The Man with the Golden Gun novel has been a controversial, speculative subject since its publication in 1965, the year after Ian Fleming died. Supposedly, since Fleming died before completing the final draft manuscript, the novel was edited and finished by other writers before its publication. Kingsley Amis often has received credit for either completing or editing The Man with the Golden Gun, but that has been denied by several sources, including Andrew Lycett in the biography Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, claiming Fleming had finished it and that it was subsequently read and edited only by William Plomer, Fleming’s editor.

John Cork, co-author of James Bond: The Legacy (and producer of the documentaries included to the Special Edition DVDs of the James Bond films) also claims that Fleming had finished it and that he, Cork, saw the original, un-edited typescript — although he admits Amis had read it and had offered ideas that went unimplemented. The introduction to the Titan Books reprint edition of the Colonel Sun comic strip explicitly describes the Golden Gun manuscript as unfinished at Fleming’s death, crediting Plomer with polishing it to publication standard; also, the book supports Cork’s account that Amis’s involvement was restricted to unimplemented manuscript suggestions.

That Fleming reportedly was writing another James Bond novel or short story at the time of his death (excerpts from which can be found in John Pearson’s The Life of Ian Fleming and the 007forever.com website) adds credence to the idea that Fleming felt the novel was finished, however, these fragments may pre-date his writing of The Man with the Golden Gun. In the New Statesman, after the novel’s release, Amis called it “a sadly empty tale, empty of the interests and effects that for better or worse, Ian Fleming made his own.” Perhaps, due to the rumours of ghostwriters and revisions, some sources have suggested that the novel was some sort of “lost” manuscript; this is untrue.