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I was under the impression that most people truly love that one. But hey, to each their own. ;-)
If we're just talking novels, I'll go with the '50s. My favourites are the quieter, tighter stories (CR, MR). And the only real missteps are found in DAF and GF. The '60s stories get quite a bit hairer, and I find more missteps here as well. TSWLM is my least favourite Bond book, and I find YOLT and TMWTGG rather thin (the latter for obvious reasons).
Oddly enough the short stories i find the most compelling, but I love the grandeur of the sixties' novels as much. I love TMWTGG too, it's one of my favorites and I never understood why people don't like it.
To be honest, I don't think I can devide the books in fifties and sixties and chose 'the best era'. I love them all, in many different ways.
If I recall correctly SPECTRE was a creation that began life in the 'James Bond of the Secret Service' scripts. They wanted a more cinematic, one might say 'fantastical' threat, that took the best of Fleming's earlier musings on SMERSH but wrapped them in a slightly sexier skin.
The film? I think it was always the intention to build in SPECTRE, hence the reference in DN, plus a fear of SMERSH feeling dated.
Fiction is pure fiction. Yes there's a context, but there is very little in common with Fleming's SMERSH and the historical one. And I might add that Blofeld is one of the greatest villains in all fiction. Fleming's later work is just as great as his earlier one.
With regards to the films. I believe Eon wanted to avoid political references.
Fleming used Spectre only in Thunderball--though the organization is named in OHMSS it functions only as Blofeld's personal army, not a corporation of international criminals. In YOLT Blofeld has even lost his army and lives as a retiree in the garden of death.
After disposing of Blofeld, Fleming reinstated the Russians as his villains--in TMWTGG the KGB brainwashes Bond in TMWTGG and employs Scaramanga. Fleming acknowledged Smersh's disbanding and used the KGB as its replacement. It probably would have continued as the villain of the next few Bond novels, though by 1968 the Cultural Revolution and the rise of China might have convinced Fleming to use the Chinese as villains, as Amis did.
But one should also consider that Fleming was visibly influenced by the Bond movies, and since Spectre was the recurring adversary in the films, Fleming might have resurrected the organization under a new leader--perhaps Irma Bundt or a surviving member of the Thunderball-era group.
As for whether the 50s or 60s Bond novels are better, I think it makes more sense to divide the saga into the early (CR, LALD, MR, DAF), mid-period (FRWL, DN, FYEO, GF) and later (TB, TSWLM, OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG, OP) books. Early Fleming has an unmistakable freshness, while Middle Fleming shows an author at full confidence and at his best as a prose stylist. But Late Fleming, though marred by ill-health and sagging energy, is the richest era in characterization (especially Bond's) and has an epic scale. I rate the Blofeld trilogy as Fleming's masterpiece, and thus regard his late period as his greatest.
This was the decade that gave us all but one of his gems.
The gem in question being OHMSS which was probably a concerted effort to get back on track after the commercial and critical belly flop that was TSWLM (unjustly IPNSHO).
One has to remember Fleming's failing health in all of this.
Although writing isn't a contact sport, authors probably produce their best work when they are in the pink and FRWL and Moonraker was certainly his best work.
And, to promote the lovely TMGG again: even though Scaramanga is a 'small time' advisary, he's far more intimidating then the Spangs.
The problem with TB, for me, is that you can tell it's not just Fleming sitting down and allowing the ideas to spill onto the page. The fact he'd toyed with the basics via committee shows.
It does exactly what the film does for me, starts out excellently and then meanders (albeit in exotic fashion) towards a completely predictable conclusion.
I still really enjoy reading it, but with a critical head on there are around 7 novels better than it imo.
EDIT: A further issue I have, which I think pushes it down the list is the general lack of the bizarre. To me it seems to miss those weird little flourishes, almost Flemingian ticks; the momentary unplanned little sparks of imagination that you feel only happened when he was just 'writing'.
Revelator is completely correct about the origins of SPECTRE.
With regard to his segmentation into 'early...mid period... later,although PussyNoMore understands his thinking he doesn't agree with it.
Although all Fleming is good Fleming the quality of his output was uneven and by the time the '60s dawned he was out of puff (not surprising given his prodigious consumption ) and it showed in his work.
What's more, although the '60s saw peak Bondmania, it was largely on the back of the movies as literary Bond was starting to look a little dated.
For PussyNoMore the '50s will always represent a high water mark for literary Bond.
I don't think it does. A comparison of the script summaries for the film project (printed in The Battle for Bond) and the novel shows that Fleming took the plot elements he needed, discarded everything he didn't, and breathed life into the results. Working with a pre-arranged plot allowed Fleming to concentrate on characterization, and Thunderball excels in this department: Largo, Domino, and Blofeld are among his best-drawn characters, and even M and Leiter seem more fully developed.
But the very beginning of the novel--the Shrublands sequence--is a meander, since it slows the plot (not that I'm complaining). The remainder of the novel has the structure of a detective story, with Leiter and Bond trying to figure out who's stolen the bombs and where they are. Not much meandering there. Nor do I see anything predictable in the conclusion--I think that reaction might result from having seen the movie first. I lent the book to a friend who'd never seen the film, and he said the scene of Bond and the navy men swimming into the darkness to intercept Largo was incredibly suspenseful.
There are plenty of Flemingian aspects though--the exercise-torture battle between Bond and Lippe (the rack versus the sweat box) has that touch of the bizarre, along with Bond sucking sea-egg spines from Domino's foot. And the following is one of the greatest weird horror scenes in all the Bond books:
I've read the book several times (Battle for Bond) so I'm certainly not saying Fleming transposed the earlier work, but I do feel like it has an undeniably cinematic thrust to it that wasn't present beforehand. In terms of characterisation, I wouldn't say it was anything extraordinary. Largo is nowhere near as richly drawn or interesting as many of his predecessors - Drax, Grant, Dr. No, Goldfinger. Blofeld is certainly excellent, but in a narrative sense his 'characterisation' amounts to an info dump, so while I do love it, he's not given the same level of intrigue as he's afforded in the SPECTRE follow up, OHMSS.
Perhaps it boils down to personal preference, but I don't find the intro meanders. It extrapolates on the Fleming trait of juxtaposing Bond's accidie with the implied promise of an exotic adventure. I really enjoy a slow build that then bursts into life, but TB never quite delivers on the promise for me. Like I said, its personal preference, so I can understand if other like the pacing.
I don't deny there are excellent passages. As always Fleming's descriptive prowess is second to none and keeps me hooked at all times, even when I feel like the plot isn't ticking, but for me it's still just missing a certain sensibility that the earlier books were layered with.
I do particularly like the scene on board the Disco Volante, under the red light, when Largo dispatches the SPECTRE Agent (Sciacca?).
I prefer Fleming to Shakespeare.