It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Casino Royale
4. Dr. No
5. Moonraker
6. You Only Live Twice
7. Live and Let Die
8. Thunderball
9. Goldfinger
10. Diamonds Are Forever
11. The Man with the Golden Gun
Short story collections:
1. For Your Eyes Only (best story: "The Hildebrand Rarity")
2. Octopussy and The Living Daylights (best story: "The Living Daylights")
Too true.
It's interesting how many aficionados have reassessed their appreciation of this work.
Reading it as a boy, PussyNoMore was wofuly unimpressed and actually felt cheated. It didn't follow the formula and many, including a high proportion of critics, dismissed it for that.
Indeed, for 53 years, it remained one of two Bond books that Pussy didn't re-read (the other being DAF).
Last year, more to validate his original opinion than anything else, he was drawn back to it and is so pleased he made the effort.
It is, of course, a very explicit book in comparison to the others but it was surprising how fresh it felt. Fleming captured the '60s beautifully through the eyes of Viv which was a complete step change for him. Not only did he manage to see things from a young woman's perspective, he also managed to engage with her generation whilst his other works had, and have, more of a '50s feel to them.
More than this, it has a strong sense of jeopardy and manages to morph from a coming of age story into a tense noir thriller with, as always, Fleming creating a great sense of place.
PussyNoMore would definitely recommend anybody who read it when they were initially in their teens or younger to re-read it. The SWLM is certainly a cult classic
1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. Dr. No
3. Moonraker
4. You Only Live Twice
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Live and Let Die
7. From Russia with Love
8. Casino Royale
9. Thunderball
10. Goldfinger
11. The Man with the Golden Gun
12. Diamonds Are Forever
Short Story Ranking:
1. For Your Eyes Only
2. Risico
3. The Hildebrand Rarity
4. The Living Daylights
5. Quantum of Solace
6. From a View to a Kill
7. Octopussy
8. The Property of a Lady
9. 007 in New York
2. Dr. No - the first novel I ever read. Easy read, not hard work at all.
3. TMWTGG - gripped from the very first page. Very readable, and it is one of my favourite novels.
4. TSWLM - not one of Fleming's best, but very readable, due to the way its written.
5. GF - lengthy novel but very easy to absorb. Moves along at a very fast pace.
6. LALD - another lengthy novel that moves along at a fast pace.
7. DAF - not highly thought of on here but I like it.
8. Moonraker - solid novel, let down by not being set in an exotic location.
9. YOLT - hard work for most part, until Bond gets to the Garden of Death
10. FRWL - highly acclaimed by many, yet I find it a difficult read, particularly as Bond doesn't appear until half way through the book
11. CR - one of the books I find quite tough to get through. Unstructured for most part, too many chapters, and the torture sequence is a little too grim and depressing for repeated reading. Fleming was finding his way with this one.
12. TB - the weakest of the lot, and I find quite a chore to get through. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the movie(s) either. It still has its decent moments though. No Fleming book is poor.
TB! The chapter with Moneypenny is maybe even my favourite Moneypenny/office moment from Fleming. But the middle of the book is boring to me. Usually I read one novel per month...TB takes much longer...
Yes, I have always found TB the weakest.
My no. 1 is DAF (mainly for the character of Tiffany Case) but my no. 2 is YOLT and that’s because of its very slight touch of the supernatural.
They’re all great though. Other authors can be very up and down but IMO Fleming hit the ground running in CR and kept a solid level of consistency right up to his death.
in this book. But I enjoy the parts with Domino.
@IGotABrudder Tiffany Case is really well written and one of the best Bond girls...but this is one of only a few little highlights...I like Wint and Kidd and the beginning and ending in the desert. Fascinating how he describes the scorpion.
YOLT is one of the novels which I liked more the second/third time: I was a bit disappointed the first time, that almost nothing happens in the first part to bring the story forward. At my last read, I was already attuned to the amount of dialogues and enjoyed much more than I expected.
That was pointless self-sabotage on Fleming's part, since the Spangled Mob is actually just as competent as SMERSH. But Fleming couldn't resist mocking the theatricality of the mob, which he considered vulgar and unprofessional, and its Italian roots, which makes Bond deliver bigoted comments about Italian Americans. Fleming's love-hate relationship with America meant he was unable to really give the Spangled Mob its due. His idea of true evil was European; for him evil Americans were always uncouth thugs, no matter how effective they were.
