James Bond, the print series, continues. Sebastian Faulks is writing Devil May Care, which continues the franchise. Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, acquired the US rights from agent Gillon Aitken of Aitken Alexander Associates. The book was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications, Ltd., and Doubleday plans to publish it on 28 May 2008, which would have been Fleming’s 100th birthday (Penguin will publish it simultaneously in the UK). Doubleday’s vice president and editorial director Deb Futter will edit the book.
Faulks said he tried to write Devil May Care as Fleming might have. “My novel is meant to stand in the line of Fleming’s own books, where the story is everything.” The book is set, like Fleming’s last Bond novel, the 1966 Octopussy and the Living Daylights, during the Cold War with the action taking place in exotic locales across the globe.
Faulks is not the first non-Fleming to write a James Bond novel: others include Kingsley Amis and John Gardner. Faulks next novel,
Faulks’s current novel, Engleby, was published in England last month, and will be released by Doubleday in September. The British Arts Council has a full biography of him on this page, and his author page on the Random House web site is at this link.