Last Bond Novel You Read

tiffanywint wrote:

Well written, even if somewhat frustrating for "dear reader" who is screaming "pull the trigger". The guy is guilty of double-bird homicide for crying out loud. Blow him away Bond!!!

Correction: Scaramanga is guilty of triple-bird homicide. I forgot that he also gunned down a turkey buzzard, showing off on the train to his hoodlum friends. Bastard! Hope the buzzards got to him after Bond put him down.

Scaramanga also murdered a poor boa.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Scaramanga also murdered a poor boa.

If any human deserved to banished to the Planet of the Apes and locked in a cage by animals, it's Paco!

Although he is a friend to the elephant.

tiffanywint wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Scaramanga also murdered a poor boa.

If any human deserved to banished to the Planet of the Apes and locked in a cage by animals, it's Paco!

Although he is a friend to the elephant.

Quite true. Methinks Pistols has a spot of bi-polarity.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Quite true. Methinks Pistols has a spot of bi-polarity.

Har Har Har!

With TSWLM I've finished all the Fleming novels last year, and I'm reading LICENCE RENEWED now, which seems very interesting despite the boring and exagerately long beginning with Bond and Q'ute.

All I've read besides Fleming was the novelizations of GE and TWINE, and of course, DEVIL MAY CARE and CARTE BLANCHE. The latter wasn't very good IMO.

I'm starting to read those I've found / were published in Spanish, then I'll make a try to read (for the first time) a full novel in English since the other Gardners I've got weren't published in Spanish, as well as none of the Benson novels.

Bought a hardcover 1st edition 7th printing with DJ of OHMSS and have read a chapter here and there, and I find that as a thriller this book really pulls you into the story. And when the actors always state that James Bond was never written as a full character they clearly have not read the first third of OHMSS which is a thriller as well as an introspection of James Bond character.

I might even like this book the best of Flemings writings.

Casino Royale, for the second time.
I'm keen on reading the Fleming novels in chronologically order just as soon as I start buying the rest of them.

I hope this slight derail is forgiven but this seems the place for it. Walking up through the shopping centre to Waterstone's (would you believe no Team of Rivals?) I glanced down to see this boy of no more than 10 reading the latest Vintage edition of The Spy Who Loved Me. I did a double-take for kids nowadays seem to read trivial fare and walked on a bit. Glancing back he seemed to read with some excitement, I thought it was his dad's but no, when they got up from the bench to walk on he clutched the book tightly.
Made me smile. A new generation hopefully picking up on Fleming and finding out that Bond existed before (in this boys case perhaps) Brosnan's Bond.

Oh, that's good to hear Hilly :) . Wonder was he surprised by how Spy is written?

Surprised in what way?

It being written from Vivienne's perspective for around three-quarters of its length was what I was getting at :) .

Blunt Instrument wrote:

It being written from Vivienne's perspective for around three-quarters of its length was what I was getting at :) .

Ah. Possible, I spose. Although at that age, it may well be his first Bond novel. Honestly, when I was 10 I don't think I was reading any literature as sophisticated as Bond. My first foray into real literature did not come until a couple of years later with Poe's short stories.

I vividly remember taking a tatty old 60s hardback copy of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE to silent reading hour in Year 4. I would have been about 8/9.

I'm sure FRWL would have been deemed too lubricious for my elementary school library. The scene with Bond, Tatiana and her trouseau, and the SMERSH agents with their camera and their bulging eyes, dontchaknow.

Ha! My primary school teacher wouldn't have noticed if you were reading Naked Lunch, as long as you shut up and sat in your chair

No surprise that you were a precocious child, Sharky ;) .

Recently finished DAF. I like it, but I think I prefer the film version 'cause of Smith n' Glover and Lana Wood's assets.

Started on FRWL. Dedicating the first 70 pages of the novel to the machinations of SMERSH was a brilliant move.

I prefer the film version too, mainly because the villains in DAF are very weak sauce. The Spangled mob is very generic and stereotypical compared to many better villains Fleming wrote.

They were indeed rather forgettable. The Spangled Mob certainly don't hold a candle to the American mobster Bond was battling a mere two novels prior.

Got going on Colonel Sun. Think it's only the third time I've read it and right at the start there's the death of the Hammonds'. Cor, lumme. As a film this might've been something or at least just to see it on screen. Would've done as a Connery or even Dalton adventure.

There's no place for this and it's not worth a new topic for something so bland but in Oxfam today I noticed a Bond omnibus (MR, FRWL, OHMSS, TB, GF and Dr No)...pulling it out I was struck by the cover:









seems Captain Scarlet's Angels have infiltrated Bond's world.

I have that very same omnibus, Hilly ... was given it as a present during the Brozza Era, the first Flemings I ever owned :) .

Blunt Instrument wrote:

I have that very same omnibus, Hilly ... was given it as a present during the Brozza Era, the first Flemings I ever owned :) .

That's none too shabby. The sighting of an Angel Interceptor just leapt out.

I have the first Fleming still that I was given, Dad's Pan OHMSS which became so battered that I had to get a fresh copy. It sits, this old one, in a dark corner.

I'd say the Bond on that cover most closely resembles Sir Rog, and the dangling from the 'copter skid is clearly influenced by the FYEO pre-credits sequence. Exploding truck on bottom right possibly influenced by TLD pre-credits.