Tag: James Bond

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Fiction Science Club

The 007 saga gets a tech upgrade for the 2020s

Kim Sherwood, author of "Double or Nothing," in an Alpine A110S sports car
Kim Sherwood checks out the driver's seat of the Alpine A110S sports car favored by her fictional Agent 003. (Photo by Rosie Sherwood)

Imagine a James Bond story with quantum computers, brain-computer interfaces, a cloud-shifting climate control system and a billionaire who owns his own launch system and satellite constellation.

Now imagine that James Bond is missing from the story.

That’s the unconventional tack taken by British author Kim Sherwood in her first-ever spy thriller, “Double or Nothing” — the kickoff to a trilogy that introduces a new cast of secret agents, plus some old favorites including M, Miss Moneypenny and CIA agent Felix Leiter.

James Bond, a.k.a. Agent 007, made his debut as the debonair MI6 spy 70 years ago in Ian Fleming’s first novel, “Casino Royale,” and went on to star in more than four dozen books and 27 movies. But “Double or Nothing” is not your grandparents’ 007 thriller.

“Ian Fleming, of course, was a product of his time, and I’m a product of mine,” Sherwood, a 33-year-old lecturer in creative writing at the University of Edinburgh, says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast.

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GeekWire

How many martinis? Bond Index tracks 007

Image: SPECTRE stars
Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux star in “SPECTRE,” the latest 007 movie. (MGM / Columbia Pictures)

Here’s a different kind of Bond index: In honor of the latest 007 movie, “SPECTRE,” Bloomberg Business tracked eight metrics across all 3,053 minutes and 33 seconds of the 24 James Bond films released over the past 53 years.

Among the highlights:

  • Bond is wearing a suit or a tuxedo for nearly 18 hours out of the total 51 hours.
  • He introduces himself as “Bond. James Bond” 26 times over the course of the 24 films.
  • He spends more than 5 percent of his on-screen time flirting, seducing or being “otherwise intimate.”
  • Pierce Brosnan’s Bond set the record for most gadgets used in a film. (16, in “Die Another Day”).
  • Bond or another character orders a total of 16 martinis for him in 24 films. That counts the controversial dirty vodka martini that Bond quaffs in “SPECTRE.”

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GeekWire

James Bond’s SPECTRE tech: 7 gadgets for 007

Image: SPECTRE
James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) checks out an Aston Martin DB10 sports car as geekmaster Q (Ben Whishaw) looks on. (Credit: MGM Pictures / Columbia Pictures / Eon Productions)

What’s a James Bond movie without gadgets? “SPECTRE,” the latest film in the decades-long series, delivers way-out innovations that aren’t yet ready for real life, tributes to classic gee-whiz-ware and a couple of high-tech twists that are ripped from the headlines.

Here are seven technological tropes to watch for when Bond goes after the shadowy crime organization known as SPECTRE.

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