I’m delighted to announce that I have signed a contract with McFarland Books to research and write “Too Many Bonds: The Making of Casino Royale ’67” (provisional title).
This will be the story of the strangest James Bond film ever made where the behind-the-scenes drama eclipsed the on-screen. We aim to get the book out around the film’s 60th anniversary in spring 2027.
I’ll be posting updates on the progress of the project in the monthly James Bond Lexicon newsletter, which you can subscribe to HERE.
If you enjoy the occasional blog posts here on my website, or would just like to keep up with what I’m working on, my thoughts on various books, movies, comics and more I now have a weekly newsletter that will provide all of that.
Can’t See The Forest is a new newsletter available on Substack, or direct to your email InBox with a FREE subscription.
Each week the newsletter will have one or more stories or updates inspired by what I’ve been working on, or things that have caught my attention during the week.
They will fall (sometimes loosely) into one or more of the following categories.
Brabazon Bits – updates and side notes while working on the “Bristol Brabazon: Lost Airliner of the Skies” book
Pages and Screens – Thoughts on things read and watched
Word Slinging – Updates on various writing projects
Podcast Procrastinations – Updates on my adventures in podcasting
Weekly Web Round-up – Summary of stuff I’ve inflicted on the internet over the previous seven days.
You can check it out and sign up for a FREE SUBSCRIPTION just by clicking HERE
After two years of work, the completed manuscript for my upcoming book on the majestic Bristol Brabazon is now in the hands of the publisher. They will work their magic to turn my prose into something we can hold in our hands and flick through actual pages.
Assuming everything goes to schedule Bristol Brabazon: The Ocean Liner of the Skies and its Ongoing Legacy will be published on 30 MAY 2025 in the UK and 30 JULY 2025 in the US.
It’s new book time with the launch of GALLOPING AROUND THE COSMOS – a fun collection of recollections of first encounters with STAR TREK from a fine collection of today’s grown-up kids.
My own small contribution looks back at what it was like to discover the final frontier in the colorful pages of British comics six months before the show actually aired on the BBC.
This weekend, August 4 – 6, it’s time for return visit to one of my favorite conventions, ArmamdilloCon right here in Austin, TX.
Come along and escape the heat and join me for the following sessions:
Friday, August 4th
Starship Smackdown – 4pm
Saturday, August 5th
Signing session – 11:00am
The MCU: What Was Phase IV? What Is Phase V? – 1:00pm
Writing for Existing Franchises – 2:00pm
Reading – 4:30pm
Insert Archvillain Here – 8:00pm
The Panel With No Subject – 9:00pm
Sunday, August 6th
60 Years of Doctor Who – 10:00am
AI Will Murder Us All In Our Beds – 1:00pm
This year we will also be set up in the Dealers Room where we will have a great selection of books, paperbacks, and graphic novels for sale under our FOREST COMICS & BOOKS banner. So stop by and pick up a few bargains to sustain your reading habit over the weekend.
It seems that I get around to doing these “Books That Made Me” posts on an infrequent basis. Well, this is the final one in the series and we round out the journey through my reading habits with some interesting choices.
If you want to check out the previous entries before we dive in you can find them here:
We kick this final round off with a real blast from the past –
My Earliest Reading Memory.
That’s very difficult to pinpoint accurately as there were always books around when I was growing up, but one book stands apart from the others in my memory. Tootles The Taxi.
A classic British children’s rhyming book from the always reliable Ladybird Books. I blame this slim volume for my life-long fascination with motor vehicles. There was something about the sequence of short rhymes, each dedicated to a particular type of vehicle that really stuck with me. And I always found the drawings of the anthropomorphic cars and trucks with their smiling faces comforting (funny how decades later I came back to that with my work on the CARS comics series – that connection only just occurred to me.) I have a more modern edition on the bookcase that my amazing wife bought for me one Christmas, but it’s that original early mid-1950s edition shown above that I’ve always remembered.
