Solo (Boyd novel) paper I saw its potential. Not only did it fit the theme of the novel perfectly, it's also a great punchy word, instantly and internationally comprehensible, graphically alluring and, as an extra bonus, it's strangely Bondian in the sense that we might be subliminally aware of the '00' of '007' lurking just behind those juxtaposed O's of SOLO". For background Boyd read all the Bond stories in chronological order; and had researched Fleming and the literary Bond's background. Boyd was a child when his father introduced him to Fleming's works. As a result, Boyd found himself also becoming fascinated with
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me be written based upon the script. According to Ian Fleming's literary agent Peter Janson-Smith, "We had no hand in [the Christopher Wood novelizations] other than we told the film people that we were going to exert our legal right to handle the rights in the books. They chose Christopher Wood because he was one of the screenwriters at the time, and they decided what he would be paid. We got our instructions on that, but from then on, these books-of-the-films became like any other Bond novel—we controlled the publication rights." This would also be the first regular Bond novel published