1.
Anthony Horowitz
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Anthony Horowitz, OBE is an English novelist and screenwriter specialising in mystery and suspense. His work for young adult readers includes The Diamond Brothers series, the Alex Rider series and his work for adults includes the novel and play Mindgame, and two Sherlock Holmes novels The House of Silk and Moriarty. He is the most recent author chosen to write a James Bond novel by the Ian Fleming estate and he has also written for television, contributing scripts to ITVs Agatha Christies Poirot and Midsomer Murders. He was the creator and writer of the ITV series Foyles War, Collision, Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, into a wealthy Jewish family, and in his early years lived an upper-middle class lifestyle. As an overweight and unhappy child, Horowitz enjoyed reading books from his fathers library, at the age of 8, Horowitz was sent to Orley Farm, a boarding preparatory school in Harrow, Middlesex. There, he entertained his peers by telling them the stories he had read, Horowitz described his time in the school as a brutal experience, recalling that he was often beaten by the headmaster. At age 13 he went on to Rugby School, a school in Rugby, Warwickshire. Horowitzs mother introduced him to Frankenstein and Dracula and she also gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. Horowitz said in an interview that it him to get to the end of each story since he will soon look like the skull. From the age of 8, Horowitz knew he wanted to be a writer and he graduated from the University of York with a lower second class degree in English literature and art history in 1977, where he was in Vanbrugh College. In at least one interview, Horowitz claims to believe that H. P. Lovecraft based his fictional Necronomicon on a real text, Horowitzs father was associated with some of the politicians in the circle of prime minister Harold Wilson, including Eric Miller. Facing bankruptcy, he moved his assets into Swiss numbered bank accounts and he died from cancer when his son Anthony was 22, and the family was never able to track down the missing money despite years of trying. Horowitz now lives in Central London with his wife Jill Green, Green produced Foyles War, the series Horowitz wrote for ITV. He credits his family with much of his success in writing, as he says they help him with ideas and he is a patron of child protection charity Kidscape. Anthony Horowitzs first book, The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, was an adventure for children, published in 1979. In 1981 his second novel, Misha, the Magician and the Mysterious Amulet was published, in 1983 the first of the Pentagram series, The Devils Door-Bell, was released. This story saw Martin Hopkins battling an ancient evil that threatened the whole world, only three of four remaining stories in the series were ever written, The Night of the Scorpion, The Silver Citadel and Day of the Dragon. In 1985 he released Myths and Legends, a collection of tales from around the world
2.
Orion Publishing
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Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It is owned by Hachette Livre, the groups imprints include, Allen & Unwin Cassell Military Paperbacks Cassells National Library J. M. Books distributed through Littlehampton book services, list of largest UK book publishers UK childrens book publishers Orionbooks. co. uk
3.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
4.
Ian Fleming
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Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva and his wartime service and his career as a journalist provided much of the background, detail and depth of the James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952 and it was a success, with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two short-story collections followed between 1953 and 1966, the novels revolved around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his number,007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the series of fictional books of all time. Fleming also wrote the childrens story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction, in 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Fleming was married to Ann Charteris, who was divorced from the second Viscount Rothermere owing to her affair with the author, Fleming and Charteris had a son, Caspar. Fleming was a smoker and drinker for most of his life. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously, other writers have since produced Bond novels, Flemings creation has appeared in film twenty-six times, portrayed by seven actors. Ian Fleming was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair and his mother was Evelyn St Croix Rose, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910. As an infant he lived, with his family, at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. Fleming was the grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust, in 1914, with the start of the First World War, Valentine joined C Squadron, Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussars, and rose to the rank of major. He was killed by German shelling on the Western Front on 20 May 1917, because the family owned an estate at Arnisdale, Valentines death was commemorated on the Glenelg War Memorial. Flemings elder brother Peter became a writer and married actress Celia Johnson. Fleming also had two brothers, Michael and Richard, and a younger maternal half-sister born out of wedlock, cellist Amaryllis Fleming. Amaryllis was conceived during an affair between John and Evelyn that started in 1923, some six years after the death of Valentine
5.
