"I'f I'm not mistaken, the James Bond character carried one of these in the John Gardner novel "License Renewed" as his personal sidearm. I've seen them in the past, but they are far from common. Nice pistol."

It was certainly one of Gardner's better choices, in my mind. Although giving Bond an FN Mle. 1903 was a good choice and frankly in-character for him, it apparently got negative backlash from fans. So he used VP70Z, an H&K P7, and finally a Smith & Wesson ASP. That's replaced by a Browning BDA (perhaps coincidentally, Alec Trevelyan uses this gun in the film GoldenEye, though only in the opening sequence...once he comes back as a bad guy, he's shown to have upgraded to a Browning BDM), then we get the rather bizarre choice of a Walther P38K, and then revert back to the ASP. Raymond Benson has gone back to the PPK, although he supplements it with a Walther P99 in 9mm.

Then again, some of Gardner's choices in guns were equally questionable to Fleming's. For example, a Ruger Super Blackhawk in .44 Mag bugged me. ANY reader of the Fleming novels knows that Bond has an odd obsession with small-caliber guns (think .25 ACP to .32 ACP), to the point where he's criticized for it. In the film version of Dr. No, M says "that damned Beretta" (a Beretta 418 in the novels) keeps jamming. In the novels, he was also increasingly worried about its stopping power, which was probably Geoffrey Boothroyd's influence on Ian Fleming showing. The PPK in .32 ACP given to Bond in the novels is viewed by him as being too much gun (!!!) at first, although he quickly adapts to it. With that said, Fleming's Bond was also fond of (and not afraid of using) collector's items. IIRC, Felix Leiter (again, probably Boothroyd's influence) was basically shocked when he found out Bond was actually sticking a Colt Model 1873 SAA under his Bentley's front seat. Apparently, the .45 LC was as far as Bond was willing to take it. He had an odd distaste for the Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket Automatic (remember the line in Thunderball, the film, where he tells Largo regarding his shotgun "that gun looks more fit for a woman"? It's a callback to the novel, where he's of the opinion that the Colt 1908's small size makes it more fit for a woman.), but aside from that, it was small caliber all the way.

Also, we can criticize Fleming's Bond's Bentleys and Aston Martin DB Mark III (incorrectly called a "DB III" by Fleming...different car...) all we want...but a certain gadget-laden Saab 900 Turbo comes to mind as being near self-parodic...