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The next James Bond continuation novel will be called Solo, its author William Boyd revealed today at London Book Fair.
Boyd is author of the day on this opening day of the 2013 Fair, and said the title reflects the fact that Bond will go off on a "self-appointed mission of his own" in his novel, which takes in three continents, "with the main focus honing in on Africa". It will be published by Jonathan Cape on 26th September in the UK.
Boyd said: "Sometimes less is more. For me as a novelist the simple beauty of Solo as the title of the next James Bond novel is that this short four-letter word is particularly and strikingly apt for the novel I have written. In my novel, events conspire to make Bond go off on a self-appointed mission of his own, unannounced and without any authorisation-and he's fully prepared to take the consequences of his audacity.
"The journey Bond goes on takes in three continents—with the main focus honing in on Africa. It's what happens to Bond in Africa that generates his urge to 'go solo' and take matters into his own hands in the USA."
Boyd added that he saw the potential of the word "Solo" as soon as he had written it down. He said: "Not only did it fit the theme of the novel perfectly, it's also a great punchy word, instantly and internationally comprehensible, graphically alluring and, as an extra bonus, it's strangely Bondian in the sense that we might be subliminally aware of the '00' of '007' lurking just behind those juxtaposed O's of 'Solo'."
HarperCollins will publish the book in Canada and the US on 8th October.