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James Bond, the Spy Who Loved ME

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Few novelizations of scripts work as novels. There are exceptions and this novel is one of them. Christopher Wood, who also co-wrote the screenplay, takes one of the more fantastic Bond films and brings it down to Earth. The result is a tense and action packed Bond novel.

Wood starts with James Bond himself. This 007 is smarter and more human then his counterpart in either the previous novels or in the film for that matter, He has one liners, but not many and does that appear in the novel actually work. Bond is not just a martini drinking secret agent, he is a thoughtful and intelligent man of action who kills to survive and also for Queen and country in an insane world. But Wood's Bond is just the icing on the cake.

Wood takes the characters, often only one-dimensional in the film, and gives them flesh and blood. Anya isn't just the KGB equivalent to Bond. She's a professional spy with an almost childlike innocence that leaves her the prey to men around her. Her relationship with Bond makes up the central part of the novel, making it as much as drama as it is a thriller.

Wood also brings humanity and realism to the villains. Sigmund (aka Karl) Stromberg becomes a man who takes his fascination with the sea to a terrifying conclusion. Jaws goes from one-dimensional henchman to a naturally violent man whom Stromberg has turned into a monster and sexual predator (with some shades of From Russia With Love's Red Grant). Each are more human and interesting then their film counterparts and make the novel all the more interesting.

Wood also proves he's a writer of considerable talent. From the nods to Ian Flemings to touches of irony and a surprisingly somber ending, Wood shows that he knows what makes a good Bond novel. Wood wisely removes the outrageous sight gags and moments of the film in line with the darker and realistic tone of the novel. Wood also knows how to get an action sequence to work. These, especially the Lotus chase and the final fight in the sea lab, keep the novel going and supplement, but do not take away from, the drama and the heart of the novel.

Not that the novel is perfect. Wood never makes the oil tanker - submarine hijacking plot seem any more real then it did in the film and this kills the realism for a couple of chapters. The downside to bringing flesh and blood to the characters is how Wood doe sit. For example, without any transition or reason Wood goes from Stromberg's meeting with two scientists to Stromberg's life story, which makes for awkward, but still good, reading. For all of Wood's excellent description, he does tend to get bogged down in it from time to time (chapters one and fourteen for example). These flaws make this second only to the Tomorrow Never Dies novelization for the best Bond film novelization.

Yet for all its flaws, the novel works exceptionally well. From humanized characters to romantic moments and page turning action sequences, The Spy Who Loved Me novelization works not just as a novelization but as a genuine literary Bond adventure. You don't have to know the film because this is an alternative experience to it. What's more, it may also be a better one then the film.

Despite the fact that Christopher Wood has the dubious reputation of having penned the tawdry "Confessions" books, he proved that he was an exceptional writer with his novelised version of the screenplay for Eon's "The Spy Who Loved Me". Unlike other film tie-ins, back then and now, this book is a stand-alone novel and far superior to the film on which it is based.

Wood portrays Bond the way Fleming had created him: a hard smoking action man, who is smart enough to reason things out and can actually achieve things on his own, without having to rely on ridiculous gadgets. Having said this ... yes, the Lotus Esprit cum submersible features in the story but is more fragile than it appears in the film.

Even the villains are well-rounded characters and not the one-dimensional wimps of the film. Jaws is a pained individual who is reborn into the maniacal steel-toothed monstrosity, thanks to Stromberg. Thanks to Wood there is a biography for Jaws, so that readers will not accept that it is common for the people of Eastern Europe to have metal teeth that they use to rip out each other's jugulars! Even Sigmund Stromberg's past is revisted and it is easy to see from where his psychotic philosophy has sprung.

While Anya is supposed to be Bond's equal, and opposite number, she is portrayed in a very human way. The reader is a party to her inner struggles between her upbringing, political philosophies and beliefs and her emotions concerning this British spy that she is, reluctantly, partnered with. Despite the fact that she has vowed to kill him in retribution for the murder of her lover, Wood handles her reactions, at the end of the mission, with panache and plausability.

This book was a great read and it is a pity that the Ian Fleming Foundation had not offered Christopher Wood the literary licence to carry on the series otherwise James Bond fans, the world over, would have been entertained by some very superior adventures.

As the James Bond film series progressed, they diverged so far from the Ian Fleming books that they actually released novelizations of two of the films, both written by Christopher Wood.

Wood wrote the screenplays for THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER (the two films with Jaws), and he wrote paperback novelizations for both. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME for Warner Books, and MOONRAKE for a smaller publisher, Jove. I imagine both these books are out of print now, though the original Fleming books remain in print.

Wood's novelizations are okay. They basically follow his scripts for the films, with some back story added to pad out the book. For instance, in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME we read about how Stromberg found and helped Jaws, which is why Jaws was loyal to Stromberg. Then in MOONRAKE we read about how Jaws was upset that his new girlfriend may appear imperfect in Hugo Drax's eyes.

I guess it says something that in Wood's books, Jaws is the most memorable character. Probably because he created Jaws, whereas many of the other main characters were Fleming creations.

For hardcore Bond completists only.

Novelisation of the movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, which bears no resemblance to the not so great James Bond novel by Fleming of the same name. Given that he wrote some of the screenplay and the novel, there are elements in common, but there are more differences than in Moonraker. The use of SMERSH is different, as are some of the characters and names of characters.