Customer Reviews

DOCTOR NO

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most of us have seen a James Bond movie at one time or another and enjoyed the outlandish antics in which he participates. However, upon getting my hands on this edition and finishing it in a matter of hours, the movies suddenly hold no appeal. I love the literary Bond! Sure, he's a lecherous alcoholic who smokes 60 cigarettes a day, but that's only during his downtime; when he's on the job, women and booze are secondary. And sure, it's vastly outdated, but the Cold War is still, by far, the best setting for an espionage thriller. The Bond in the novels is a cold cutomer who wouldn't hesitate to kill someone close to him to spare them a worse death (as in the latter part of Live And Let Die). Also, the literary Bond's body is a patchwork of scar tissue, and his handsome features are marred only by a scar on his right cheek.
That said, Fleming's style is great--short and to the point, much the same as his days writing reports during WWII during his stint in the military. His prose isnn't flowery, and it advances the story at a brisk pace.
Dr. No is an excellent turning point for both Fleming and Bond. Fleming killed Bond at the end of From Russia With Love (one report being that he'd tired of the character, but fans clammored for Bond's revival). The events of the previous novel are touched-on briefly in the beginning of the book, but they don't have much bearing on the rest of the story. However, the return of Quarrel (from Live And Let Die) and his loss greatly affects Bond, bringing a depth of character rarely explored by the celluloid Bonds.
Dr. No is a great read of the genre of its time, featuring a dashing secret agent hero, a capable sidekick, a beautiful seashell-hunting love interest, 5-inch tropical poisonous centipedes, flamethrowing dragons, sadistic henchmen, a giant squid (not in the movie!), and of course, Dr. No, the pincer-handed, ultra-rich, ultra-evil, guano-dealing nemesis! Who could ask for anything more?!

The basic frame of all the James Bond books and movies. It was the book chosen by the owners of the film rights to introduce the character to the screen - and they kept rather close to the essentials ... the tough but sophisticated Bond, the alluring female lead who becomes his companion and usually savior, the gruff but proud M and so on. Probably the best example of the movie being as good as the book - certainly not true of the later cartoonish movies which are seldom as good as the original Fleming stories.

This is my favorite James Bond novel. Ian Fleming created a character with a gargantuan appetite for the more worldly pleasures. For a land that could supply our hero with such an appetite Fleming chose his own beloved Jamaica. The melding of the story with the setting is Fleming at his best. Jamaica was a land of beauty, mystery and intrigue. Fleming captured this so well and gave us a remarkable villain to reflect that esoteric quality of the island.

As most teenagers, I had my "Bond movies phase", renting and watching every movie from Sean Connery through Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and now Brosnan. Even so, I had never read one of Ian Fleming's books, prejudicialy dismissing them as childish and poorly written. After ten years, I found "Doctor No" in a used-books store, and since I made the mistake of thinking this was, like in the movies, the first book of the series, I bought it.

In "Doctor No", James Bond, after a bad mission and spending some time in a hospital, is given a kind of "vacation mission" in Jamaica. He has to discover what happened to the local stationed british secret agent, who is reported missing. When Bond gets there, he is driven towards Crab Key, a misterious island owned by Julius No, a tall, bald maniac for privacy and who is hiding things from jamaican administration.

To my surprise (and showing I was wrong in my prejudices), Fleming is a good writer who can hold the reader's attention at most times. It's just a pity that I didn't begin the series with the first book, "Casino Royale", to see how Fleming developed his writing style, characters and plots while writing the books.
Other surprise was to compare Bond in the books with Bond in the movies. Bond in the books was more human and credible, even to the point of throwing up after moments of extreme tension. Other characters are interesting as well, like nature girl Honey Rider and Bond's friend Quarrell. I also liked to meet again characters like M and Q. Doctor No, though, as everything related to Crab Key island, is a little too fantastic for my taste, but, from the information I gathered, "Doctor No" is Fleming's most "exotic" and implausible book.

The important considerations are that Fleming can create good thrilling scenes, and that James Bond is a better character than I expected. I will surely look for "Casino Royale" and start the series in proper order.

