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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 20, 2017 18:49:47 GMT
Well, my thread on Carl Jacobi went over like a load of bricks (at which I wasn't entirely surprised—he’s not a particularly well-known author, but I do recommend his work), so I’ll move on to something slightly more well-known: Has anyone here read the Bond books? I've only read up to Goldfinger (and unfortunately skipped Moonraker because my library didn’t have it), but they're great: exciting, well-written, tons of fun. From Russia, with Love is one of the best adventure books I’ve ever read. Now, to be sure, I love the movies (particularly those with that Scottish fella above), but I think the books should be heralded too. The Bond character is different from the movies, as everyone says, but he’s not (in my opinion) all that different from the way Connery plays him in Dr. No and From Russia with Love. The only book that genuinely disappointed me so far was Diamonds Are Forever, but that was the only one. For a few of them— Live and Let Die in particular—I found them better than the movies. Anyone else a fan?
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Bargle
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Post by Bargle on Sept 22, 2017 10:41:29 GMT
Gosh, it's been years since I read my copies. I remember enjoying them very much. Very different from the movies as you would expect. I'm due for a re-read.
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Post by bravomailer on Sept 23, 2017 3:15:16 GMT
A friend in grade school had a copy of From Russia With Love and we read an erotic chapter involving Tatiana Romanova entitled "Black on pink". That's the extent of my engagement with the Fleming corpus.
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Post by animejunkie on Sept 25, 2017 20:24:50 GMT
I read Casino Royale a few years back.Might have to revisit that one and then start the short story collection I have.
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Post by darknessfish on Sept 26, 2017 8:36:26 GMT
I've only read Casino Royale, and I really, really hated it. I didn't think the standard of writing was up to much at all, and the plot was pathetic. Let's bankrupt a bad guy, by getting someone to play cards against him. Infallible plot right there. Having somehow succeeded, Bond just hangs around, because he doesn't get that the bad guy might be a bad guy, and gets a bollock-battering for it.
Add in the outrageous misogyny, sweet tangs of rape, and the overall feel that this was a wank fantasy of a teenage boy, and you've got the worst novel ever to spawn an entire industry.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 26, 2017 17:16:32 GMT
I've only read Casino Royale, and I really, really hated it. I didn't think the standard of writing was up to much at all, and the plot was pathetic. Let's bankrupt a bad guy, by getting someone to play cards against him. Infallible plot right there. Having somehow succeeded, Bond just hangs around, because he doesn't get that the bad guy might be a bad guy, and gets a bollock-battering for it. Add in the outrageous misogyny, sweet tangs of rape, and the overall feel that this was a wank fantasy of a teenage boy, and you've got the worst novel ever to spawn an entire industry. That's--harsh. All I'll say is that I'd consider myself a reasonably mature, reasonably intelligent person, and I loved Casino Royale. De gustibus, certainly.
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Post by animejunkie on Sept 30, 2017 4:05:02 GMT
What darknessfish doesn't recognize is that Casino Royale was the FIRST Bond story,so the plot and writing isn't gonna be amazing,but it was pretty good for a book written in 1953.
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Post by nutsberryfarm 🏜 on Apr 2, 2019 5:39:47 GMT
never read; sounds, fun, tho.
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Post by twothousandonemark on Apr 3, 2019 4:53:34 GMT
I've read From Russia with Love, Casino Royale, Live & Let Die, & Moonraker so far. Reading Diamonds are Forever at the moment.
They're great at putting me in the pov of 007. Several obviously dated moments actually add to their charm.
My reading pattern is fiction, non, fiction... Bond is lighter, shorter fare than most I've got on hand. I've a box set of the series on Penguin paperbacks.
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 4, 2019 16:56:15 GMT
I read them all a millennium ago during my university days. Still remember some great set-pieces from the books that didn’t make it to the movies, viz. Dr No’s demise is different (and funnier) from the movies; The Moonraker’s climax, not in space but at sea, has Bond and his current gf being dragged behind Drax’s boat and about to go over a reef which would rip their flesh off. Ouch. The Spy Who Loved Me film is totally different from the book which features a story within the story, a sequel to Thunderball. My (very brief) girlfriend at the time thought the novels were sadistic. Well, of course they were! Why did she think I was reading them?
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Post by Archelaus on Apr 4, 2019 18:23:21 GMT
I've read all of the Ian Fleming books except The Spy Who Loved Me. Overall, most of them were superbly well-written and I admire Fleming's world-building and attention to detail. It has one advantage over the movies, which is to help you understand James Bond's mindset and sense of cultural norms. That said, there were sexist and racially insensitive stuff that would not fly today.
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Post by amyghost on Apr 6, 2019 14:42:09 GMT
Read Casino Royale about a billion years ago, and recall that it cemented for me the notion that no actor has ever really portrayed Bond on film in a manner that accurately syncs with Fleming's depiction of him. Actually, I'd love to see someone make a film of the infamous Cyril Connolly 007 parody, Bond Strikes Camp!
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Apr 11, 2019 6:29:12 GMT
Another person who's only read Casino Royale here. Don't really remember much except Craig seemed most inline with book Bond.
