Sebastian Faulks writes new James Bond novel
Respected author Sebastian Faulks has written a new James Bond novel, reviving the 007 spy over four decades after Ian Fleming`s last book, it was announced Wednesday.
"Devil May Care" will be published next May to mark the centenary of Fleming`s birth, 42 years after the original Bond author`s last book "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights", published in 1966.
The book will be the 15th Bond book. Faulks -- famous for his trilogy "The Girl at the Lion D`Or", "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray" -- said he agreed to pen a new thriller despite initial reservations.
"When they first asked me if I`d consider this I thought, I`ll have a look at the books but I expected them to be pretty good pulp fiction, and I don`t think I`m going to want to do it," he told BBC radio.
"But when I went back and read them... I found this stylishness, this briskness in the prose ... There`s also in the telling a sense of playfulness which appealed to me," he added.
Fleming famously wrote his books in the Caribbean, describing his typical day as a mixture of bursts of writing punctuated by cocktails, snorkeling and lunch on the terrace with glamorous women.
"That`s very much the way I wrote it," joked Faulks. "Very much apart from the snorkeling and the cocktails and the lunch on the terrace," he said, although insisting "there were plenty of glamorous women".
Faulks is not the first author to be asked by Fleming`s estate to write a new Bond novel: Kingsley Amis did so in 1968 with "Colonel Sun", while others include former Fleming colleague John Pearson and novelist John Gardner.
Texan writer Raymond Benson wrote the last 007 revival, "The Man with the Red Tattoo," in 2002.
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