James Bonds

Long ago, I was in high school.  Not the greatest intro to this post, but that’s when this character first arrived.  You can guess the inspiration.  If ‘Immortal Wars’ came from my love of superheroes and sci-fi, ‘Mylrix’ came from fantasy, and ‘Sin’ came Legend of Zelda then this one came from the oddball interest.  James Bond!

You see, I didn’t get into the James Bond movies until high school when my parents rented ‘Goldeneye’.  I was amazed at the action, humor, and colorful characters.  I began watching the older ones whenever I could find them, which lead to me wanting to write my own spy novels.  Of course, it’s the kind of spy who everyone seems to know the identity of and blows up half a city by the time he’s done.  Mostly, I wanted to write action scenes with modern weapons and high risks.  You didn’t get that when you were working with either fantasy or immortals.  Guess this series was my earliest ‘Bedlam’ deviation.

Well, I had a blast designing him and added him to a crossover series as well.  I even tried to play him in a superhero role-playing game, which failed horribly.  All of the superpowered characters began threatening each other and trying to fight, so the story never got off the ground.  It was a shame because that version gave me a great idea of the spy’s abilities if he started with enough training.  This was also the beginning of his slide into mental obscurity.

I jumped entirely into fantasy and began merging my worlds into Windemere.  It was easy for the vampires and other fantasy worlds to carry over.  The superheroes are doable even if they still give me issues.  The alien bounty hunter is a possibility with some stretching unless I leave her alone.  Even the magic-based cowgirl has been transferred over.  The spy . . . It was that damn gun and dependence on high tech.  Not only for his actions, but his stories.  I had bizarre missiles, space adventures, computer viruses, motorcycle chases, and a wild array of tools for every adventure.  For some reason, it never seemed to work when I had him do it with magic.  Just didn’t feel natural for him.

The result was that I began harvesting him.  Slapped his name on another character.  Gave his appearance to another.  It really hurt to cannibalize him for other series.  That might be why I kept going back and gave myself some outs.  Deep down, I knew I wanted him to come back.  His name always ended up on the list of projects too.  Little did I know it would take about 15 years for things to snap into place.

You see, I wanted a good foil for Sin when he showed up in the Sister Cities during ‘The Ether Thief’.  I needed someone fast and cunning with a range weapon, but also one that could see through most of his tricks.  Another thief didn’t fit the bill because I wanted them on the other side of the law.  This brought my spy back into action along with the creation of the Peacekeepers:

This is the group who protects the Sister Cities of Serab.  This would be Gaia, Spellstream, Freedom, Everthorne, Nevra Coil, and Gods’ Voice.  Peacekeepers are a special force of agents who are sent to investigate suspicious activity with the direct orders of the Serabian Duke.  They use six-shooters, which makes them the only groups who are able to use firearms in Windemere.  The technology is heavily restricted by magic and the gods, who can erase it if they feel it’s getting out of hand.  This is done through bullets dissolving within seconds of being fired, pistols exploding if they are touched by the wrong person, and memory wipes on anyone who retires.  It felt like this was a place where my spy could thrive.

Of course, I didn’t think I’d give him his own series until I finished outlining all of ‘The Ether Thief’.  I saw an opening to give him a spin-off.  Without going into spoilers, I found a way to give him a 6 book (1 for each main movie Bond) series like he used to have.  Took me 2 weeks to pour through the old adventures and come up with fantasy equivalents for the threats.  I’m going to keep these simple too with each one being only 14 chapters.  I just want to have fun writing this and hopefully people will enjoy it.  Won’t be something I write for a long time.  All I have right now are characters and the titles:

1. Arctic Heart
2. Narcissist Way
3. Void Contagion
4. Rage Balance
5. Greed Drive
6. Chamber Chase

Hopefully, I can get it all outlined by the summer.  It’s what I do when I have a free period during work.  So, it might take a while.