/lit/ - Literature

>>6052873
Better than the pre-Craig movies, about on par with the modern. Bond in the novels was about gritty realism long before Bond in the movies was.

Fun, smutty, grimy, genre trash.

If you like James Bond, they're worth a read.

Awful prose, "cruel lips" appears literally like seventy times in the books. Fun pleb shit though. Where Fleming really excels is his knowledge of cuisine and culture, he's traveled everywhere any of the books take place.

>>6052886
>Bond in the novels was about gritty realism
Hahahahahahahahaha. Are you fucking serious? They're comic books in prose form. Just because it's hardboiled doesn't mean it's realistic. If anything, the films are more realistic, at least until Roger Moore.

>>6052873
Read the Smiley series instead.

The best Bond book is the one that completely subverts all the others in the series. Moonraker (nothing like the film, no space shit). Bond starts out all mopey because he last love interested (from Diamonds Are Forever) dumped for a U.S. Marine.It's revealed that when Bond isn't away on a special, once-a-year expense-paid mission, he lives like a prole and eats at a cafeteria. The work makes fun of homophobia in intelligence, and has Bond trolling someone saying they need to crack down on homosexuals. Contrary to every other work which is as sexist as you could possibly want, Moonraker reflects one the double-standards applied in intelligence, and how woman who take lovers are seen "as a security risk", but men have it easy because sleeping around is considered to keep them "detached". The work has no globe trotting in it, and takes place entirely in England. Bond reflects that his love interest is more competent than he is, and could probably beat him up in unarmed combat. And in the end, he gets friendzoned by her and never gets any pussy (she has a finace she didn't mention before), and then thinks that it's for the best when he realizes he has a "cold heart" and never actually cares about women, he just uses them for sex.

Ultra right wing British nationalist propaganda

Avoid, avoid

>>6052970
You say that like it's a bad thing :^)

>>6052873
I remember that most are very comfy to read. I should read some again actually.

Decently fun spy romps. If you like the films you'll like the books. Just don't expect anything deep other than >>6052963 which is a pretty cool deconstruction of the character.

they are awesome, ive read all of em

all of them are worth a read except "the spy who loved me" and "the man with the golden gun"

my favorite is "from russia with love"

>>6052873
they're genre pulp, the Dan Brown novels of their day. You may find them entertaining page turners, but you won't be doing but literary analysis.

If you were to make any sort of argument for their literary value it would be the fact that the author was actually a soldier in WW2 and had some life experience to draw upon. Making them slightly more valuable historically than, say Tom Clancy's spy novels, because he's just a military nerd.

>>6052963
I just read Moonraker. The gambling sequence was great, the rest fell pretty limp for me. I do like the female lead being badass and the last couple of pages were cool

>>6052970
It's 1950's and corny as fuck. A great deal of the enjoyment is the ridiculous nationalism, racism and sexism. Bond is opinionated about every little fucking thing, he'll judge you as a worthless human being if you like a brand of cigarettes he doesn't approve of, he's the most finicky "badass" there is. He won't have sex with a woman in Live and Let Die, because he has a broken pinky. He's like that autistic guy from the Big Bang Theory mixed with Dirty Harry.

>>6053011
Fleming should have written more card cards into his stories, because that is something he does very well, he even got me into bridge. And I can't think of any other writer who could make a game as simply as baccarat actually seem interesting and nuanced.

>>6053012
Definitely autistic Dirty Harry. I enjoyed his odd disdain for mustaches in Moonraker.

>>6052963
>not thinking from russia with love is the best bond novel

>>6053019
Also, Drax is such a ridiculous villain. As soon as I finished the book I realized how retarded the plot was. But Fleming made it surprisingly plausible as it was happening.

>>6053036

this, fleming is good at making people behave and react in a semi-plausible way when they are confronted with bizarre events

>>6053028
Depends on how many Bond books you've read. Moonraker shines a lot more when you've read the rest and realize how unique it is. From Russia With Love is very good though, especially for someone who hasn't read a lot of Bond, great travel and plot, even though "cruel lips" is employed in the first chapter.

>>6053036
All the villains are ridiculous. In Goldfinger, they actually plan to rob Fort Knox of its entire reserve. This was changed for the movie because how impossible it would be to take all that gold out.

>>6052994
They have zero literary value, and I wouldn't stress Fleming's military expertise so much as his knowledge of, even obsession with, taste--or just preferences, really. He also wrote each work right after having traveled where he set it, so it's pretty solid description of culture, albeit from the eyes of le supreme gentleman.

