Hey all,
Here is a personal favorite of mine from the Ian Felmming James Bond series. And what a series it was. I was cleaning out my basement and came across this gem of a book so I thought I'd make a lil post about it and give it some well-deserved props. Here goes...
They say that all good things must come to an end. In the case of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, that end is with The Man with the Golden Gun. After this, there would only be a short story collection (Octopussy & The Living Daylights) to wrap up the set. Posthumously released (and supposedly concluded by a ghost writer), this book is generally considered one of the weaker of the Bond books, but I actually found it to be a pretty decent conclusion to the series.
The book opens by resolving issues left open in You Only Live Twice (so if you don't want that book spoiled, read no further). Bond, having suffered a head injury, has lost most of his memory and has wound up in Soviet hands, where he is brainwashed into becoming an assassin. His target is M (whose name is revealed to be Miles Messervy). The plot is quickly foiled and Bond is sent to a clinic to be straightened out.
To determine if Bond is still worthy of his 007 number, M dispatches him to Jamaica to kill Francisco Scaramanga, the title character who wields a special gold plated pistol. Scaramanga is one tough man, a sort of anti-Bond who is probably tougher than his hunter. A la Hamlet, Bond is a reluctant and hesitant killer, deferring his opportunities for finishing Scaramanga to instead infiltrate the Man with the Golden Gun's criminal enterprise. Eventually, like the Shakespearean character, procrastination will have to be replaced by action, leading to a showdown between the two.
This works well as a final Bond novel, with none of the open issues that marked other recent books. Scaramanga is a worthy adversary and there's a decent amount of action. On the other hand, this is a bit shallower of a book than the two previous novels (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice) which both gave a deeper look into the British superspy. Overall, this is a good but not great book and a reasonably worthy conclusion to the Bond series.
Keep it real...
Here is a personal favorite of mine from the Ian Felmming James Bond series. And what a series it was. I was cleaning out my basement and came across this gem of a book so I thought I'd make a lil post about it and give it some well-deserved props. Here goes...
They say that all good things must come to an end. In the case of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, that end is with The Man with the Golden Gun. After this, there would only be a short story collection (Octopussy & The Living Daylights) to wrap up the set. Posthumously released (and supposedly concluded by a ghost writer), this book is generally considered one of the weaker of the Bond books, but I actually found it to be a pretty decent conclusion to the series.
The book opens by resolving issues left open in You Only Live Twice (so if you don't want that book spoiled, read no further). Bond, having suffered a head injury, has lost most of his memory and has wound up in Soviet hands, where he is brainwashed into becoming an assassin. His target is M (whose name is revealed to be Miles Messervy). The plot is quickly foiled and Bond is sent to a clinic to be straightened out.
To determine if Bond is still worthy of his 007 number, M dispatches him to Jamaica to kill Francisco Scaramanga, the title character who wields a special gold plated pistol. Scaramanga is one tough man, a sort of anti-Bond who is probably tougher than his hunter. A la Hamlet, Bond is a reluctant and hesitant killer, deferring his opportunities for finishing Scaramanga to instead infiltrate the Man with the Golden Gun's criminal enterprise. Eventually, like the Shakespearean character, procrastination will have to be replaced by action, leading to a showdown between the two.
This works well as a final Bond novel, with none of the open issues that marked other recent books. Scaramanga is a worthy adversary and there's a decent amount of action. On the other hand, this is a bit shallower of a book than the two previous novels (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice) which both gave a deeper look into the British superspy. Overall, this is a good but not great book and a reasonably worthy conclusion to the Bond series.
Keep it real...