Not much controversial in my list other than DAF, which also happens to be the only novel or short story that beats the film imo. MR might seem too low.
Anyways here's my ranking (not necessarily based on readability but overall preference/enjoyment):
1. From Russia With Love - classic, love how it takes its time and shows Soviet angle
2. Diamonds Are Forever - so much fun, great little moments, action and writing
3. OHMSS - a really great read but not exactly much fun
4. Dr. No - great location/atmosphere, set-up and Dr. No himself is pure Bond villain
5. Thunderball - once again great locations, characters and underwater stuff
6. Casino Royale - really good story and characters. Just not as good as the rest
7. Live And Let Die - too slow and racist at the start. Ending is enjoyable, however.
8. You Only Live Twice - weird/different, but fascinating to read
9. Goldfinger - decent but didn't like the secretary stuff or finale
10. Moonraker - proto Bond story, dull location, action and characters
11. The Spy Who Loved Me - interesting experiment but only the finale is good
12. TMWTGG - doesn't feel complete, Scaramanga reads like a cartoon character.
13. OP + TLD collection*
14. FYEO collection**
Short story ranking:
*FAVTAK
*FYEO
**OP
**TLD
**TPOAL
*RISICO
*QoS
*THR
**007 in NY
It’s good to see some love for Diamonds :)
I think it’s a great novel and it has a massive amount of stuff that has not yet made it to film. Unless NTTD will have a classic American steam locomotive scene? Who knows?
From Russia With Love is probably the best novel. It oozes 1960s spy scandal atmosphere.
My third favourite is You Only Live Twice. There’s an air of the supernatural about it which I really like
Glad to see someone else can appreciate it as well. True, there's a decent amount of unused material in DAF. Maybe that's why I enjoyed it as much as I did. In fact one of the reasons LALD isn't higher on my list is because of how it has been butchered by multiple films over the years.
Now. To the exercise. As directed -- and SO many of you have flaunted -- I say, I say FLAUNTED the rules ! -- I am NOT going to include the Short Stories. As I understand the exercise, they stay OUT.
Additionally, this is not about which book is BEST, or Better than those ranked below. It is about EASY TO READ !
With that being said...
DN
GF
FR,WL
TB/OHMSS/YOLT
After all that Obsessive-Compulsive ranting set forth above - BUT YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT ! - here I go breakin' all the rules (sounds like a song). I am treating these as a long single book in terms of listing, because, for this trilogy, they should be read in the PROPER ORDER ! That which goes on between Bond and Blofeld is a tremendous storyline. They really messed. each. other. up ! If you do not like the way I am listing it, then just pretend I put OHMSS after TB, and YOLT after OHMSS
MR
CR
DAF
LALD
TMWTGG
TSWLM
Once again -- this is not about which is BEST -- but about Easy-to-Read.
As for the books I rank even higher than the Bond-vs-Blofeld Trilogy, they're just easy-to-read thrillers that move along well.
The very same John Gavin was under consideration to portray Bond before Sean Connery came back for DAF. (John Gavin became US Ambassador to Mexico. Did he have any hand in helping the producers when they made LTK in Mexico ? I know not. Perhaps someone else might have some information on that.) I think Fleming might have found interesting the psychological aspects of the killer in Psycho, and please recall that his killers in TSWLM are not just guns-for-hire. They're psychos themselves, one of them particularly so. Of course, this was not the first time Fleming gave some background to his mentally-deranged-killer-character(s) -- ref. Red Grant in FR,WL, W&K in DAF, which was the prior occasion on which Bond was in the US in a full novel and Bond went to New York in a short story but it post-dated TSWLM -- but, again, small hotel in the boonies, lady getting away, etc. Surely this is not the first occasion on which anyone considered the Psycho-TSWLM common elements ? Perhaps in a book on Fleming ? An interview ?
1. Moonraker
2. Thunderball
3. Goldfinger
4. You Only Live Twice
5. The Man With The Golden Gun
A Bit Heavy Read (it's slow at times):
6. Casino Royale
7. Dr. No
8. From Russia With Love
9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The Heaviest (I'm full on it):
10. Live And Let Die
11. The Spy Who Loved Me
12. Diamonds Are Forever