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Post by SuperDevilDoctor on Apr 23, 2019 14:26:01 GMT
I've been reading -- and re-reading -- the original Ian Fleming classics for over 40 years now... I love 'em! Fleming was the master of what I like to call "elegant pulp."
To my mind, the best Bond novels are On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Moonraker, From Russia With Love, and Live and Let Die (in that order of ranking).
Fleming's last novel, The Man With the Golden Gun, is often ragged on (he was dying when he wrote it, basically) but I like it a lot... It's a lean, sweaty, gritty espionage/crime tale. (The literary Scaramanga is a lot more like Robert Davi's LICENCE TO KILL villain than Christopher Lee's interpretation.)
Of the Bond short stories, these are recommended (you can skip the others): For Your Eyes Only From a View to a Kill Risico The Living Daylights Octopussy
To anybody new to the literary Bond (and under 50 years old), I'd suggest skipping those marked with an asterisk below, but otherwise read them in order... Then, if you've become a Fleming fan, go back and pick up those you passed over. (Just remember, the KGB was called the "MGB" until the early 1960s!)
01) Casino Royale * 02) Live and Let Die 03) Moonraker 04) Diamonds Are Forever 05) From Russia With Love 06) Doctor No 07) Goldfinger * 08) From a View to a Kill (short story) 09) For Your Eyes Only (short story) 10) Risico (short story) 11) Thunderball 12) The Spy Who Loved Me * 13) The Living Daylights (short story) 14) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 15) You Only Live Twice 16) The Man With the Golden Gun 17) Octopussy (short story)
Skip Casino Royale? Yep. It's a good book, which I enjoy, but to modern readers it'll likely come up short in terms of action & danger, which are ramped up considerably in the following books. (Go back to it as an "origin" tale if you liked the other Bond books.)
Skip Goldfinger? Yep. If you've seen the movie, you've pretty much read the book -- only the film is better.
Definitely skip The Spy Who Loved Me... Fleming considered it an experiment, and he HATED the results.
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Post by wickedkittiesmom on Apr 23, 2019 15:00:20 GMT
I only read From Russia With Love, in the early 60's. I think I was 13 years old and got in big trouble when my mother found it in my room. Luckily I had finished reading it. She acted like I committed some big crime. I don't remember if I liked it or not but it did make me realize what a silly woman she was and I also started hiding all my books.
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 24, 2019 18:26:54 GMT
Part of what I wrote for a TV show thread about a year and a half ago.
Ian Fleming helped with the production of the ‘60s TV series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” After the Bond movies came out, everybody was doing spy movies that spoofed them (not realizing that the Bond movies were themselves spoofs) so inevitably TV would also follow suit. NBC, going back to the original creator, brought in Ian Fleming as a consultant. Fleming was only around long enough to agree that the show could use a character name from the “Goldfinger” novel. A gangster in the book was named Napoleon Solo. If you remember the film, Solo was the guy who was shot by Oddjob and left in the back seat of a car that went through a metal crusher. After doing this service, Fleming promptly died (August 12, 1964) without contributing anything else.
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Post by geode on Apr 24, 2019 20:22:46 GMT
I read all of them about 50 years ago. Some of the novels and short stories are very good, some rather mediocre. Bond in the books is generally more interesting than the character in the movies. In general the closer a moview was to the book, the better. The movie versions improved upon already good books in a couple of cases, "From Russia With Love" and "Goldfinger"...
The best of the books is "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and is the only novel I re-read. I think it is a major reason why the film is also the best in my opinion as it is the closest filming of any of them in terms of following the book. I read some of the short stories again about a decade ago.
Fleming is easy to read but very good at description of exotic locations,food, etc. He imparts real flavor to what Bond experiences. For a vivid experience read his chapter in "Thunderball" where Bond scuba dives under the Disco Volante at night. Fleming's Bond is vulnerable. He goes into a panic attack while just flying on a commercial aircraft, I think in "Dr. No" which is one of the best novels, but one of my least favorite films.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2021 21:15:06 GMT
I was just ordering some books from Barnes and Noble and decided to finally get around to reading some more of these. I’ve only read Casino Royale so far.
I decided to go with Russia and Dr No, because I love the Connery movies and it’ll be fun to see how the books differ.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2021 21:08:14 GMT
NalkarjDo you recommend reading these in order? I was about to start Dr No and then I thought that maybe I should order LALD and continue in order. Or does it matter?
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Post by Nalkarj on Jan 25, 2021 22:02:14 GMT
Nalkarj Do you recommend reading these in order? I was about to start Dr No and then I thought that maybe I should order LALD and continue in order. Or does it matter? Gah, I meant to respond to your post above and got sidetracked. Typical Sklazmark. What did you think of Casino Royale? I really like it, but some Bond-book fans aren’t that fond of it. As for your question, I do recommend reading them in publication order. They don’t have to be read that way—like the movies, they’re all independent adventures—but Bond develops as a character over the course of the books. And Dr. No is a direct sequel to From Russia, with Love, so it’s best to read FRWL before it. I still haven’t read the last two books ( You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun) or Moonraker, but I’ve read all the others. Also, LALD is one of the best (IMO, of course)—much better than the movie—so it may be a good choice to read next. ( Dr. No isn’t bad at all, but it’s pretty much identical to the movie until the ending.)
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