A Four Stage Literary Progression

(i) Many authors write many works about one-off characters. 

(ii) Fewer, although still very many, fictional characters graduate from one-off to series status. 

(iii) Some series characters become successful and well-known, their regular readers anticipating further installments. 

(iv) Some successful series characters become universally known. Everyone (except time travelers from the future: see Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time) has heard of James Bond even those who may never have read any of the books or seen any of the films. Screen adaptations facilitate the transition from stage (iii) to stage (iv).

Poul Anderson's major series characters have made it to stage (iii), at least among sf readers. If an author continues to write a series that has reached either stage (iii) or stage (iv), then he knows in advance that what he writes will be widely read and also that his characters' names have become significant to a reading public. When, at the end of Mirkheim, Nicholas van Rijn assesses the then current state of Technic civilization before reaffirming his own immediate plans and articulating some more tentative anticipations, his words mean a lot to a lot of us. This is not just any character speaking. This is van Rijn.

Ian Fleming concluded his last novel with:

"For James Bond, the same view would always pall." (See Other Agents.)

By then, Fleming had some idea of what the name, "James Bond," was coming to mean to everyone.

See also Intertextualities.