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After getting a bit tired of a string of Bond novels, I switched over to a series I’ve been interested in for some time.  The Conan Series.

For the un-initiated, there is a little history behind the Conan series.  While written by Robert Howard (1906-1936) in the early half of the 1900’s, most of his current novels as we have them today come from editors that collected and cleaned up his works that were original published in magazines and from notes.  The canonical editor for his work has more or less come to be L. Sprague de Camp.  This book is no different; and contains some of Conan’s (argueably) best stories.

The first story is considered one of the best, and is titled Red Nails.  It starts with the battle-hardened Valeria of the Red Brotherhood escaping the clutches of a nearby city in which she killed one of the chiefs who made unwanted advances.  She heads out into the unknown wilderness where she is found by Conan – who is tracking her down like a love-lorn puppy.  After some clever boasting, swaggering, and a little bit of threatening on both sides, they get distracted and cornered by a dragon.  In their escape, the spot a strange city hereto unknown to the outside world.  As they enter the city, they meet the strange inhabitants who have split into two camps and have been fighting a clan war for decades.  Valeria and Conan get embroiled in the fighting and the story takes many twists and turns as the truth behind the mysterious city, the clan leader that never grows old, and a missing wizard become clear.  It’s a great story – full of magic and no shortage of carnage.

The second story is the Jewels of Gwahlur. Conan is trying to track down the mythical and fabulous Teeth of Gwahlur from their hiding place in a mystic castle inhabited by an oracle.  He is in a race against the clock as the nearby town has sent a party of cultists to track them down as well.  Inside, they encounter the oracle (who is very different than they expect!), as well as the true guardians of the Teeth.  Another fabulous hack and slash as well as a great twisting and turning story.

The third story, Beyond the Black River, differes from the first two in that Conan is attempting to save a group of settlers and an outpost from a growing horde of attackers lead by an evil and mysterious dark lord.  The expedition into the frontier to track them down turns into a slaughter of Conan’s men, and they engage in a running battle back to the fort.  Conan turns to fight the dark creature and a fantastic final battle ensues.  The back and forth banter between Conan and the evil leader is priceless and really shows the fearlessness and cunning wit of Conan.

Overall, it’s a great collection.  I found myself surprised again and again by Howard’s originality and cleverness.  You rarely can guess what’s coming next, which keeps the story engrossing to the end.  The worlds he paints are equally fantastic.  They absolutely explode with imagination and originality.

While not for everyone’s palette in style, I give this a solid A and recommend to anyone who enjoys high adventure and great warrior characters.

Continuing my slightly out-of-order journey through Ian Fleming’s Bond novels, I just completed Thunderball.

Thunderball is a pretty pivotal book in the literary Bond series because of its introduction of SPECTRE and Ernest Stavro Blofeld.  Like many of the early Bond movies, the movie version of this book is very close to the book version.

The book starts comically enough with Bond being sent by M (who is on a health-kick) to Shrublands – an all-natural health spa.  Apparently there is a good in-story on this.  Fleming had been accused by critics that his books were too immoral.  The whole Shrublands portion is comically lampooned by Fleming – and later in the book makes a big point of pointing out that Blofeld doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, rarely eats and is apparently a virgin.  Take that do-gooders!  Being ‘healthy’ will just make you frustrated and a sexless evil villain!  Anyway, while at Shrublands, Bond unwittingly has a run-in with a SPECTRE member while trying everything to avoid the rigors of the food and health treatments.

Upon returning to duty, it is learned that SPECTRE has stolen two nuclear weapons via hijacking a training flight and landing it in the waters of the Bahamas.  Bond is sent on a hunch to check out the possible Shrublands guest which leads him to the Bahamas.  While there, Bond pairs up with Felix and learns of a ‘treasure hunting’ expedition that has all the right equipment for the kind of recovery operations that an operation like SPECTRE’s might need.  Further suspicions are aroused by their overly-squeaky clean crew and sailors headed by Emilio Largo.  While keeping up the public treasure-hunting facade, Largo is actually SPECTRE’s #2, and in charge of the recovery and delivery of the nuclear devices to their targets.  In the process of investigating, Bond meets Largo’s mistress Domino who actually snubs Bond’s first advances.  We meet the ruthless SPECTRE organization that kills it’s own dissenting members and get to see Bond at his trademark card-table antics when he takes a pile of money from Largo while sizing him up.  The story rises to a head as the clock ticks down and they chase Largo’s boat to the target and get into one big underwater battle with everything at stake.  It’s non-stop action, sinister characters, and Fleming’s usual vivid descriptions that make this a great read.

