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By the way, @Dragonpol , that character trait you asked about is just in the movie.
Thanks, @Thunderfinger. That's good to know. I'll have to stick the DVD in again and watch the film in full this time then.
I remember Jeremy Duns saying that Amis's Colonel Sun reminded him of being closer in style to a Modesty Blaise novel than a James Bond novel. Duns thought that Amis might've even conceived the Colonel Sun story as a Modesty Blaise story first before being asked to write the first official Bond continuation novel. Amis was also a big Modesty Blaise fan besides being a literary Bond fan. So I thought there might be a crossover there between the way Amis develops Colonel Sun as a villainous character with a change of heart right at the end and how Gabriel was presented in that novel. There may still be a crossover with the 1966 film version, however. Interesting to think about. 🤔
That's how I think a 2nd hand bookshop should be. We used to have one here like that. Sadly it's now long gone.
The Hostage by Duncan Falconer
The first book in his Stratton series. A US Navy Seal, on loan to British Military Intelligence, gets involved in an illeagal operation on French soil and ends up being taken hostage by the RIRA. Enter, no nonsense SBS operative John Stratton.
Book 2 in the Stratton series. After the fairly grounded The Hostage, I had a bit of trouble buying into the psychic stuff in The Hijack.
Because I constantly received friend requests from fake profiles on GoodReads and they couldn't be bothered to solve it.
1965
I decided a couple weeks ago that I want to read through every single Bond novel.
A challenge to the prevailing notion that the Provisional IRA was so infiltrated with informers and so susceptible to electronic surveillance that it could do little in the end but settle for a negotiated surrender through its proxy party Sinn Fein. The not entirely persuasive claim here is that British SIS did not significantly influence the outcome, which resulted instead from back-channel negotiations, internal political factors and a lack of public support for republican violence. Nevertheless, much fascinating detail on how SIS combated the IRA and how the latter responded to such setbacks, especially in restructuring itself into smaller cells in order to avoid such debilitating penetration.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/intelligence-war-against-the-ira/A34D7CEFB3118C4C2F9553F4D30D91ED
A more personal story this time around, and we also get to see Stratton's expertise with explosives.
And also EXPLORING THEOSOPHY
(2007)
A British military helicopter is downed and a small device containing information on over 1400 UK and US run agents and informants operating in the Middle East and Afghanistan, that it was carrying, has fallen into enemy hands. Information including telephone numbers, addresses, emails, dead letter boxes and meeting points amongst others. The device is put inside a courier, who is then picked up by US authorities following an attempt to cross borders, and is sent to the infamous Styx Penitentiary. A sort of Guantanamo Bay beneath the ocean, albeit a prison overseen by the CIA. Prisoners sent to Styx don't come out alive. If word gets out about the theft of the device, it would not only damage the reputation of British Military Intelligence, but also damage U.K-US relations (as well an endanger the lives of the agents listed, and cause all operations to be scrapped immediately. A plan is devised to get an operative inside Styx, and either destroy the device, or to retrieve it and then get out. The atmosphere within Styx is already fraught with suspicion and belligerence, but it's about to get much worse, with the arrival of an undercover agent.
This one is my favourite in the series, and one I was hoping would be adapted to screen, until the total failure of Stratton (2017).
H. P. Blavatsky
A Collection of Articles from Lucifer, H. P. Blavatsky's magazine, between 1887-1891
Stratton is parachuted into Central America to hand over weapons to a rebel group, to help them fight against the corrupt governments army. He even falls in love with the daughter of a rebel leader, along the way. The highlight of the story was the very Zulu-sequel attack on the rebel base, by the vastly overwhelming in numbers government controlled army.
Sent on a mission to Sevastopol to gather intel using some new equipment, Stratton returns home find that the intel that he gathered wasn't recorded. Not only that, but the device that he used, which was supposed to be destroyed via a self destruct mechanism, well it failed to self destruct. The equipment was found by the Russians. Shit rolls downhill, and Stratton gets the blame. Stratton is sent to the naughty corner, which in his line of work involves being sent to a secret underground facility run by MI16 (a real life Q-Branch). A facility where equipment is developed before being sent off for field testing.
Meanwhile, out in the North Sea, the Morpheus Oil Platform has just been taken by mercenaries, demanding 2 billion pounds in 24hrs, or they start chucking hostages overboard. When word gets out, the SBS send in a forward team to do a recee on the situation, but first they need to stop by MI16 to pick up a few things. Coincidence? They end up setting off a security alarm, and locking down the lift that they are in. Stratton learns from them what has happened to Morpheus, and hatches a plan to take their place, flying out to Morpheus along with the MI16 boffins and re-take the platform. All the while, a vicious storm heads straight for Morpheus.
It only took 7 books, but Stratton finally crosses paths with Somalian pirates.
A collection of 18 short stories from the period 1956-1997. Have read five of them before. Great stuff.
The collection of short stories that bore the film Arrival.
And:
Given the 400+ books in this series, the thought of reading them, was daunting. Nevertheless, I had wanted to try them for some time, and have been gradually buying a book here, and a book there. With my Executioner collection now at 65 books, I finally decided to jump in at the beginning.
I would stop short of calling it shlock, but there was definitely an enjoyable pulpiness. A breeze to read as well. I am going to try and plug the gaps (and I have a ton of gaps), as I go, but this series ain't easy to come by in the UK, especially with the early books long out of print in the UK (though a US publisher has been reprinting the original 37 books, just not this side of the pond).