Writing The Book
Prior to the release of SilverFin Charlie Higson said that Book 4 would be set in the Alps, however, the location was changed to Mexico and the Caribbean. Higson considered setting the book in North Africa, but decided against it because Ian Fleming never liked the idea of Bond going to North Africa. Unlike the other Young Bond novels, there are no scenes set at Eton College.
When asked whether he would continue the pattern of following Fleming's templates by echoing some elements of the fourth 007 novel Diamonds Are Forever, Higson said "there are some similarities, it is set in the Americas, there are gangsters in it but there is no cowboy train!"
Higson completed work on the book in December 2006, a month before Double or Die was released.
Charlie Higson's working title was Lágrimas Negras, but because the publishers had the idea of publishing it as an all-gold book, they asked Higson to try to come up with a title that included the word "gold".
Also changed was the name of the character Precious Stone. She was originally named Amaryllis Stone after the half-sister of Ian Fleming (who is also referenced in the short story The Living Daylights). But because the character starts out the novel as so unpleasant, it was feared it might offend the Fleming family and the name was changed.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane Gold
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or book:
“When, said Mr. Phillips, he communicated to a New Bedford audience, the other day, his purpose of writing his life, and telling his name, and the name of his master, and the place he ran from, the murmur ran round the room, and was anxiously whispered by the sons of the Pilgrims, “He had better not!” and it was echoed under the shadow of the Concord monument, “He had better not!””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The so-called paradoxes of an author, to which a reader takes exception, often exist not in the author’s book at all, but rather in the reader’s head.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)