On His Majesty’s Secret Service (James Bond 007)

Product Information

There was a lot of Fleming’s Bond that was valid and viable: he’s a loner, he’s a hard man and he protects himself by keeping people at arm’s length. Higson wrote five novels in the Young Bond series, which are young adult spy novels featuring Bond as a teenage boy attending school at Eton College in the 1930s.

Ian Fleming Publications also created a disclaimer to accompany the reissued texts, stating “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. This book has received its place between the 007 novels in my collection, it is not the best one (which were the Fleming ones) and certainly not the worst (looking at you SOLO). The plot is a familiar template - rich, megalomaniac with radical ideas; tough, ruthless seemingly unbeatable henchman; secluded/protected enemy lair. Oh, and don't forget the girl who has her own strong and independent nature. I was pleasantly surprised with the release of this albeit short novel and hope that the literary heirs have got Higson on their list for another Bond novel but give him this time a lot more time to create a story.All royalties from sales of the book will support the work of the National Literacy Trust, an independent UK charity working with schools and communities to give disadvantaged children the literacy skills to succeed in life. I didn’t want to write him as a slightly stuffy man out of time with fifties’ attitudes - the Jacob Rees-Mogg 007. I wanted him to be a contemporary young man. Higson has written five novels in the Young Bond series, which are young adult spy novels featuring Bond as a teenage boy attending school at Eton College in the 1930s. The final novel in the series was published 15 years ago.

But I’ve been thinking about writing an adult Bond adventure ever since working on the Young Bond books, and he came bursting out of me with both fists flying. It was all I could do to keep up with him and get his story down on paper.

Author

Is this, an excerpt from roughly a third of the way through On His Majesty’s Secret Service, Charlie Higson telling himself to get a wiggle on? Or, perhaps, an apology-in-advance to the reader in case they don’t find the next two thirds to be ‘carefully plotted’? The action of this entirely new 007 adventure brings Bond into the present day. It is the 4th of May, two days before the coronation of King Charles III and the world's favourite spy has his work cut out for him. Bond is sent at the last minute to thwart an attempt to disrupt the Coronation by the wealthy, eccentric and self-styled Athelstan of Wessex, who is on a deadly mission of his own to teach the United Kingdom a lesson. Can Bond dismantle his shady plans and defeat his privately hired team of mercenaries?

It is the 4th of May, two days before the Coronation of King Charles III and the world’s favourite spy has his work cut out for him. Bond is sent at the last minute to thwart an attempt to disrupt the Coronation by the wealthy, eccentric and self-styled Athelstan of Wessex, who is on a deadly mission of his own to teach the United Kingdom a lesson. Can Bond dismantle his shady plans and defeat his privately hired team of mercenaries?

Everything you want from a Bond story is in there – sex, violence, cars, a colourful villain with a nasty henchman, and of course, Bond himself, so well-known and yet so unknowable,” Higson added.

My criticism isn’t about Higson competing with Fleming but if you take any of the IF short stories, Octopussy, Living Daylights, Quantum, these are spectacular character pieces, brilliantly original, they do not follow a traditional Bond formula and they are all short stories as what was intended by Higson. What he has done by using the perceived typical plot of a Bond novel actually reads more like fan fiction or what someone who hasn’t read Fleming would think a Bond novel should be. After watching an interview with the author on the ‘Bond Experience’ YouTube channel and having a Bondian way to celebrate the coronation, I was very excited to add this book to my collection, unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations. Ian Fleming Publications had commissioned Young Bond series author Charlie Higson to write the new Bond adventure, which has hit shelves today.The original plan was for royalties to support The Prince’s Trust and Camilla’s Reading Room literacy charity, but Higson’s regicidal plot – featuring a wealthy, eccentric and anti-‘woke’ wannabe king called Athelstan of Wessex, allegedly a descendent of Alfred the Great – ruled out an official tie-in. The idea originally was to do a longish short story, perhaps 10,000 words, with a month to write it. I thought it would be such a fun idea,” he says. One fatal mistake IMO is Higson basing his entire story around the idea of a ‘Bond formula’ rather than coming up with something original and putting his own stamp on it. I genuinely believe his own voice and ideas would have made for a far more interesting story.