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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Five stories, only three of which are really about 007, October 8, 2003
The eighth book published in the 007 series is not a self-contained novel, but rather a collection of five short stories-two of which are kind of shoehorned in and aren't really typical Bond pieces. The first story, "From A View To A Kill", is a pretty decent little Cold War espionage piece. In a well-crafted set piece introduction, a dispatch rider from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers-Europe headquarters is ambushed and his documents stolen by Soviet spies. As a result of bureaucratic infighting (highly realistic, and doubtless drawn from Fleming's own intelligence experience), M sends Bond to try and figure out the security breakdown. It's a good tale, with an ingenious set of foes, probably the best story of the lot.In "For Your Eyes Only", Bond enters highly murky waters by taking a more or less personal assignment from M to track down the killers of an old friend. It's a highly topical late '50s piece, involving a former Nazi as mastermind, and henchmen drawn from the ranks of Cuban dictator Battista. Interestingly (in hindsight), Bond expresses real sympathy with the rebel Castro's struggle! To act as M's executioner, Bond must travel to Canada and then sneak across the US border to operate in Vermont, which is kind of interesting. Things take a turn for the ridiculous when he stumbles across another revenge seeker, wielding a bow and arrow. The middle story, "Quantum of Solace" isn't a Bond story at all. Rather, it's a story of disaffected marriage told to Bond by his host after a rather boring dinner party. It's actually quite good, but has nothing to do with Bond. "Risico" takes Bond back to action, and places him in Rome, where he is assigned to disrupt the flow of heroin into England. Fleming creates a rather prescient version of "The War on Drugs" by directing Bond to act against the insidious enemy of drugs. It's a classic Bond story in that Bond is easily duped, meets a pretty woman, meets an unlikely ally, and engages in near fatal gunplay. (And of course, at the end, the drug pipeline to England is all a nasty Soviet plot.) The final story, "The Hildebrand Rarity", is again, barely a Bond story-reducing him to observer status. He's not really on the job, but instead inexplicably agrees to hire himself out as a fishing expert in the Seychelles. Basically, he's just there as an audience for another marriage-gone-sour story. There is a villain, there is a murder, but Bond's not really a central character in it. The only real purpose to the story seems to be to allow Fleming to work out his own issues vis-à-vis American millionaires. On the whole, these stories don't add much to the Bond canon. It would have been more interesting had Fleming chose to give us a taste of Bond's action in the Ardennes in WWII, or of the two assignments that led to his 00 designation (both of which are mentioned in Casino Royale). Still, the first story is worth a quick read, and "For Your Eyes Only" and "Risico" will be of interest to those who love the film versions.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Five secret moments in Bond's life, February 2, 1998
By A Customer
All five stories included are good, but somehow uneven, making the overall rating hard to decide between a 7 and a 10. The first one, "From a View to a Kill", is fast-paced, good writing with a thrilling episode showing 007 in a motorbike being consciuosly chased by a foreign assassin. The hidden base of the unnamed enemies is another preview of the ellaborate headquarters Bond nemesis would use in the films. M is not present this time. This title was cut to "A View to a Kill" for the film, which resembles nothing of this compact short story. The title adventure is much more insightful, making one sweat with 007 as he approaches Gonzales place in the forest ready to shoot the man. The license to kill is more than justified by this tale only. Good heroine. "Quantum of Solace" is one of the strangest Bond episodes, actually being a story told to 007 in which he hasn't anything to do with. Bond's mission is interesting but put by Fleming in a single paragraph. It's the story of a married couple that makes this episode, and it's excellent. Really! It shows Fleming no short than in Somerset Maugham's level, with a lesson not of moral but of life (and leaving 007 questioning about HIS life). A jewel distant of the Bond canon, even more than "The Spy Who Loved Me". "Risico" is excellent Bond in a more traditional way. It's an adventure set in Italy and involving drug smugglers, with a terrific and human villain named Kristatos and an equally terrific and human ally named Colombo. The beach fight, the minefield run and the table-recorder are pure inspiration. The final story, "The Hildebrandt Rarity", is another off-the-track Bond, this time with a villain out of everyday life. Millionaire Milton Krest is nasty in the real sense. The story ends with a question mark about who killed the bastard (I guess Krest wife did it). Fleming is again king of the undersea realms, making us sad for the fishes and other species killed by Krest's venom in order to catch the red-and-black fish that gives its name to the title. An excellent, different collection.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Five Short Tales That Might Leave You Shaken AND Stirred, June 19, 2008
To commemorate what would have been Ian Fleming's 100th birthday, on 5/28/08, and in anticipation of the latest James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace," I recently reread Fleming's 1960 offering "For Your Eyes Only" for the first time in 30+ years. Of the 14 Fleming books featuring the exploits of the world's best-known secret agent, only "For Your Eyes Only" and the author's posthumous "Octopussy" (1966) consist of short stories, and the five collected in this earlier volume are a particularly good batch indeed. Two of them had been published previously; the other three were originals for this volume. All feature what is popularly known as the "Fleming Sweep"; the ability of the author, through fast pacing and a remarkable amount of picturesque detail, to make the reader accept even the most improbable of scenarios. And although two of these stories are not exactly espionage tales per se, they all provide insights into the fascinating character that is the literary 007.
