(1908-1964) UK writer, brother of Peter Fleming; he spent World War Two working for UK naval intelligence, and it may be the depth of his personal knowledge gave him the imaginative freedom to create his great mythic hero. Neither the occasional use of advanced technological gadgetry nor the chthonic and fantastic plots of his enormously successful James Bond sequence of thrillers, of course, makes them genuine sf. The closest any of them comes to a full sf plot is in Moonraker (1955), whose eponymous rocket is rather ahead of its time. Dr No (1958), a Technothriller involving radio interference with US missile tests, has a Chinese Yellow Peril figure as its titular Mad Scientist villain. Most of Fleming's novels have been filmed, usually with additional sf-like gadgetry and completely reworked plots. The first of these films was Dr No (1962); You Only Live Twice (1967) featured Bond crushing an attempt at world domination which involved the kidnapping of orbital satellites. Moonraker (1979) involves an orbital satellite and the Space Shuttle. [JC/PN/DRL]
see also: Islands; Villains.
Ian Lancaster Fleming
born London: 28 May 1908
died Canterbury, Kent: 12 August 1964
works
- Moonraker
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1955) [hb/Kenneth Lewis] - Dr No (London: Jonathan Cape, 1958) [hb/Pat Marriott]
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