, and another from publisher Neil Baker. Captain Canuck rules, in our coverage of Bond Unknown, a new MI6 and Mythos double novella from April Moon Books in Oshawa, Ontario.
Our knowledgeable listeners will immediately go, “Oh, Oshawa!”, knowing that this was the birthplace of Albert William Tucker (1905-1995), who, in the fifties, put the final name and form to what is now known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma:
Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They hope to get both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is:
- If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison
- If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)
- If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge)
But that doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s feature. So we’ll turn to the publisher and the authors to give you the inside story…
The Name’s Bond. Neil Bond
A publisher’s tale
The journey to get Bond Unknown into the hands of the people who matter was as nerve-racking as a ski chase on a toboggan run. I first heard about Bond entering the public domain in Canada back in January 2015, and I recklessly posted a missive on Facebook along the lines of ‘Next from April Moon Books – James Bond vs. Cthulhu!’ My outburst was partly in jest as I was already swamped with trying to get my fledgling press off the ground, but the response was huge, and I suddenly realized I had to make a go of it, or die trying.
The legal situation was still quite murky, so I surreptitiously stretched out feelers to authors I already knew, and who I thought could have a good stab at a Bond story set in the Mythos. As I began to discuss the concept with the authors, a number of tenets came to the fore, including the films, which were off-limits. Bond may have been fair game, but the settings, gadgets and original characters from the films were still heavily trademarked. That was not an issue though, as I had already decided that I wanted stories based on Fleming’s original novels. I reminded the authors that these stories were not ‘pastiches’ or ‘deconstructions’ – they had to be written with due reverence for the originals. Other than that, the sky(fall) was the limit. I would allow Lovecraftian twists, supernatural elements, even straight adventures in the classic mold. Everyone got very excited.
Then, I hit obstacle after obstacle as I realized I would not be able to crowdfund the book as Kickstarter and Indiegogo wanted nothing to do with it. Then print on demand was off the table as I could not use Amazon at all – nor were digital versions allowed due the unenforceability of cyber borders. So, I would be paying for everything, including a limited print run, out of my puny, small-press pockets. I would have to wait until I could afford to take the risk.
Bond Unknown became my most high profile ‘on again, off again’ project, and I truly felt awful for the authors who were chomping at the bit. A couple of them went ahead with typical writerly pigheadedness and churned out stories – and I enjoyed reading these unique takes on a beloved character. Ultimately though, Ed and Willie’s contributions emerged as the front-runners for the first book, with several more tales waiting in the wings in hope of more editions. Having worked with them before, I knew what Ed and Willie were capable of, and they had nailed my vision for the book. I had my stories, next up, I needed artwork.
I’m no stranger to a bit of design myself, but I needed something special for the cover, and I reached out to Mark Maddox, whose covers for Little Shoppe of Horrors and Screem Magazine are some of the best I’ve seen. He immediately leaped at the opportunity and we hammered out a composition (although the final, gloriously eldritch image is all Mark’s design). I then turned to an illustrator who has constantly delighted me, M Wayne Miller, and he took a look at the stories before turning in a pair of stunning illustrations. His rendition of Bond is extraordinary in the way that it captures the essence of Bond without specifically referencing any actor or previous images.
All the pieces were in place, I just needed to make my move. Another year passed. What held me back? Funds? Fear? Francisco Scaramanga? A little of each (except, perhaps, the nipple-heavy hitman).
In a moment that might be considered the antithesis of a nail-biting climax, I scraped together the budget, grew a pair, and pulled the trigger. The result is a stack of boxes in the basement that is taller than my daughter, containing 200 copies of a book that I am hugely proud of, that I cannot sell outside of Canada. It’s the kind of risky move that would make Le Chiffre’s eye bleed but, as they say in O-branch, you only live once.
Neil Baker
Dry, With a Scots Twist
Willie Meikle Reminisces
I came to Bond early. I was taken to see Goldfinger way back in ’64 when I was only six and our local cinema didn’t enforce age rules. It made an impression. I even had the gold Corgi car with ejector seat and everything.
Fast forward a year or so, and I was down the front row with my pals for Thunderball, and for a few weeks after that the world was all jet packs, spearguns and trying to hold our breath in the swimming pools in the local river.
After that I saw every film in the week of release for many years, read the books until the paperbacks fell apart, and was generally a Bond fanboy, even after my disappointment when Connery gave way to Moore. I persevered through Moore’s sillier movies, and was rewarded with a return to my Bond with Dalton. I read the books some more, read the authorised sequels, and then…
I lost touch with the man for a time. Brosnan didn’t do it for me — too much like Moore’s sillier escapades for my liking, and after Goldeneye, I thought I was done with Bond.