A Book I Think is Underrated
I’m not sure how the follow-up book to a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel can be “underrated,’ but Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr seems to one that is flying under most people’s radar – until they’ve read it. And then they just keep talking about it. We had a copy sitting on the table in our library for a year before I got around to reading it (despite Gill’s numerous hints that I should pick it up), but once I did I was blown away by it.
The best I can do is quote my own book review on Instagram.:
Simply put, this is one of the most brilliantly written and intricately plotted novels I’ve ever read. An absolute masterpiece in storytelling. I’ve never ploughed through a 600 page work of fiction so quickly. I felt a pang each time I had to step away from its pages to go do something else.
On the surface it’s a multi-plot story of the 15th century siege of Constantinople, a small town library in contemporary Idaho, and the inhabitants of a generational starship whose lives and fates are all interlinked by an Ancient Greek text.
Reach beneath that surface and it’s an examination of the impact of technology, the misuse of power, and social engineering. For the characters it’s a tale of self-discovery, hope, desire, family, trust, hope, and redemption all pulled together by a common thread of conjunction, coincidence, and connections.
But above all this is a book about the power and lasting legacy of books and storytelling.
I’ve just recommended this to the fellow members of my book club – who again seemed unaware of its existence – and it will be our June selection. I’ll be interested to see what they make of it.
My Comfort Read
I didn’t have a moment’s hesitation in picking this book, and it seems a suitable one on which to round out this series. There’s only one book I pick up to reread on a regular basis every three to four years. It’s been a constant source of inspiration, wonder, and yes, comfort ever since I first read it during my college days.
Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterpiece – DUNE.
And unlike Tootles The Taxi, I still have my original copy.
Excited to be able to announce that I’ve been engaged as the Consultant Historian for a new Beatles tribute band project.
This won’t be your typical Beatles tribute band of mop-top pretenders. Focused on the music of the Hamburg and Cavern days of 1961-1963, these are your proto-punk, leather-clad, rock-n-rollers, The Savage Young Beatles.
The Savage Young Beatles will make their US debut at the upcoming Abbey Road on the River festival, where I’ll also be attending as a guest.
Over thirty years ago I started my first job out of college as a Technical Writer at British Aerospace’s airfield located in Filton just to the north of the city of Bristol in the southwest of England.
The then Head of Technical Publications, and my new boss had a large framed picture that hung on his office wall. It was of a large majestic silver aircraft flying low over some building, and a strange misshapen tree, clearly coming in to land nearby. I thought I knew my aircraft types, having been interested in most things mechanical and transport related since early childhood, but I’d never seen this one before. “It’s the Brabazon landing at the Farnborough airshow in 1949.”
I wanted to know more, and over the following few years, I would ask questions about the Brabazon whenever I got the chance. It also didn’t take me long to appreciate just how big the Brabazon had been, for the massive three-bay hanger on the airfield was referred to by everyone as “The Brab Hanger.” Clearly, it had been associated with the project, and on one walk through the hanger on the way to a meeting on the other side of the airfield, I asked how many Brabazon’s could fit in each bay, as after all, I could see multiple aircraft in the bay on that particular day. The answer of “one” made me understand that this had been a true giant of the skies.
When my boss retired I inherited his role as Head of the Technical Publications department, and his office with the Brabazon picture on the wall. With most of our work at that time focused on the Airbus program, specifically the upcoming launch of the A320, we were looking ahead to the future. We still did some work supporting older aircraft that were still in service, such as Concorde, and the BAC 1-11 airliners, plus some military contract work., but no one had any time for talking about the past.
One day walking across the airfield I came across a dumpster and noticed a thick blue book sticking out of the top. It looked like an aircraft manual, and as that was my department’s responsibility I pulled it out to see what it was. I found myself holding a copy of the Handling and Servicing Notes for the Brabazon Mark 1.
There weren’t any Brabazon manuals in the Technical Publications archives (I’d already looked) so I assumed this had come from someone clearing out an office. I asked around. No one knew where it had originated, and no one cared. I talked to a few executives and was told “Keep it if you want, it’s only a curiosity now.” So I did. It still sits in my home office today.