While there are far too many lucky coincidences that lead Bond down the right track, this is still a great (and a little terrifying) story.  Despite it’s grandiose plot and characters, it is handled very believably.  Honestly, many people have claimed that such a hijacking/nuclear threat was, and still is, just a matter of time.  While today it is more likely someone would get their hands on such a device from the fallen Soviet Union, or from a middle-east country, the threat is still very real today.  Even if the device stolen were fairly small yield – it would be more than enough to destroy the heart of most US cities and leave countless dead and irradiated.  It’s a terrifying and real threat in our world even today.

Overall, I think this book steals the top prize from my other top pick of the series – Moonraker. The writing by this point in Fleming’s career has gotten the kinks worked out, and the characters are very palpable, unique, and much more believable.  I give this a solid A and a highly recommend rating for anyone that just wants to pick one or two of the original Bond series to read.

Ah, now on to Ian Flemming’s Bond book 4 – Diamonds are Forever.

This book is only about 50/50 the same as the movie.  Bond is trying to track down a diamond smuggling ring this time.  He starts by slipping into the Spang mob’s supply chain by kidnapping and replacing one of their diamond couriers.  He meets the lovely Tiffany Case who is his mob ‘boss’ and they smuggle some of the stolen African diamonds into the US.  Bond tries to track through the hierarchy of the mob and get his hands on the mysterious Spang Brothers.  In the process, he goes to some horse racing, journeys to Vegas where he mixes it up with the Spang mob, and then has one final adventure on his trip back to England on the Queen Elizabeth.

While the adventure is grand in concept, this book falls far short of most of Fleming’s other novels.  It’s a bit schizophrenic in it’s plot lines with a few too many villains.  Also, the job itself of tracking down the diamonds is more like police work instead of the high government intrigue  we’re used too.  His smuggling of the diamonds with Tiffany case is a good bit of writing, but it falls apart again when he goes for some horse racing in which the delightfully evil, well-done, but far underutilized mob couple Kidd and Wint dump hot mud on the jockey that Bond bribed to toss a horse race in order to tease out the mob.

Bond adventures to Vegas, and decides to stir up the mob by ‘stealing’ money from the mob casino which is set up to pay our Bond’s smuggling pay via a rigged card game that Tiffany deals for him.  This starts the mob after him and eventually gets him captured.  He’s dragged out to the Spang estate – which is a somewhat ridiculous western-era town recreation.  Here we see Bond run completely out of ideas, and take a clean beating from Kidd and Wint.  It’s only by the action of Tiffany that he’s saved, and a train race ensues.  This whole plot line is weak and a bit schizophrenic.  Knowing what we do of mobsters, we’re wondering why they don’t just off bond with a few bullets and be done with it?  Why do these gangsters treat Bond with any respect or concern?  The height of hubris is when Bond, finally captured after killing at least half a dozen of Spang’s men, asks the Spang brother to make him a drink before he talks – and he DOES it.  In every story of mobsters I know they would have beaten him senseless and chopped off a finger for even opening his mouth.  To me, if feels very much like a very British Flemming trying to write about American gangsters from just what little scraps of info would have drifted back across the ocean of his time.  He doesn’t seem to really get mob behavior, and still tinges it with a bit of British culture.

Alas, Flemming pretty much flubs the whole track of the Spang brothers.  They make some amazing blunders for supposedly being so careful – and it just didn’t feel like Flemming knew what he was going to do with these characters.  It’s almost like he set it in motion, realized he was running out of space, and just ends the thread.  Badly.  It’s no surprise they never make it to any of the movie editions.  There’s so little of them present, and what there is is so schizophrenic, that there’s little to even grab hold of.  Probably the worst Bond villains in the books I’ve read to date.

The love interest with Tiffany is as equally disappointing.  She’s certainly an interesting character, but for being such a tough character, she just sorts of falls in love with Bond for little to no reason.  The final adventure they have on the cruise back to England also feels rushed and somewhat hollow and unbelievable.

So, Diamonds are Forever is a so-so book.  One could easily skip it and not miss anything; but for the true Bond fan, there’s plenty of good stuff in here to enjoy.  Give it a C+

I continue to make my way through Ian Fleming’s Bond novels – and this time it’s the mysterious Dr. No.