Space Race
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The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, for supremacy in spaceflight capability. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, the Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4,1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, the race peaked with the July 20,1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them, the Space Race has left a legacy of Earth communications and weather satellites, and continuing human space presence on the International Space Station. It has also sparked increases in spending on education and research and development, the origins of the Space Race can be traced to Germany, beginning in the 1930s and continuing during World War II when Nazi Germany researched and built operational ballistic missiles. Wernher von Braun, a young engineering prodigy, was recruited by Becker and Dornberger to join their secret army program at Kummersdorf-West in 1932, von Braun dreamed of conquering outer space with rockets, and did not initially see the military value in missile technology. They led the team built the Aggregate-4 rocket, which became the first vehicle to reach outer space during its test flight program in 1942 and 1943. By 1943, Germany began mass-producing the A-4 as the Vergeltungswaffe 2 and its supersonic speed meant there was no defense against it, and radar detection provided little warning. Germany used the weapon to bombard southern England and parts of Allied-liberated western Europe from 1944 until 1945, after the war, the V-2 became the basis of early American and Soviet rocket designs. The United States also acquired a number of complete V2 rockets. The German rocket center in Peenemünde was located in the part of Germany. On Stalins orders, the Soviet Union sent its best rocket engineers to this region to see what they could salvage for future weapons systems, the Soviet rocket engineers were led by Sergei Korolev. He had been involved in clubs and early Soviet rocket design in the 1930s. After the war, he became the USSRs chief rocket and spacecraft engineer and his identity was kept a state secret throughout the Cold War, and he was identified publicly only as the Chief Designer. In the West, his name was officially revealed when he died in 1966. They were not allowed to participate in final Soviet missile design, with their help, particularly Helmut Gröttrups group, Korolev reverse-engineered the A-4 and built his own version of the rocket, the R-1, in 1948. Later, he developed his own designs, though many of these designs were influenced by the Gröttrup Groups G4-R10 design from 1949. The Germans were eventually repatriated in 1951–53 and he also started developing liquid-fueled rockets in 1921, yet he had not been taken seriously by the public
6.
Goldfinger (novel)
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Goldfinger is the seventh novel in Ian Flemings James Bond series, first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959. Goldfinger originally bore the title The Richest Man in the World and was written in January and February 1958. As well as establishing the background to the operation, Bond uncovers a much larger plot. Fleming developed the James Bond character more in Goldfinger than in the six novels, presenting him as a more complex individual. The Saint George theme is echoed by the fact that it is a British agent sorting out an American problem, upon learning of the use of his name, Goldfinger threatened to sue over the use of the name, before the matter was settled out of court. Fleming had based the character on American gold tycoon Charles W. Engelhard. Most recently, Goldfinger was adapted for BBC Radio with Toby Stephens as Bond, Fleming structured the novel in three sections—Happenstance, Coincidence and Enemy action—which was how Goldfinger described Bonds three seemingly coincidental meetings with him. Bond quickly realises that Goldfinger is indeed cheating with the aid of his assistant, Jill Masterton. Bond blackmails Goldfinger into admitting it and paying back DuPonts lost money, Bond visits the Bank of England for a briefing with Colonel Smithers on the methods of gold smuggling. Coincidence Bond contrives to meet and have a round of golf with Goldfinger, Goldfinger attempts to win the match by cheating. He is subsequently invited back to Goldfingers mansion near Reculver where he narrowly escapes being caught on camera looking over the house, Goldfinger introduces Bond to his factotum, a Korean named Oddjob. Issued by MI6 with an Aston Martin DB Mark III, Bond trails Goldfinger as he takes his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost via air ferry to Switzerland, driven by Oddjob. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where he finds that the armour of Goldfingers car is actually white-gold, cast into panels at his Kent refinery. When the car reaches Goldfingers factory in Switzerland, he recasts the gold from the panels into aircraft seats and fits them to the Mecca Charter Airline. The gold is sold in India at a vast profit. Bond foils an attempt on Goldfinger by Jill Mastertons sister, Tilly, to avenge Jills death at Goldfingers hands, he had painted her body with gold paint. Bond and Tilly attempt to escape when the alarm is raised, Enemy action Bond is tortured by Oddjob when he refuses to confess his role in trailing Goldfinger. In a desperate attempt to survive being cut in two by a saw, Bond offers to work for Goldfinger, a ruse that Goldfinger initially refuses
7.
Colonel Sun
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Colonel Sun is a novel by Kingsley Amis published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968 under the pseudonym Robert Markham. Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Flemings 1964 death, before writing the novel, Amis wrote two other Bond related works, the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. Colonel Sun centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of M, during the mission he discovers a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident. Bond, assisted by a Greek spy working for the Russians, finds M on a small Aegean island, rescues him, Amis drew upon a holiday he had taken in the Greek islands to create a realistic Greek setting and characters. He emphasised political intrigue in the more than Fleming had done in the canonical Bond novels. Despite keeping a format and structure similar to Flemings Bond novels, Colonel Sun was serialised in the Daily Express newspaper in 1968 and adapted as a comic strip in the same newspaper in 1969–1970. Chapter 19 was adapted for the scene in Spectre. Kidnappers violently take the Secret Service chief M from his house and almost capture James Bond, intent on rescuing M, Bond follows the clues to Vrakonisi, one of the Aegean Islands. In the process, Bond discovers the complex military-political plans of Colonel Sun of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, Sun had been sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference which the Soviet Union is hosting. He intends to attack the conference venue and use M and Bonds bodies to blame Great Britain for the disaster, Bond meets Soviet agents in Athens and they realise that not only is a third country behind the kidnap, but that there is a traitor in the organisation. An attack on the Soviet headquarters kills all the agents except Ariadne Alexandrou, as he is dying, the Soviet leader encourages Bond and Ariadne to work together to prevent an international incident. Ariadne persuades Litsas, a former Second World War resistance fighter and friend of her father, to help them by telling him about the involvement in the plot of former Nazi. Trying to find M and Colonel Sun, Bond is nearly captured by the Russians, Sun tortures him brutally, until one of the girls at the house is ordered by Sun to caress Bond fondly. In the process she cuts one of Bonds hands free and provides him with a knife and she tells Sun that Bond is dead, when examined Bond stabs Sun. He then frees other captives who help Bond stop Von Richter, however Sun survives the stab wound and kills several of the other escapees. Bond tracks down Sun and kills him in the confrontation, the Soviets thank Bond for saving their conference, offering him a medal for his work, which he politely turns down. The main character of the novel is James Bond, continuation Bond author Raymond Benson described Amiss Bond as a humourless interpretation of the character that Fleming used in his earlier novels. Benson describes this personality as a continuation of the Bond developed in the final three Fleming novels
8.