Grade 8.8/10

This is one of the best Bond books that I've read.It is action packed and suspenseful. It is written with great detail to action and is much faster paced than other Bond novels. Although it has a few slower moments the end makes up for it with its suspense. I liked all of the characters and thought Quarrel was a good sidekick for Bond.Honeychile was one of the better Bond girls also because she was more down to earth and seemed very natural.

The story starts in Jamaica where two British secret service agents,Mr.Strangways and Mary Trueblood,are staying. One day after Strangways daily card games he is shot by three chinesse negros and taken away.The same guys then kill Mary Trueblood and take her too. In England, James Bond is sent down to Jamaica to investigate their agents disappearence.Once there Bond teams up with an old friend named Quarrel. While there Bond learns about a chinaman named Dr.No who owns a island called Crab Key. Bond decides to investigate Dr.No after Dr.No attempts to kill him. Bond and Quarrel take a canoe and sneak over to Crab Key. The morning after they arrived on Crab Key, Bond meets Honeychile Rider,who is diving for rare shells. She is very defensive and fierce upon meeting Bond. She relaxes though once she sees he's not going to harm her.At this time Quarrel tells them that boats are coming to the shore. The boats fire into the forest on shore and just barly misses Bond and Honeychile. The men on the boat then come ashore with dogs and guns to find the them. Now Bond,Quarrel,and Honeychile must try and save their lives from Dr.No's men. After Bond kills one of the men from the boat,they find a hidding place to rest for the night. The next morning they encounter a 'dragon',which is a marsh buggy made to look like a dragon.They fire upon with no effect and Quarrel is killed by the 'dragons'flamethrower. Bond and Honeychile are captured and taken to Dr.No. There Dr.No reveals his plans for power and that he killed Strangways. After telling him this,Dr.No sends Bond into his maze of death which he designed himself. Can Bond get out of the maze and save Honeychile,who has fallen in love with Bond, and the world once again or will he be defeated in Dr.No's maze of death?I don't want to spoil the end so you'll have to get the book to find out for yourself what happens to Bond.

The name of the villain is common word now, and the character itself is legend. Doctor Julius No is a madman with touches of genius, an agent of evil so dangerous to the U.S. rocket programme and the world itself that Bond becomes a giant-size hero just by fighting him. The plot is excellent, but the scenery may be just "too Caribbean" (all those swamps and mosquitoes and bright dry sun) for some readers, not as well handed as in "Live and Let Die" (or perhaps TOO well handed). Strangways is killed and Bond is sent on "vacation" to investigate. Curiously, he has been ill from his previous mission and a "Doctor" seems appropiate, but not the one he's about to encounter. Quarrel, a character introduced in another book, dies and left us missing him. The villain's island has everything a fantastic classic enemy's place needs, including a giant squid for good. The heroine is one of the best in the series. Doctor No's death is shocking and much better than in the film. Finally, that thing with a dragon marauding in the island is masterfully treated with terrific results, keeping suspense up all time. Bond has come of age at this stage.

Dr. No is the classic Bond adventure novel. It has the suspense, the adventure, the exotic hideout, the interesting plan for world domination, and of course the girl. The story begins like all the other 007 rendezvous' in the Secret Service Headquarters and ends quite the same as well with Bond having saved the world and gotten the girl.

All the classic characters tell their story in this book. There is of course, audacious, adventurous, witty, and never boring James Bond, or as he says Bond... James Bond. The Bond babe that is found on the beaches near Jamaica is named Honey. She is different, interesting, at some times helpful, and you know the other thing. The original villain in Dr. No is obviously Dr. No. He has his times of genius, his psychotic thoughts, and his strange story of how he came to where he is now and all the mean things that people did to him. Nothing new there but nevertheless an interesting character.

This book is definitely a page-turner. It is packed with action, loaded with suspense, and never boring. Like any other 007 novel there are interesting twists and turns, death attempts, murders, and all the other stuff that makes the Secret Service so exciting. If you want an easy read that doesn't spend 30 pages talking about waterfalls and orchids this book is good for you. It's definitely not a classic but it sure is a Bond classic.

When peculiar things transpire on an obscure Jamaican island called Crab Key, M sends Bond out to investigate. Penguin Books has re-issued the James Bond novels and stories written by the incomparable Ian Fleming. Note that this is the original series, not a well-intentioned imitation. For the uninitiated, James Bond is the apex of fictional secret agents. He defines Cold War espionage without dreary realism. Bond is an iron fist in a velvet glove. Bond is a good man to put on a tough job. Fleming blends the intelligence of Dorothy Sayers with the hard-boiled leanness of Dashiell Hammett. Snobbery is evident. Ian Fleming's books are escapist nonsense, and great fun. The stories are refreshingly free of the parody of the movie versions. The reader must suspend disbelief. The action is hard and violent; call it "blood and thunder." Doctor No spins webs of murder and international crime. Bond teams with Quarrel, the Cayman islander. Bond also encounters the delectable Honeychile, the inevitable woman of the story. A bonus of these books is the exciting cover art. Take special note of the artist's vision of Honeychile. She is a variation of Venus. Reading these books reminds one of what drew us to the writing of Ian Fleming almost 40 years ago. ;-)

I have been a James Bond movie fan for years. I never read the Ian Fleming novels because I never could have imagined an improvement on the big screen edition. Boy was I wrong. The novel is a vast improvement over the movie bevause it can pack more details and adventures into the story. It sees James Bond barely escape the clutches of a giant squid, safely cross through a cage full of hairy tarantualas, and endure the burning of a red hot ventilating system that is only a few inches larger than he is. None of this is in the movie.

Also, the story reads almost like a different yarn than the movie:
- In the book, Dr. No is killed by a pile of bird dung that is dropped from a crane manned by 007. In the movie, he dies during the breakdown of his palace.
- In the book, Quarrel (Bond's partner) picks 007 up at the airport when he first comes to Jamaica. In the movie, a Dr. No employee picks him up and is killed minutes later by his own hand.
- In the book, 007 sees a giant centipede crawl up his body when he's in bed. In the movie, it's a tarantula.
- In the book, Honey Rider first appears naked. In the movie, she's wearing a bikini.
- But most of all, the novel's primary focus seems to show that Dr. No is a seller of bird dung that wishes to keep people away. In the movie, he wants to keep people out, but we are deprived of the bird slant that is really quite important to the story as a whole. The book "Dr. No " reads almost as a totally different story than the movie, and it includes more adventures. I recommend this highly.

Did Ian Fleming want to kill 007 at the end of the previous novel, "From Russia with Love"? In the final paragraphs of that book, Rosa Klebb kicks out the deadly poisoned spike in her shoe and jabs Bond before she's thrown into a laundry basket and hustled away by Mathis and his assistants.

So I was curious as to how Fleming would resurrect Bond for the next novel, "Doctor No." He does a decent job of explaining away how 007 survived, but there is no mention of what happened to Tania--which is something I'm curious about as I read the novels this time. (At the beginning of "From Russia with Love," Fleming describes the demise of Bond's relationship with Tiffany Case from "Diamonds are Forever").

Although Bond delivered the girl and the Spektor cipher machine--and survived his encounter with Red Grant, the total psycho killing machine--he's treated as if he screwed up and sent to Jamaica to look into the disappearnce of another agent. A little job in the sun that shouldn't take much effort.

Well, this is James Bond we're talking about here, so we know he isn't going to get much of a holiday out of the piddling little assignment.

"Doctor No" has the lean, fluid style that keeps the story moving. It's set in the Caribbean where Fleming lived and wrote all of the Bond novels. I focused more on his description of Doctor No while trying to keep the image of the painfully-Caucasian Joseph Wiseman out of my mind (he was the actor who played No in the film version).

I would put this novel in the same category with "Diamonds are Forever": a strong action story with a couple of over-the-top moments that, although they worked while reading it, look a little strange with some afterthought. In "Diamonds", it was the Italian gangster who liked to dress up like a cowboy in his own private Wild West town. In "Doctor No", it was the obstacle course and giant octopus fight.

The best novels are "Casino Royale", "Live and Let Die", and definitely "From Russia with Love."

I wasn't that wild about "Moonraker."

Next up: "Goldfinger."