First Look At Raymond Benson's Next Novel

Written by Daniel Dykes and John Cox

You’ve more than likely read John Cox’s fantastic report on the recent Bond Collectors Weekend held in Chicago, and from that you’d have gathered that author Raymond Benson was a guest of the weekend. During question time Benson did reveal some details on his next James Bond adventure. And again thanks to John (‘Zencat’ around the CommanderBond.net Forums) we can bring you those details!

The next novel directly follows Bond’s last outing Never Dream Of Dying in which the villain and a major location was established. Japan shall focus as the major part of Bond’s next literary adventure and Goro Yoshida, who hired the aide of ‘The Union’ in Never Dream Of Dying, shall feature as the villain. While we do know that Japan will be the focus of the novel whether or not Bond shall travel to any further locales still remains unknown.

Currently this book has no title, nor even a working title. Benson kept referring to it as “the Japan book” which seems to indicate that he hasn’t even begun tinkering with title ideas. Then again, he could be taking a leaf out of George Lucas’ book!

Research for the book has already taken place with Benson visiting Japan, and one locale he mentioned was the Seikan Tunnel. The Seikan Tunnel is a 121,00m long and provides an underground railway system linking the main Japanese island of Honshu with the northern island of Hokkaido. As John points out, this could be an indication that we’ll see some “action” in the tunnel. Perhaps a terrorist threat from Goro Yoshida or some direct action involving Bond? I guess we can only wait and see.

And on the book Benson revealed it will be a more “traditional” Bond adventure in the vein of Never Dream of Dying. Furthermore, of all of Benson’s books this one has already veered the most from its original outline as Benson describes he found “better ways of doing things.”

Now comes a spoiler, it’s not a plot spoiler but a character spoiler; so feel free to stop reading now. But as I said I expected in the forums, Bond fans will see the return of the Japanese Tiger Tanaka. Those who have only seen the films will know Tanaka from Sean Connery’s You Only Live Twice and those who have read Fleming’s novel You Only Live Twice will need no introduction to the character!

So there you have it. Some very interesting facts on the next Bond novel due for publication in 2002! You can find out more from the Literary 007 Forums.