Colonel Sun

Colonel Sun
1st edition
Author(s)	Kingsley Amis writing as Robert Markham
Cover artist	Tom Adams
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	March 1968
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	256 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-224-61294-8 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by	003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior
Followed by	James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007

Colonel Sun (1968), by Kingsley Amis, is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's death in 1964; Glidrose Productions used the collective pseudonym "Robert Markham", for British novelist Kingsley Amis, with the intent of so publishing other novels by different writers. Previously, Amis had written the literary study The James Bond Dossier, and the humorous The Book of Bond (under the William Tanner pseudonym), and was rumoured at one time to be the editor and ghost writer of The Man with the Golden Gun, Fleming's final novel (this has since been debunked).

Discounting Christopher Wood's two screenplay novelisations, and the novel James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007 (1973), by John Pearson, Colonel Sun was the last, new novel in the Fleming canon's original Cold War time (the 1950s and the 1960s), until Licence Renewed (1981), by John Gardner, who, like Raymond Benson, updated the character to the 1980s and to the post–Cold War 21st century respectively, until publication of Devil May Care (2008), by Sebastian Faulks, which occurs in the late 1960s.

The introduction to the Titan Books 2005 reprint of the Colonel Sun comic strip confirms that during the late 1970s, Amis asked EON Productions to adapt it as a Bond film; he was told Harry Saltzman (series co-producer till 1974) had "blackballed" Colonel Sun, because Glidrose had rejected publication of Per Fine Ounce, a Bond continuation novel that he (Saltzman) had championed, despite not owning the franchise after The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Still, Colonel Sun, yielded Bond film elements: the Greek setting of For Your Eyes Only (1981); M's kidnapping in The World Is Not Enough (1999); and the name Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, the North Korean villain in Die Another Day (2002).

Plot summary

When Secret Service chief, M, is violently kidnapped from his house, and James Bond is nearly captured also when he visits M, he follows the clues to Vrakonisi, a Greek Aegean island, where he, and Ariadne Alexandrou, a Greek Communist agent, plan to rescue M. Meanwhile they must thwart the complex military-political plans of People's Liberation Army Colonel Sun. Sun is sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference (of which the Soviets are hosts) and blame Great Britain, causing World War III. Bond meets Soviet Agents there, and they realise a third party is behind this, and there is a traitor in the organisation. All the agents except Ariadne are killed in an attack, but the leader encourages Bond and Ariadne to work together. However another Soviet, when told about the attack by Ariadne, thinks Bond is lying and plans to capture him. Ariadne perusades a friend of her father to help them by saying a former Nazi, Von Ritcher, is working with them. Bond is nearly captured by a Soviet Agent, but is saved by the Greek sailor. He gets to the island, but is knocked out by one of Sun's men. He is then told a morter will be used by Ritcher to destoy the Conference. Bond will be tortured by Sun, then killed. Then he and M will be found dead next to the weapon with forged orders. It will look like one of them got careless and dropped a bomb. Bond is tied to a chair in a cellar, and Sun tortures him brutally, but one of the girls at the house is ordered by Sun to caress Bond fondly as his greatest love in life has been of Women. However she cuts one hand free and gives him a knife. She tells Sun he is dead, and when he is examined he stabs Sun. He then frees the Greek sailor, and opens a door to a room where two of the girls are, one is in league with Sun and called Doni. Bond and the sailor defeat the guard. Doni is then bound and the other girl gags her. Bond stops Von Ritcher, who is unable to escape. However Sun has survived and kills the girl who helped Bond. Bond follows the trail of blood, and dodges a morter Sun throws. Sun says he was mislied, and seems ot beg for a quick end, so Bond stabs him again. The Soviets thank Bond for saving their conference, and Bond tells Ariadne he has one day before he gets back.

Comic strip adaptation

Main article: James Bond (comic strip)

Colonel Sun is the only non-Fleming Bond novel adapted as a comic strip by the Daily Express newspaper, and syndicated worldwide. It was published from 1 December 1969 to 20 August 1970, adapted by Jim Lawrence and drawn by Yaroslav Horak, with the notable difference, between novel and comic strip, that the villain, Colonel Sun, is a SPECTRE agent in the latter. In December 2005, Titan Books reprinted Colonel Sun, and included River of Death, another, original James Bond comic strip story published before the Colonel Sun strip in 1969.

Publication history

• UK first hardback edition: March 28, 1968 Jonathan Cape
• U.S. first hardback edition: May 1968 Harper & Row
• UK first paperback edition: 1970 Pan Books
• U.S. first paperback edition: May 1968 Bantam Books

Source

• "The Genesis of Colonel Sun" in James Bond 007: Colonel Sun. London: Titan Books, 2005; np.

See also

Novels portal

• Per Fine Ounce, an unpublished James Bond novel that some sources suggest was to have been published under the Robert Markham pseudonym.