Time passed, I rarely gave Bond a thought, then Casino Royale came along, and suddenly the years had been rolled back, and I was back in fanboy heaven again with my Bond.
I’ve mostly loved the Craig years despite some quibbles and grumbles over the direction the stories have taken, and seeing Bond return to Skyfall and the old house on the moor was a personal highlight.
When Neil asked me if I’d like to do a weird Bond story, it was that Scottish connection that came to mind, and the early Bond, Commander Bond, that I drew my inspiration from.
Skyfall also took Bond back to London, and that’s another ever present in my life and imagination, from the swinging ’60s, through a myriad of spy books and movies up to the present day, but also back to Holmes and the Ripper and beyond into the mists of time.
I worked in the old city for almost ten years, and walked past St. Paul’s Cathedral on many occasions. The memory came back to me when I was considering the big end set piece for my story and… here it is.
INTO THE GREEN is a synthesis, of my love for Bond, Scotland, spy movies, London, and weird cults in old, and new, temples.
Willie Meikle
Erdelac Royale
Edward M Erdelac pokes at some star spawn
I came late to Bond.
The first Bond movie I can remember seeing was Live And Let Die on TV with my parents, probably when I was about four or five. While I loved Tee Hee with his mechanical arm and the creepy 7up guy in the top hat and 007 running along the tops of alligators, the mushy stuff made me leave the room. From bits and pieces I saw of Roger Moore’s iteration over the years, I grew up dismissing Bond as some kind of romance series.
It wasn’t till I was about twenty years old and caught GoldenEye on home video at a friend’s place that I got heavy into Bond. It was Tina Turner’s killer track that I think sold me on it, combined with Brosnan’s bungie jump infiltration of that Russian facility and subsequent dive and Cessna escape in the beginning. No doubt the hours of delirious fun my friends and I got playing Nintendo’s classic GoldenEye shooter (Oddjob was soon disallowed) played its part too.
Suddenly, in my 20’s, I was on a Bond kick. I went back and watched the rest of the series (suffering through three quarters of the goofy Adam West-like Roger Moore years) in anticipation of Tomorrow Never Dies, and when I was out of movies, I picked my dad’s moldy old college copies of the Ian Fleming paperbacks and discovered the hard edged, pulpy, literary Bond, only barely hinted at in a few of the Connery movies (and maybe a bit in the two Dalton outings).
So finally Tomorrow Never Dies comes along…and people’s heads are popping through the floors of fighter planes, a helicopter chops up a marketplace, Michelle Yeoh is not getting the facetime I wanted to see, and I’m sitting in the theater seeing more Roger Moore than Fleming, Connery, Dalton, or the underappreciated Lazenby.
My torrid love affair with all things Bond lasts about as long as Viviene Michel’s.
Though I keep the fires smoldering with rewatches of my favorites, it’s eleven years before it’s fully rekindled with Casino Royale. Even then I’m a bit unsure. I don’t want a repeat of the second date disaster I had with Pierce Brosnan. I know at this point most of you are thinking that’s exactly what happened, but here I have to state a controversial opinion; I loved Quantum of Solace, from the gangsta opening theme song to the last shot of Vesper’s necklace in the Russian snow. This outing, more than any Bond movie since From Russia With Love, conjures for me the scarred, no-nonsense, kill or be killed paperback 007 for me. Skyfall’s really, really great, but it’s kind of a Batman movie. And don’t even ask me what I thought of Spectre.
So when Neil put out the call for Bond Unknown, I knew I positively had to shove aside whatever I was doing and turn something in, particularly for my Dad, whose books offered me a glimpse at his younger self and who continues to enjoy the character, and for my son, who kicked my butt a few times in GoldenEye Reloaded and thrills to the music and the cars of the movies the same as I do.
For my contribution, MINDBREAKER, I wanted to explore the damaged Bond of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. In the opening of MWTGG, Bond attempts to kill M., having been brainwashed by Russian agents in the wake of his taking revenge on Blofeld for the murder of his wife Tracy. MINDBREAKER’s Bond is still trying to bury his wife, still dealing with the lingering effects of Russian reconditioning. I wanted to explore that brief blank spot of his career. Who turned Bond into an assassin against M, and how does 007’s ability to bounce back from that mental conditioning make him peculiarly suited to facing the preternatural threats of the Lovecraftian Mythos when a shadowy subsection of MI6 comes calling?
Well, that’s a pretty cool answer. It involves Bond’s pedigree, Simone Latrelle, John Dee, a nod to Dennis Wheatley, a relic from an antediluvian war, Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, the Unione Corse, the Star Spawn, and a whole lot of other stuff I hope will appeal to fans of both Fleming and Lovecraft.
Ed Erdelac
You can only obtain Bond Unknown in print, and only directly from April Moon Books.
https://www.aprilmoonbooks.com/bond-unknown
See you soon…