Set after ‘From Russia with Love’, Bond has recovered from the deadly poison attack and is put on a ‘routine’ checkup of a reporting station that went silent in Jamaica.  In what is supposed to be an easy R&R assignment, he discovers the evil Dr. No has people infiltrated large sectors of the locals and is likely behind the disappearances of the reporting station.  He is also apparently up to something on, and behind other mysterious disappearances at, his private Crab Key island.  Bond pairs up with the local Jamaican Quarrel and investigates.  We meet the beautiful and wild Honey Rider who’s grown up by her wits in the tropics gathering shells.  He is captured and after given luxurious treatment and dinner with Dr. No; he is subject to physical abuse as he is beaten, burned, and attacked by sea creatures on Dr. No’s torture course.   And of course we also meet the mysterious and evil Dr. No who wastes no time extolling his own prowess and intellect in true evil genius style.  Can Bond escape the torture course, rescue the girl, and destroy Dr. No?

Dr. No is another case in which the movie actually follows the book pretty closely – and in some ways – surpasses the book.  The characters are the same, but there are a few differences.  The pipe that the movie Bond crawls through in the movie is actually a torture course in the book.  Dr. No doesn’t have any nuclear reactor in the book, and his hands are simply claws, not the mechanical apparatus of the movie.  The death of Dr. No in the nuclear reactor of the movie was almost more cool than the ‘ironic’ death he gets in the book buried under a pile of guano. Dr. No’s reasons for keeping people off the island are due to his use of slave labor in the book, and his missile interception is secondary to profits from the island’s guano mining.

Technically, the writing shows it’s ‘pulpy-ness’ for sure.  Like usual Fleming novels, you’re not going to find any Pulitzer depth or anything resembling literary prose; but you will find a tight little book that keeps the action moving. His dated concepts of ‘good breeding’ and disdain of the Chinese and those of African-American descent are typically prejudiced and bigoted.  Bond’s in-servitude and only passing concern about the death of poor Quarrel leaves a particularly bad taste in your mouth.  Quarrel helps him, protects him, is more fit, stronger, of better character, and would follow Bond anywhere.  Yet barely half the love Quarrel should have got was given.  As in other Bond novels, we see the book Bond’s flaws much more clearly – he’s got far more imperfections than ever show in the suave movie Bond.

Yet there are some great parts.  In true stereotypical fashion, Bond is captured and taken to a beautiful dinner where Dr. No spills his life story because he believes only Bond is ‘smart enough’ to understand his achievements.  There is a great window into the ocean that is a technical marvel Dr. No built to show off his genius. But one of my favorite parts is the introduction of another spy-era villain fax-paux. When Bond is put through the torture maze and Honey is tied up outside to be devoured by crabs, nobody actually watches them or checks to make sure the job is done.  They just wander off at the critical moments and leave them to their oh-so-obvious escape.  Reminds me of the quote, “Now I’ll leave you alone to your almost certain doom by this complex apparatus with that innocuous looking pen and one inept guard.”

So, overall, we have the classic maniac and Bond must destroy him. A great little book, but you won’t get much more out of this than just seeing the movie.  It gets a B because it’s good, but you can get all of that and more out of the 2 hour movie.

Yet another round of classic James Bond.  This time, it’s the dastardly Auric Goldfinger.

Goldfinger is Fleming’s 7th Bond book – and largely doesn’t disappoint.   Unlike most of the rest of the Bond series, the movie version actually follows the book.  Not only that, but the movie actually seemed better.  But that’s no reason not to read this one.

Some of the differences?  In the film, Bond is threatened by a laser beam; in the book, it’s a metal cutting circular saw. In the film, Bond escapes the the laser with clever talking, in the book he is beaten and attempts to hold his breath to reach unconsciousness, completely resigned to death.  In the film, Goldfinger puts Fort Knox to sleep with poison gas; in the book, he taints the town’s water supply. In the film, Goldfinger wants to blow up the fort; in the book, he actually wants to rob it. In the film, both Oddjob and Goldfinger die clever and inventive deaths; in the book, only Oddjob’s demise is interesting.  In the film, the golf game is smoothly played, while in the book it’s a bit rough and Goldfinger even intuits the deception.

The plot in the book also has a few more holes that were handled better in the movie.  For example, in the book the ludicrously shrewd and calculating Goldfinger, (who is a brilliant financier for SMERSH and genius of planning), falls for Bond’s flimsy cover story of working for an export company.  Yet, after Bond completely outwits and flim-flamms Goldfinger publicly, TWICE, Goldfinger somehow figures it’s a good idea to put Bond in charge of part of his Fort Knox operation.  At the last minute.  After he’s said he’s planned this out to the minute with nothing to chance. When Bond is captured and tied to the laser/cutting saw table, he resigns himself to a gruesome death.  No witty banter, no fast-talking escape – just a plan to die quickly and Goldfinger saves him on a hunch on suspicion that Bond might be ‘clever’.

