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    Confirmed – 'Colonel Sun' Next From Titan

    By johncox on 2005-08-11

    Titan Books has confirmed for CBn that the next book in their series of collected James Bond Daily Express comic strips will be Colonel Sun. The book is tentatively scheduled for release in December ’05.

    This will come as welcome news for Bond fans who have longed for this James Bond story to be reproduced in any format. The last time Colonel Sun saw print as a novel was in 1993. The Daily Express adaptation has never before been printed in a collected form in English.

    Colonel Sun UK Edition Hardback

    First UK hardback edition of Colonel Sun

    For those fans unfamiliar with this title, Colonel Sun was the very first James Bond “continuation novel” published in 1968. It was written by well-known novelist Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham (at the time it was planned that all continuation novels would by published under the Markham name). The book was not received well by the critics, most notably Ian Fleming’s widow who took offense at the idea of non-Fleming Bond novels. The idea of continuation novels was put on the shelf until 1981 when John Gardner’s Licence Renewed kicked off a new series that continues to this day (the latest novel, Blood Fever, featuring a young James Bond, will be published in January ’06).

    But many fans and critics now consider Colonel Sun one of the best James Bond continuation novels. The story sees 007 traveling to Greece in pursuit of a Chinese sadist bent on sabotaging a USSR summit conference and pinning blame on the British. The book includes one of the more grisly 007 torture scenes.

    No word yet on what other story or stories may be collected along with Colonel Sun. But CBn will stay on top of this exciting news and bring you all the details and pre-order information as they are made available.

    UPDATE: Titan has confirmed that River of Death will be include in the Colonel Sun collection. CLICK HERE for the full story.

    Are you excited about reading these non-Fleming strips? To discuss visit this thread in the CBn Forums
    A very big thanks to Sophie Mitchell of Titan Books.

    Purchase all the Titan 007 graphic novels from Amazon: