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What Bond book are you currently reading or what is the one that you finished most recently?
I am currently reading through Thunderball which is one of the few Fleming's remaining that I haven't read yet.
Ive just given up half way thru Solo (total borefest) and just started Parkers Goldeneye. Im 100 pages in and totally addicted, nice to read about Fleming himself!!
I have only ventured to Devil May Care outside of Fleming (slowly getting around). So you wouldn't recommend Solo then?
I finished Fleming then read Col Sun (good), DMC (enjoyable) then Solo. Im about half way and it really does not feel like Bond at all
I finished Fleming then read Col Sun (good), DMC (enjoyable) then Solo. Im about half way and it really does not feel like Bond at all
Yes -close but no cigar... 
Funny how Kingsley Amis (writing as Robert Markham)'s Colonel Sun really does feel like Bond, but Solo and DMC just don't, IMO. That's perhaps the acid test of the continuation novels...
I remember enjoying Solo when I read it, although I do recall that when the action shifted to the USA my interest started to wane a little.
In the last couple of months I've been catching up on some of the continuation novels I haven't got around to reading yet. I've read Colonel Sun (second time), Brokenclaw, Nobody Lives For Ever, High Time to Kill and am currently reading Christopher Wood's James Bond and Moonraker.
I hated Solo. 
I'm reading all the Flemings in order. Currently I'm up to For Your Eyes Only.
I must say that I struggled initially with both Live and Let Die and Moonraker but I thoroughly enjoyed them both. Most of the ones I have read have been superb.
However, the first real misstep was Diamonds are Forever. We've all discussed what made this title a weaker entry in the canon elsewhere but suffice to say that, although it contains some great sequences with some great characters, it falls down with it's obscure main villains and far too many locations crammed in.
Unfortunately, I seem to be experiencing the same with For Your Eyes Only. I really don't think that Bond suits the short story format.
I hated Solo.
I thought Solo was the best of the last three Bond books - by FAR !
But NOTHING happened in it. I've read it twice, and that's enough for me. 
But NOTHING happened in it.
And yet it's STILL 10 times better than the other two - combined ! 
What Bond book are you currently reading or what is the one that you finished most recently?
I am currently reading through Thunderball which is one of the few Fleming's remaining that I haven't read yet.
I'm reading through Moonraker again - which, in my opinion, is the best of them all.
I like your username, by the way, Dr Noah
DR NO-ah wrote:What Bond book are you currently reading or what is the one that you finished most recently?
I am currently reading through Thunderball which is one of the few Fleming's remaining that I haven't read yet.
I'm reading through Moonraker again - which, in my opinion, is the best of them all.
I like your username, by the way, Dr Noah
CHEERS! 
Okay, I'm changing my mind about the short story format. I wasn't much keen on "From a View to a Kill", but "For Your Eyes Only" - the short story, that is - was superb.
I may also be one of the very few who rates "Quantum of Solace" highly, even though it was a retrospective story told in flashback with no Bond elements. However, it was a nice morality tale and probably the best piece of proper character development for Bond himself. I'm a big fan of this particular short story.
When I first read QOS, as a teen. I hated it, but after a few years when you as a reader have lived a little,
been through a few relationships etc. It becomes a much more interesting story, of how an intense love, can
turn to an almost destructive hatred of each other.
I am currently reading through You Only Twice for the first time now. Absolutely loving it, already one of my favourite Fleming's. And yes, 002 I agree about For Your Eyes only, I would say it is the best short story.
Yes, and I think it's perhaps the best candidate of all the short stories for expansion to a full novel (we had a thread on that a few years ago). It obviously didn't suit Our Founder at the time to put in the extra effort to do that, but perhaps if he had we wouldn't have got some of the other stories.
I have always been a fan of Risico too. Still holding out for the film version!!
I have always been a fan of Risico too. Still holding out for the film version!!
We got at least some of it in For Your Eyes Only in 1981.
I re-read the Fleming Bonds recently (again...) and am currently working my way through Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series. These are very enjoyable books and quite distinct from the Dean Martin movies of the 60s.
I've been re-reading (For the hundredth Time) the Fleming Novels until GF, in Celebration of Trigger Mortis.
Trying very hard to get through The Hildebrand Rarity: it's not holding my interest, I hate to say...
I do think some of the short stories, depend on your age and life experiences.
( I don't mean that in a discourteous way, by the way )
As Teen I hated QOS, etc. Slow and not much happening but when I recently
Read them again as a much older man ( still stunningly good looking, of course) 
I was amazed at how much they had improved , as an older guy who, unlike my
Teenage self had now been through a few relationships etc. I saw them as fantastic
Pieces of writing. More about the characters and their personalities, their interaction
with Bond. Showing us more of an insight into Bond the man.
Hmmm... depends on how you view age and one's definition of "old", I guess. I'm 43 and loved both QOS and FYEO. THR and FAVTAK both lost me. Risico was a mild diversion and, on the whole I liked it. I'm not sure I would have, had I been in my teens.
We all like what we like. it was only how I explained it
to myself.
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