As a final sore spot, the book has the usual cringe-worthy racism and sexism. While ever-present in all of Fleming’s novels, this one seems worse than the others.  Fleming’s racist comments about Oddjob and the other Korean helpers are downright disgusting.  The handling of Pussy Galore’s lesbianism is no less stereotyped.  I’m also amazed at the number of times Bond demands and insults his captors into first-class treatment – and gets it each time!  It definitely showed the cock-sure British ideal of considering themselves to be superior to others and that the place of lessers was to treat their greaters properly – even when they’re about to put you to death.  Definitely out of step with the sensibilities of today – but a good historical reminder of what our world once was.

Still the plot is super-grandiose.  I mean, nowhere else would someone even think of knocking over Fort Knox.  The movie even makes a jab at Fleming with the movie Bond gafawing the the notion of trying to get all the gold out with even a hundred men.  Something Fleming was actually going to do in the book. Yet, Goldfinger falls into the classic villain stereotype of saving Bond because he believes Bond is the only man truly smart enough to appreciate his dastardly plan.  He gives Bond a front-row seat during the critical moments, and then is completely taken aback when Bond foils his plot with a plain-looking shoe.  Sigh.

Sure, it’s a pulp novel with cardboard cut-out villains, heroes, and femme fetals.  But the writing is actually pretty good and  story keeps chugging along nicely.  Ignore the rough spots – and it sure makes me wish we had such grandiose and imaginative villains in the works of today.  All we seem to get in today’s villians are disenfranchised psychopaths (the Joker) racing to the sewers of depravity, super-heroes on 30-year-old rehashed plots, characters that are just thinly veiled social or political commentaries, or gore-fests that show off our latest CGI abilities.  I wonder what a villain of global scale would look like today…

The latest of my Ian Flemming reading is “From Russia With Love”. It was his 5th Bond book and considered one of his best.  I don’t know if I totally agree, but it’s still a very good read.

The plot is full of great early cold-war era intrigue. Russia’s intelligence agency has recently suffered some embarrassing failures and setbacks.  They decide to enlist their lethal SMERSH to come up with a plan to embarrass the west and also eliminate an enemy agent at the same time.  They target Bond for the elimination; and cook up a plot to do so in the most publicly embarrassing way possible by framing him.  SMERSH enlists the irresistible Tatiana Romanova to lure 007 to Istanbul promising to give the west a top-secret Spektor cipher machine.  But when Bond walks willingly into the trap, a game of cross and double-cross ensues.

Overall, the story is not bad and right in line with Flemming’s other novels.  The plot in this book is probably the most complex.  There are many different story lines all working their way towards a resolution and the exact details of the plot are hidden from view until the very end.  Some of those lines are working so completely unseen to the reader that it gives a great bit of excitement as you wonder where and how those spinning wheels will come crashing into view again.

Oh sure, there is plenty of bigotry and nationalism as usual in the Bond series.  Flemming gives great little unfiltered opinions of various Western countries of his day via the comments of the Russian’s during the plotting phase.  He doesn’t seem to think much of the French for sure.  There’s the usual dose of sex and even some lesbianism which would certainly have been as racy as it came back in the day.  There are gypsies that he considers near sub-human, and so forth.  Certainly cringe-worthy for people sensitive to political incorrectness – but I still always find these books amazing insights into exactly what people of 70 years ago used to honestly think.

One notable point in this novel is that Bond walks pretty much right into the Russian trap when there are buckets of warning signs.  The concept of Bond being some invincibly omnipotent agent as we see in the movie versions is not present in most of the actual books.  Yet this book really shows the flaws.  Several times Bond even says to himself that this might be a trap and unsuccessfully tries to sort out the plots that appear to be SCREAMING that it’s a trap (you dolt!).  Yet he goes right along with it anyway and seems to think the power of his masculine intuition over this Russian agent he is making love with is all-powerful.  Oh how wrong he turns out to be.

There are some great villains.  The head of SMERSH is vile and cringe worthy.  The assassin himself is a great character; and painted as dark as one could imagine.  The depths of his murderous and homicidal tenancies are nearly unparalleled in other works I’ve read of this era.  He’s a genuinely nasty and downright psychopathic killer.  Still, I found myself laughing out loud though when it came to the point of the kill.  He actually wakes up his completely vulnerable victim to tell them the WHOLE plot ad-nausium before making what should have been an easy kill.  It introduces the classic faux-pax of having your enemy completely in your power, stopping to spill the whole plot, and then flub it because you gave the victim a window of opportunity.  Truly classic.

Overall, it is a good book.  I think I might still give the nod to Moonraker, but this one has much more intrigue and dynamism to it. I give it a A- for the adventure, with the minus points for Bond’s walking right into a trap WE all saw coming.