In 1967, Glidrose Publications authorised publication of 003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior written under the pseudonym RD Mascott. The book was written for young-adult readers, and chronicles the adventures of 007’s nephew (despite the inaccurate title). To this day the real author of the novel has never been acknowledged or confirmed by the Ian Fleming Estate. According to the reference work The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson, there are claims that Mascott was really Arthur Calder-Marshall, but Lane and Simpson indicate no definitive proof has yet been uncovered.

In 1991 an animated television series, James Bond Jr, ran for 65 episodes. The series chronicled the adventures of James Bond’s nephew, James Bond Jr. The use of “Jr” in the character’s name was unusual in that this naming convention is generally reserved for sons as opposed to nephews and other indirect offspring. Alternatively, it has been proposed that Fleming’s James Bond had a brother, also named James Bond, who is the father of James Bond Jr. The series was mildly successful and spawned six novelisations published in 1992 by John Peel writing as John Vincent, a 12 issue comic book series by Marvel Comics published in 1992, as well as a video game.

Soveits were often the villains in Fleming’s Cold War-era novels in at least some form. In 1968, they hit back with a spy novel of their own called Avakoum Zahov vs 07 by Andrei Gulyashki, in which a communist hero finally and forcefully defeats 007.

In addition to numerous fan fiction pieces written since the character was created, there have been two stories written by well-known authors claiming to have been contracted by Glidrose. The first in 1966, was Per Fine Ounce by Geoffrey Jenkins, a friend of Ian Fleming who claimed to have developed with Fleming a diamond-smuggling storyline similar to Diamonds Are Forever as early as the 1950s. According to the book The Bond Files, soon after Ian Fleming died, Glidrose Productions commissioned Jenkins to write a James Bond novel. The novel was never published. Some sources have suggested that Jenkins novel was to be published under the Markham pseudonym.

The second story, 1985’s The Killing Zone by Jim Hatfield goes so far as to have been privately published as well as claim on the cover that it was published by Glidrose; however it is highly unlikely that Glidrose contacted Hatfield to write a novel since at the time John Gardner was the official author. The text of The Killing Zone is available on the Internet.

In 1997, the British publisher BT Batsford produced Your Deal, Mr Bond, a collection of bridge-related short stories by Phillip King and Robert King. The title story features James Bond, M, and other characters and features an epic bridge game between Bond and the villain, Saladin. No credit is given to Ian Fleming Publications, suggesting this rare story may have been unauthorised; a photo of Sean Connery as Bond is featured on the cover of the book.

In Clive Cussler’s novel, Night Probe!, there is a character named Brian Shaw, whom the hero, Dirk Pitt suspects to be James Bond. Brian Shaw’s choice of pistol, a .25 calibre, echoes that of James Bond’s preference for the .25 calibre Beretta. Shaw’s old office was located in Regent Park, and he was supposed to have been on SMERSH’s hit list.

Lance Parkin’s Doctor Who novel Trading Futures features a Bond-like character named Jonah Cosgrove, described by the author thus: “Cosgrove is (and I mean ‘is’ here in the very precise, non-trademark violating, sense of the word) the Sean Connery Bond, but one who never retired and who’s been a secret agent for fifty years. So he’s about eighty, and all the time he’s just been piling on more muscles and getting more wrinkled, and ever more set in his ways and bitter and anachronistic. He’s Sean Connery in The Rock, as drawn by Frank Miller, and by now he’s been promoted to M.”

Robert Sheckley’s 1965 novel The Game of X is about a bumbling man who pretends he is a spy and is chased by villains who believe that he is a real secret agent. In one scene, he is rescued from the villains by a real secret agent who is not named but seems to be James Bond.

See also:

• Bond novels
• Bond novels: Ian Fleming
• Bond novels: Post-Ian Fleming
• Bond-related books
• Ian Fleming Publications