KEY POINTS:
There's A new James Bond novel out. It's called Devil May Care. It is written by "Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming".
He is writing "as Ian Fleming" because Ian Fleming died in 1964 which means that, unlike in rap music when Tupac Shakur can go on
releasing CDs for years after he's karked it, apparently writing spy thriller novels still requires a live person to be doing the business. Which is why I am putting up my hand to write the next "as Ian Fleming" James Bond novel.
Now, I fully realise I am no Sebastian Faulks and I will never ever write anything as good as Birdsong in my life, but I still feel I have one qualification to write an "as Ian Fleming" novel that Sebastian Faulks doesn't: James Bond has the same first name as me. I am not kidding about this.
Having the same first name as Bond has, I think, added considerably to my cool factor across my life. Of course, not being cool at all means that pretty much anything and everything adds to my cool factor, but that is beside the point. (Except, perversely, when trying to cash in on having the same first name as Bond, when introducing yourself as "Griffin, James Griffin". This is not cool - it makes you sound like a total plonker.)
So having established my credentials to write a James Bond novel, all I need to do now is come up with a setting, plot, characters and all the other stuff you need. Like exotic locations. You can't have a Bond novel without exotic locations and I figure that because New Zealand is so far away from everything, we're pretty exotic to everyone who doesn't actually live here.
Also, if I set my novel in New Zealand, I might get a Creative New Zealand grant. The next thing I need for my James Bond novel is an evil organisation, hell-bent on global domination. Mine will be called the Forces Of Nastiness, Terror, Evil, Revenge and Ruthlessness Associated (F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A.). It will be a shadowy, all-powerful organisation of dairy farmers whose friendly public face hides some dastardly plan which involves dominating the globe.
In previous Bond epics the evil organisation has tried to have its evil way with the world via things like nuclear or chemical weapons; or stealing all the gold in Fort Knox. In my Bond novel, in keeping with the exotic locales of New Zealand, F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A is trying to control the world via cheese.
What it is planning to do is to add an addictive substance to cheese so that, within weeks, the world will be hooked on cheese and all human beings will be willing to pay whatever vastly over-inflated price F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A decides to charge for cheese, just to get their daily taste of colby. But what F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A doesn't know is that my James Bond will be lactose intolerant, so he never eats cheese - not even really exquisite expensive French cheeses, let alone a 1kg block of tasty.
Thus he is immune to the drug in the cheese because he doesn't eat it - nor does he suffer from flatulence, which makes him even cooler. There will be a chapter in the book where the head F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A baddie tries to get Bond to eat cheese while he's explaining the organisation's dastardly plot, but Bond will escape in the nick of time by using one of the cool gadgets Q gives him at the beginning of the book.
There will be heaps of cool gadgets in my book but I haven't thought of them yet. I'll probably figure out what I need as I go along, then go back and put them in later. I have, however, thought a lot about the Bond girl with the double-entendre name and the cool car, both of which are vital to any Bond story.
The girl is Getya Gearov, a Dalmatian cheese biologist from West Auckland; and the car is a Massey Ferguson tractor with rockets and all manner of cool things that shoot or explode other things - like the evil robotic cows F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A has guarding its top-secret lab/fortress underneath Rangitoto.
The plot will involve something to do with Bond having to inject all the cows in New Zealand with an antidote to the addictive substance before the timer ticks down to zero and F.O.N.T.E.R.R.A floods the market with cheap cheese just to get everyone in the world hooked.
The how and why isn't as important as the fact that both James - Bond and Griffin - are on to a winner. The publishing queue forms here.