>>6052873
Casino Royale is brilliant, the rest are bit up and down, Live and Let die being a bit of a disappointment, probably cos his publisher was telling to tone it down a bit. If you wanna escape the: be a good boy world for a bit jump into 'em

Big literary Bond fan here.

Ian Fleming - the best, eparce journalistic stle. Story keeps moving. Efecyive at getting atmosphere. Very good travelogues.
Robert Markham (Kingsley Amis) - first post Ian novel js by Amis writing as Markham, a psudonim IFP came up with to keep the series going. Lasted only one novel though. Some say its the best in the series. First actual visit to M's home "Quarterdeck" which Ian refered to a couple times.
John Gardner - wrote he series in he 80-90's. My personal favorite run of any author. He wrote more books than even Ian. He wrote in a more real world thriller style. The books were much longr and the plots a lot more twisty. Gardner also had his own Bod timeline where all the events of yhe previous stories happened but placed late enouh that Bond being active i the 80's maes him middle aged. More spycraft, Bond training scenes so we have moe reason to belive how good he is, promotion to Captain, double O section being disbanded, Sir Miles Meservy retiring, Barbara Mawdsley taking over as M.
Raymond Benson - 90's. Worst of the bunch. Wrote like the movies, not the literary character. Ignored Gardner developments except for keeping the female M.
Sebastian Faulks - Devil May Care is a decent book set in he original timeline taking place in universe after Markham's Colonel Sun. Pretty good one off.
Jeffrey Deaver - was to be the start of a new Bondd seies called Project X by IFP. They were trying to do an updated ongoing series again. Timeline shift to Bond beingborn in the late 70's, active in the military in the 90's and becoming a spy after. The CR story is implyed but as this is a new mission it is not dwelled on. All the characters from the original series show up but with updated backgrounds. Moneypenny was black here before Skyfall.

>>6052873

I read through all the Bond books in sequence at the end of last year because I'm a masochist and I spent most of the time telling my missus what Fleming thought of various races.

The only one I can remember off hand is that Koreans are essentially cowardly unless they're led by a European. I'm pretty sure there was loads of stuff about jews, but Jamaicans get off pretty lightly: they're a simple folk, but charming and decent apparently.

>>6054306
What about Charlie Higson? He wrote a series of Bond books set during his early youth/teenage years. I have a couple of those lying around and I don't know if they are worth investing my time into them.

Continued..
William Boyd - Solo. Set in the original timeline after DMC. Slow, plodding, dull, the plot moved along with Bojd as the viewer. Weakest of the bunch.
Charlie Higson - Young Bond series. Set in the original timeline. Bond is a kid and teen in school getting into adventures. His famil, background, the incident with the maid and many things Ian glossed over or implid are written out in full. As good as Ian's stories and compliment them in style the best.
Kate Westbrook - The Moneypeny Diaries. Written as diaries set during Ian's timeline. We get a lot of stuff we never see in the office and lots of M. There is also a date with Bond and mentions of the other women in his life. 3 books, decent reads.

There is a new Young Bond book following Higson that recently came out that I have not read yet. Also in the 70's there were a couple nogelizations written by Christopher Wood as novelizations of the movies because at that point they were so different from the ooks. Yes, a novel based on a book based
on a novel. I read his Moonraker out of curiosity and is wasnt bad, but does not fit into any of the literary timelines. Even the novelizatons written by Gardner and Benson during their runs managed to use th literary Bond and fit the movies story into the timeline. Like LTK and GE.

I took a community college James Bond class taught by Raymond Benson, it was wonderful.

oh, and From Russia with Love > Casino Royale

Found Diamonds are Forever at an antique shop for like a buck. Then I found this thread.

I read the first two chapters before moving on to other things, and it's actually pretty amusing. It's classic Bond with all his cliches.

>>6054316
There you go. Just reread the whole I posted. Should have edited it but posting from my tab. I hate these onscreen keyboards.

Also, I should mention that there are a couple interesting Moneypenny things. In the movies she was black for the first time she was portrayed as black. In the Moneypenny Diaries se during Ian's run she herself talks about her background. A brit but born and raised in South Africa and only going to England when she joined he military, still could be white though. Wasnt
till Deaver that it was stated specifically that she was black.

>>6054313
Probably influenced by all the weed Fleming smoked while in Jamaica.