Bringing Back the Short Stories

Let me get to what inspired me to bring this topic up. In STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE there's an episode where Captain Sisko is relieved of duty and so he is given the task of coming up with a very dangerous mission and handing it to someone else to take care of. I always thought this would have been a good premise for a James Bond story, where he has to assume a similar role as M and debrief a 00 agent to go take care of something. You see what Bond tries to do to keep himself busy and not be too distracted thinking of what might have happened, how it effects the way he interacts with colleges, ect. It could end either way, with Bond being informed that the mission was a failure and the agent was killed, or end with the agent accomplishing the mission but coming back very badly injured. This kind of a story is bigger opportunity to get into Bond's mind on how he feels about taking on this role, if he could ever do something like this again or if he's just too hands on to let someone else take care of something he feels he might have a chance of succeeding at.

Which brings me to this topic. The state Bond has been in the literary realm has been very schizophrenic lately. IFP doesn't seem to have a clue on what direct to take with the novels. First it's return to the 60s, then it's a reboot, and now it's the 60s again. What for? Just to attract the biggest names currently in this medium? Either they don't seem interested in sticking with one author to do his own run, they really just want to find the biggest names to attract buzz, or they really do have no solid plan and just throw whatever is on the wall and see if it sticks. If it's just getting a bunch of names to generate buzz, I believe the most effective way is for them to just blow their wad and get a bunch of writers to submit their own stories and release them either on magazines or a compilation book. Like an ALL STAR BOND. They could be totally separate stories, or if they want to do something different, maybe have all these writers collaborate on how their own stories relate, something ambitious that could either really succeed or fall flat on its face. Either way, I think it would be a nice change after what has been happening with the novels we've only been getting every few years.

The positive side of that idea would definitely be that none of the writers would have to get near the threat of being compared to Fleming. Fleming tried a variety of approaches to his various short stories, some being more about action, others more about motivational backgrounds, and then there is Quantum of Solace of course. If done by a number of writers, each writer by himself or herself wouldn´t need to cover the same range of elements expected from a full Bond novel. And, of course, the result could be imense fun for the readers, having maybe some short stories full of action like scenes from a Bond film, other stories more introverted, like the first half of For your Eyes only, or contemplative, like Quantum of Solace.
It probaby wouldn´t even disturb if some stories were set in the 60s and others in present time.

The downside could be that despite the relatively minor writing involvement, compared to a full novel, each writer still would have to have done a certain amount of research in order to create an instantly recognizable connection to the Bondiverse. Judging by what I read about the latest attempts, this seems to be tricky enough for some writers.