Devil May Care (Faulks novel)
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Devil May Care is a James Bond continuation novel written by Sebastian Faulks. It was published in the UK by Penguin Books on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming, the story centres on Bonds investigation into Dr Julius Gorner, a megalomaniac chemist with a deep-seated hatred of England. He ignored the influences of the other Bond continuation authors and the films, Faulks stated that although he enjoyed writing the book, he would write no more Bond novels. The story is set in 1967, Bond is instructed by his superior, M, to investigate a man named Dr Julius Gorner, and his bodyguard, Chagrin. Bond is warned that his performance will be monitored and that a new 00 agent is waiting in the wings if his actions go awry, Bond flies to Imperial Iran to investigate. Gorner owns factories and produces legitimate pharmaceuticals, however MI6 suspects he has other motives, the attack is to be made using a stolen British airliner, earlier hijacked over Iraqi airspace, and an ekranoplan. Bond is assisted in his investigation by Scarlett Papava, Darius Alizadeh, JD Silver, Bond would be identified as British upon its destruction, increasing the evidence against the British Government. Bond survives the predicted Afghan attack and plots an escape attempt, in the morning he is taken aboard the aeroplane. Before the airliner can bomb the Soviets, with the aid of the pilot and Scarlett, Bond regains control of the aeroplane. Meanwhile, Felix Leiter and Darius inform agent Silver of the method of attack. Silver shows himself to be an agent by failing to call in an airstrike against the Ekranoplan and by attempting to kill Leiter. In the shoot-out Darius successfully calls in the airstrike at the cost of his own life and Leiter survives only thanks to the arrival of Hamid. The Ekranoplan is destroyed by RAF Vulcan bombers before it reaches its target, Bond and Scarlett escape through Russia but are pursued by Chagrin, whom Bond finally kills on a train. Later Gorner meets him on a boat and tries to him, but Bond pushes him overboard. She turns out to be Scarlett Papava, Scarlett discloses that the story of her twin sister was a ploy to convince Bond to enable her to join the mission. Papava feared that if Bond knew she was a potential 00 agent, with Bond returning to active duty, Scarlett moves off to her own operations as a full 00 agent. The central character of the novel is James Bond, the fictional MI6 agent created by Ian Fleming, Faulks saw Bond as a man in constant peril, This Bond, this solitary hero with his soft shoes and single under-powered weapon, was a man in dreadful danger. On another occasion he returned to the theme, describing the character as a very vulnerable man, with his suit and soft shoes
9.
Sebastian Faulks
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Sebastian Charles Faulks CBE is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his novels set in France – The Girl at the Lion dOr, Birdsong. He has also published novels with a setting, most recently A Week in December. Wodehouses Jeeves series, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells and he is a team captain on BBC Radio 4 literary quiz The Write Stuff. Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire to Peter Faulks and his father was a decorated soldier, who later became a solicitor and judge. His brother Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks QC, a barrister and he was educated at Elstree School, Reading and went on to Wellington College, Berkshire. He read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he was made an Honorary Fellow in 2007, whilst at Cambridge he participated in University Challenge, in which Emmanuel College lost in the opening round. Faulks commented that his team were most probably hampered by a trip to the pub before the show, after graduating, Faulks lived in France for a year. When he returned to England he worked as a teacher at a school in Camden Town. Faulks first novel, A Trick of the Light, was published in 1984 and he continued to work as a journalist, becoming the first literary editor of The Independent in 1986. He became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday in 1989, in the year he published The Girl at the Lion dOr. In 1991 he left The Independent, and wrote for other papers. Following the success of Birdsong, Faulks quit journalism to write full-time and he has since published eight novels, the most recent being A Week in December and A Possible Life. Faulks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993, Faulks appears regularly on British TV and radio. He has been a team captain on BBC Radio 4s literary quiz The Write Stuff since 1998. Faulks can catch, and caricature, another writers fingerprints and foibles with a precision that only a deep love of writing can teach. In 2011 Faulks presented a four-part BBC Two series called Faulks on Fiction, looking at the British novel and he also wrote a series tie-in book of the same name. They have two sons, William and Arthur, born 1990 and 1996 respectively, and one daughter, Holly, Faulks is a fan of West Ham United football club
