Editing Colonel Sun (section)

==Development==
===Inspirations===
Amis and his wife Jane spent September 1965 holidaying on the Greek island of [[Spetses]]; he used the experience to provide the background to ''Colonel Sun''.{{sfn|Leader|2006|p=554}} He followed a tradition set by Fleming of using the names of people he knew or had met during the researches for his book{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=117}} and he drew on the names of people he met in Greece for the novel. The boat Bond uses—''The Altair''—was the name of the boat Amis and his wife used on holiday; Ariadne's fictitious colleagues, "Legakis" and "Papadogonas" were friends who helped Amis in Greece; and the doctor who treats Bond in Chapter two was named after Amis and Jane's own doctor.{{sfn|Leader|2006|p=557}}

===Characters===
<!-- Bond -->
[[Raymond Benson]]—the author of continuation Bond novels—considers Amis's version of Bond to be close to that developed by Fleming. Benson describes this personality as a natural continuation of the Bond developed in the final three Fleming novels. In all three novels, the events take a toll on Bond: he loses his wife in ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service (novel)|On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]''; he loses his memory in Japan in ''[[You Only Live Twice (novel)|You Only Live Twice]]''; and he is [[Brainwashing|brainwashed]] in Russia, is [[deprogramming|de-programmed]] by MI6 and almost dies from [[Francisco Scaramanga]]'s poisoned bullet in ''The Man with the Golden Gun''.{{sfn|Benson|1988|pp=147–148}} Benson also sees a humourless side to the character, one which Fleming used in his earlier novels.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=147}}

<!-- Sun -->
The main villain of the novel is Colonel Sun Liang-tan ({{lang-zh|c=孙良坦|p=Sūn Liángtǎn}}). Sun is a member of the Special Activities Committee of the Chinese People's Liberation Army as well as a sadist and skilled torturer. Benson calls him "very worthy of inclusion in the Bond saga".{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=148}} Sun desires power over an individual and the ability to hurt them solely for the sake of causing pain. After Bond has been captured, Sun explains to him his approach to torture:{{sfn|Palmer|1979|p=17}}

<blockquote>You must understand that I'm not the slightest bit interested in studying resistance to pain or any such pseudo-scientific claptrap. I just want to torture people. But—this is the point—not for any selfish reason, unless you call a saint or a martyr selfish. As [[de Sade]] explains in ''[[Philosophy in the Bedroom|The Philosopher in the Boudoir]]'', through cruelty one rises to heights of superhuman awareness, of sensitivity to new modes of being, that can’t be attained by any other method.{{sfn|Markham|1968|p=221}}</blockquote>

The cultural historian [[Jeremy Black (historian)|Jeremy Black]] sees similarities between Sun and Fleming's Chinese villain [[Julius No]] from the 1958 novel ''[[Dr. No (novel)|Dr. No]]''. In both books the characters are shown as having a disregard for human life.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=95}} The reviewer John Dugdale, in a 2018 retrospective review, called Sun "the most repellent racial caricature of all, a descendant of Fu Manchu and other fiendish orientals".{{sfn|Dugdale|2018}}

<!-- M -->
The role of M in the novel changed from that the character had played in Fleming's works. Instead of being the figure who instructs Bond on his mission, he becomes the cause of the mission. The cultural historians Janet Woollacott and [[Tony Bennett (sociologist)|Tony Bennett]] consider that as M does not give Bond's mission its necessary ideological perspective, Bond's "duel with Colonel Sun becomes little more than a personalised feud".{{sfn|Bennett|Woollacott|2009|p=107}} Amis did not like the character of M and, as one reviewer pointed out, had "spent a chapter running him down" in ''The James Bond Dossier''.{{sfn|Stanley|1968|p=10}} Benson considered that M's character evokes an emotional response from the reader because of the change from his usual, business-like manner to a semi-catatonic state upon being kidnapped.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=148}}

===Themes===
Benson observes an increased level of political intrigue in ''Colonel Sun'' compared to the earlier Bond novels. Bond acts in concert with the Russians against the Chinese, which Benson sees as demonstrating the theme of peacekeeping between nations.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=147}} Black considers the novel reflects the realities of the late-1960s as China had developed hydrogen bomb capability in 1967 and the [[Sino-Soviet split]] that took place across the 1960s culminated in 1969 with the [[Sino-Soviet border conflict]]. Reflecting this, the novel shows a shift in the balance of world power away from two-party Cold War politics.{{sfn|Black|2005|pp=182–183}}

Black observes an emotional and social sadness throughout ''Colonel Sun''. The social sadness is a reaction to the culture of modernity and mourning what was being lost in its place. In England Amis describes "the ugly rash of modern housing – half-heartedly mock-Tudor villas, bungalows and two-storey boxes with a senseless variegation of planking, brick and crazy paving on the front of each and the inevitable TV aerial sprouting from every roof";{{sfn|Markham|1968|p=18}} in Greece he writes:{{sfn|Black|2005|pp=183–184}}
<blockquote>In thirty years, he reflected, perhaps sooner, there would be one vast undifferentiated culture, one complex of super-highways, hot-dog stands and neon, interrupted only by the Atlantic, stretching from Los Angeles to Jerusalem; possibly, by then, as far as Calcutta, three-quarters of the way round the world. Where there had been Americans and British and French and Italians and Greeks and the rest, there would be only citizens of the West, uniformly affluent, uniformly ridden by guilt and neurosis, uniformly alcoholic and suicidal, uniformly everything.{{sfn|Markham|1968|p=72}}</blockquote>

This treatment by Amis is similar to Fleming's nostalgia in describing Paris in "[[For Your Eyes Only (short story collection)#From a View to a Kill|From a View to a Kill]]".{{sfn|Black|2005|p=183}} Benson identifies Bond's desire for revenge as a central theme of the novel. The plot centres on Bond's need to avenge the death of the Hammonds and M's kidnapping. Benson describes this as particularly striking: "Bond is particularly brutal in achieving his goal&nbsp;... The revenge is very satisfying. This is Bond at his toughest."{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=147}}