"Some Are Born Great" "Some Are Born Great" by
Johanna Harwood, credited as J.M. Harwood, was first published in '
Nursery World on 3 September 1959. It was reprinted in
Now & Then (
Jonathan Cape's in-house magazine) in spring 1960, and
Movie Classics in 2012. The story, which is less than a page in length, details an intense card game with Bond facing off against an unseen opponent, only to reveal in the end that it's a game of
Snap and this is a prepubescent Bond playing against a nanny. Harwood subsequently co-wrote the first two James Bond films,
Dr. No and
From Russia With Love.
"Holmes Meets 007" "Holmes Meets 007", written by Donald Stanley, was first published in
The San Francisco Examiner on 29 November 1964. The story is narrated by
Dr. John Watson,
Sherlock Holmes' assistant. M and Bond visit Holmes and Watson at Holmes' Baker Street address. Holmes' deductive abilities impress M, who wishes Bond had the same talent. Bond questions if such intuitive talents could hold up against a
SMERSH assassin. Bond confronts Holmes about the latter's
drug addiction and accuses Watson of being the source of Holmes' narcotics supplier. Once Holmes admits it, Bond aims his Walther PPF [sic] at Watson and announces that Watson is an impostor, and none other than Bond's arch-enemy
Ernst Stavro Blofeld - the man who killed Bond's wife
Tracy. Holmes throughout the meeting has been fiddling his
Stradivarius - much to everyone's annoyance - and brings it crashing down, knocking Bond's gun away. Holmes plunges a needle containing
morphine into M's arm, quickly rendering him unconscious. Holmes reveals that M is none other than
Professor Moriarty; Bond is nothing more than a "fairly ignorant tool" who had been unaware of his boss's treachery all this time. The Beaune Press (San Francisco) published 247
numbered seven-page copies in December 1967. Copy 222 was numbered
221B, while copies 223–247 were numbered I–XXV.
"Toadstool" The Harvard Lampoon, responsible for the Bond spoof
Alligator, published another "J*mes B*nd" story. "Toadstool" appeared in
PL*YB*Y, the 1966
Harvard Lampoon parody of
Playboy magazine.
"License to Hug" "License to Hug", written by
Will Self, was first published in
Esquire on November 1995. Bond goes to Holland to kill an
IRA hitman involved in
drug smuggling. This story, part thriller, part satire on modern life, also mentions Bond by name and code number. Sorrell Kerbel notes that "Self proves just as adept at skewering by mimicry the stiff upper lip style and macho substance of Ian Fleming's James Bond books as he is at pillorying the brave new world of
political correctness (with its very own
thought police) in which the 'Therapeutic Hug and Stroke' is the weapon of choice."
"Your Deal, Mr. Bond" The title piece of Phillip and Robert King's 2002 collection of
bridge-related short stories, "Your Deal, Mr. Bond" features a James Bond who is assigned by M to defeat a villain named Saladin. Bond impersonates real-life bridge expert
Zia Mahmood in order to combat Saladin at the bridge table. The short story includes bridge game charts in a similar fashion to that used by Ian Fleming in
Moonraker, in which Bond similarly plays a high-stakes game of bridge against that novel's villain. The book, despite being issued by a major publisher and containing undisguised references to the Bond characters, contains no reference to
Ian Fleming Publications, suggesting the use of Bond, M and Miss Moneypenny is unofficial, and rendering this story likely apocryphal. Its placement in the Bond canon, therefore, is unknown. The story contains a cultural reference to
Star Trek, however, which sets it outside of Fleming's timeline. It should not be confused with the 1987
John Gardner Bond novel,
No Deals, Mr. Bond. The authors previously wrote a similar book in 1996:
Farewell, My Dummy, which likewise featured several novellas about bridge, each parodying a different author:
Jeffrey Archer,
Jane Austen,
Raymond Chandler,
Arthur Conan Doyle and
Victor Mollo.
Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond On 1 January 2015, the original Ian Fleming novels and short stories entered the
public domain in
Canada and other countries in which the length of copyright remains at the
Berne Convention minimum of the life of the author plus 50 years. As a result, it is now legal in those countries for the original writings of Ian Fleming to be republished, or adapted into other media, without permission of the Fleming estate or its agent, Ian Fleming Publications (formerly known as Gildrose Publications). It is also now legal in those countries for original material based on Bond and other characters and concepts introduced in Fleming's written works (though not those elements that are unique to Eon Production's Bond movies) to be published. In late 2015, independent Canadian publishing house ChiZine Publications released
Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond, an anthology of 19 Bond short stories written by various Canadian and non-Canadian authors including
Jeffrey Ford,
Charles Stross,
A.M. Dellamonica,
James Alan Gardner,
Corey Redekop,
Jacqueline Baker,
Richard Lee Byers,
Laird Barron,
Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer,
Karl Schroeder,
Claude Lalumiere,
Robert Wiersema, and
Ian Rogers. The stories examine different stages of the character's life from childhood to old age. The book's introduction states explicitly that due to copyright issues, it is not authorized for sale outside Canada. Thus, while the stories within have been collected, they remain unpublished officially outside Canada as of 2023. ==See also==