James Bong: Agent of Anarchy by Todd Borho
James Bond has been busy. Since 1952, when Ian Fleming published Casino Royale, the first of his spy novels featuring 007, subsequent Bond books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. It’s been estimated that 47 percent of people in the United States have seen at least one of the 27 Bond films; 27 percent have seen them all.
A New Spin on a Classic Spy
A new addition to Bond fandom is James Bong: Agent Of Anarchy, a screenplay by Todd Borho, a writer of science fiction with anarchist themes (and a non-fiction book titled Making The Oligarchy Obsolete: Defining Problems Of Coercion And Seeking Voluntary Solutions).
Our favorite secret agent has gone rogue. The “real” James Bond served the Queen, but James Bong serves no one. He’s “committed to freeing people from statist hands.” It’s a fast-paced, slap-stick, absurdist spoof that just might make you question, “How did we get here?” Instead of getting his orders from M, chief of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, Bong answers (or doesn’t, as his spirit moves him) to K, a nerdy anarchist hacker. K, like Fleming’s Q, the ever-clever head of research and development for the British Secret Service, has lots of high-tech gadgets and techno tools up his sleeve.
High-Tech Gadgets and a New Crew
K communicates via Bong’s blockchain-encrypted smartwatch from his hacker lair in Acapulco, Mexico. K has a humanoid robot named Symphy with no sense of humor to answer the phones, and a poster on his wall that reads “What If I Told You That Government Is Slavery?”
Instead of a Bentley, Bong drives a 3D-printed 1977 black Trans Am, or sometimes a 3D-printed midnight blue car modeled after the 1986 Ferrari Testarossa.
Replacing Bond’s secretary, Miss Moneypenney is Miss Moneybit, a feisty blogger in Washington, D.C. (District of Criminals in anarchy-speak). Moneybit, K and Bong are in it for profit — videos of Bong’s anti-establishment derring-dos on Moneybit’s blog, Steemit, earn them thousands of dollars.
The action begins near Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border as Bond prepares to break Ross Mulbricht out of a high-security federal prison. A tech market and crypto pioneer sentenced for running a website called the Silk Highway on the Substratum network, Mulbricht is K’s hero.
Photographic contact lenses that capture an iris print from a guard get Bond into the prison, and he frees Mulbricht from his cell with a laser cutter. K hacks video of the escape from prison surveillance cameras and it quickly spreads all over the Web.
“The number of people online talking about anarchy is growing exponentially. The ruling class must be hysterical right now,” crows Miss Moneybit. “People are learning about rights and anarchy thanks to our work,” adds K.
Among the millions who view the video is Trax, Bong’s former boss at MI6. Blackmailing the over-fed, sex-starved General Small of the CIA into helping him, Trax wants to bring Bong in from the cold –and kill him. And both K and Moneybit are in his crosshairs, too.
Rescue Missions and Rebellion
The plot zips along as Bong comes to the rescue of various victims of the Establishment. He saves the farm of a sweet, old couple behind on their taxes, swooping in by helicopter to scare off two bumbling IRS agents. (K sets up a Cell411 group to crowdsource funds for the couple.)
Next, Bong foils a DEA raid on Kushy Budz, the largest marijuana dispensary in California by knocking out 30 agents with aerosol THC. Among the agents is Ty Prince, Bong’s nemesis who works for a CIA front called Cargo Solutions that runs drugs from Mexico and Colombia.
From there, Bong breaks up Trax and General Small’s sex trafficking operation, rescuing 20 underage teenage girls and nabbing the $20 million that was about to change hands. The girls get their freedom and the money, and Trax and Small become even more determined to capture Bong.
And all this happens in the first 60 pages!
After a while, the plot may seem to devolve into a list of things to rebel against. But as James Dean famously said, “Whaddya got?”
James Bong: Agent Of Anarchy is the first of Borho’s five-part The Evolution Saga. The author says he’s “an individual who is silly enough to write books for a generation of people who don’t read!” And for those even less inclined to read, there’s an animated version of a James Bong escapade on his website.
About Todd Borho:
Todd Borho, a Literary Titan Book Award Winner, is the author of The Evolution Saga five part sci-fi series. Todd has also written nearly a dozen other titles. He has been a teacher in exotic countries all over the world. He is a coffee fanatic, science fiction addict, and hot sauce aficionado.