During my investigations into the source of my find, I kept hearing the same things. “It was a failed project,” “No one’s interested,” “What’s past is past,” and similar sentiments. In fact, a detailed company history published at the time only gave the Brabazon a cursory and somewhat dismissive mention. But while on the surface this magnificent giant of the skies may have been a failure, I knew that it had shaped the very structure of the facility where I worked, and without it, we wouldn’t have been working on Concorde or Airbus projects.
This aircraft needed its story to be told. Now 30 plus years later I’m going to tell that story, thanks to Pen & Sword Books
I am now in the early stages of writing “Lost Airline of the Skies: The Remarkable Story of the Bristol Brabazon and its Legacy” to be published by Pen & Sword under its Air World imprint – provisionally scheduled for 2025. I’m excited to be diving into the research around this unique aircraft and the people who designed, built, and flew her.
The ancient sages say, “Do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon.” So may one just man become an army.
So began the opening narration of one of my favorite TV shows growing up. The BBC’s English-dubbed version of a Japanese TV show that adapted a classic Chinese martial arts tale. The Water Margin.
I was honored to be asked by editor Jim Beard to contribute to his volume of essays looking back on those childhood Japanese TV shows and immediately thought of penning a few words about The Water Margin.
My essay “Nine Dozen Heroes,” can be found in the recently released RISING SUN RERUNS anthology, along with the reflections and memories of several other pop-culture writers about their favorite Japanese shows.
Rising Sun Reruns: Memories of Japanese TV Shows from Today’s Grown-Up Kids
So let’s get back to it and answer the next couple of questions on the list.
The Book I’m Ashamed Not to Have Read
That’s an interesting question. As much as I read (usually around 100 books a year), I know I’ll never get around to reading everything I want to read, never mind something that others think I should have read. Actually, I never take any notice of those articles and lists outlining what you “should” read. Read what you want because you want to not because someone else says you should. So is there any book I’m ashamed not to have read? No.
But there are books in my to-read stack (currently numbering just a little under 500 volumes) that have been hanging around for several years and I get the occasional twinge of guilt that I haven’t picked them up yet. Let’s pick two; one fiction and one non-fiction.
Several years ago I worked alongside a Russian colleague who knew of my interest in Sherlock Holmes and would tell me stories about the character he felt was the closest Russian equivalent, Erast Fandorin. One day he gifted me this volume suggesting that as it was set around the same time as one of my Holmes stories, 1905, I might enjoy it. – I was delighted and humbled, but I’m afraid that it has sat on my shelf for at least seven years now and I still haven’t got around to picking it up. – And Dimitri, if you’re reading this, one day I will read it. I promise.
This has been on the shelf for around the same amount of time as I purchased i on a trip back to the UK in 2015. I must admit I picked it up while browsing the history section in a Waterstones book store for one reason alone – the title. The book was shelved in the bookcase in our guest room, and I think it’s become a victim of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. But given the fact that I’ve spent a considerable amount of my professional career working alongside French colleagues, I really should give it a read at some point – just to see if it lives up to the, what I hope is, tongue-in-cheek, humor of the title.
The Book I Give as a Gift
My first reaction to this question was that I don’t have a specific book that I give as a gift. Each Christmas we gift books to each member of the family and try and make sure they are a good match for the individual. There isn’t anyone title that we’ve repeatedly gifted.
But then I thought about this question from a different angle and there is one book that I’ve bought for others on a regular basis, rather than loan them my copy (which is a rather fragile first edition), and that is Watchmen.
I read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s now iconic series when it was first published as a twelve-issue monthly comic. I picked up the first UK trade paperback edition (the one that is now falling apart from being re-read so many times), and I also have a nice hardback edition that I was lucky enough to get Dave Gibbons to sign for me. So if talk ever talks to Watchmen, and it’s surprising how often conversations around comics and graphic novels do, and I’m asked if I have a copy that someone could take a look at, my answer is “Yes I have a copy,” and “I’ll happily buy you one to try.”
Alan J. Porter - Writer 