The most intriguing thing about the new James Bond 007 film Quantum of Solace is its title. What does it really mean? The answer lies within a short story Ian Fleming wrote in 1960. It will be contained in the Penguin Classics Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories by Ian Fleming to appear end of October.

The title of the book fraudulently makes you believe that the content has anything to do with the current film. It doesn’t apart from the title, though. As the new film’s story line was brewed up during the make (like the scene with the jump on the bus, where nobody could think of any other way to get Bond from one roof to the next), not even the author is the same.

As the little book is been put on the market as a limited edition for the staggering sum of £20 (about £40 or thereabouts), I would not tell anybody to buy it except maybe collectors of Ian Fleming and James Bond paraphernalia. As with most of these limited edition publications, don’t expect them to be worth the price you pay any time after you walked out of the shop, you will never get it back, they are just not collectible.

The short story of Quantum of Solace is only incidentally a James Bond story. Fleming uses him as a prop who describes the second person in this lengthy dialogue, which is all that is happening in the story. The dialogue is about the relationship between two human beings, in this instance a married couple where communication on all levels breaks down. This is the ground on which to emulate the law of Quantum of Solace, Amount of Comfort.

Meaning that if the communication between two human beings in a relationship breaks down, it can be taken up again at any point, as long as the amount of comfort is not equal to zero.

How does this impact on the film? Not at all. Film and short story share absolute no connection. But you wanted to know where the title came from; now you do.

I don’t want to be as boring as the little story by Fleming. Let’s cut it short: The book in Penguin has nothing to do with the film, so save the money. The story is not good enough for £20, so try to get a photocopy of it, if you really must have it. And expect more fraudulent Quantum books or gadgets on the market in the near future.