The collection starts off strongly with "From a View to a Kill," in which Bond is given the task of finding out who has been murdering governmental dispatch riders on their motorbikes and stealing top-secret documents. The tale takes place in the suburbs of Paris and features some exciting gunplay at the conclusion, as well as an intriguing female ally, Mary Ann Russell, who we unfortunately do not get to know overly well.
In the title story, "For Your Eyes Only," Bond goes on a personal mission for his boss, M, whose old friends, the Havelocks, have just been killed by an ex-Gestapo agent named von Hammerstein and his Cuban hitmen. In the northernmost wilderness of Vermont, Bond finds these men in a mountain lodge, and (as in the 1981 film, which otherwise is completely different from this story) encounters the Havelocks' daughter, hot on the vengeance trail herself. The suspense quotient in this tale is very high, as Bond uses all his commando skills to sneak up on the villains' lair, and, as in the collection's first story, an explosive finale caps things off. A most satisfying tale indeed.
The book's third offering, "Quantum of Solace," originally appeared, of all places, in the May 1958 issue of "Cosmopolitan" magazine. This is a most unusual story in the Bond canon; indeed, it is one that is narrated TO Bond by the governor of Nassau, where 007 had just completed an assignment involving Cuban revolutionaries. The governor's after-dinner tale concerns a couple that he once knew in Bermuda society; one whose marriage went sour after infidelity, jealousy and bitterness poisoned it. It is a fascinating story of domestic hell, and one that makes Bond realize that his (previously regarded) exciting life may be a little dull when compared to some others'.
In "Risico," M, much against his will, condescends to involve his Secret Service in drug busting, and sends Bond on a mission to Rome and Venice to smash the heroin ring that had recently started to corrupt British youths. Bond encounters two rival smugglers in Rome, Kristatos and Colombo (again, two characters that feature in the "For Your Eyes Only" film, in a wholly different context), as well as the mysteriously motivated Austrian Lisl Baum (ditto), and participates in a ship raid on a drug-storage warehouse. The story is fast paced and generally exciting, and features an incredible amount of travelogue detail to add to its realism.
The collection concludes with "The Hildebrand Rarity," which initially appeared in the March 1960 issue of "Playboy." Like "Quantum of Solace," this is not really a secret agent tale, but rather an adventure that Bond is involved in, after investigating certain security arrangements in the Seychelle Islands for the British Admiralty. He and his friend Fidele Barbey (similar to the Quarrel character in 1958's "Dr. No") are hired by a boorish American millionaire, Milton Krest (a completely different character than the one portrayed by Anthony Zerbe in 1989's "Licence to Kill"), to go on an expedition to capture a rare tropical fish for the Smithsonian. Aboard Krest's luxury yacht, Bond meets Krest's attractive and abused wife and gets involved in a sudden murder. Fleming's love of scuba diving yields effective results here; his detailed descriptions of undersea life are both gorgeous and evocative. This story, although lacking any real action per se, features wonderful characters, great suspense and a nicely ambiguous conclusion. Like "Quantum," it is an unusual Bond story that succeeds marvelously, bringing to a conclusion this rather winning collection of (as the book's subtitle puts it) "Five Secret Exploits of James Bond." The book should serve as proof positive that novelist Ian Fleming had a sure hand with the shorter form as well. It is required reading, needless to say, for all fans of 007.
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