Book Review: Octopussy and The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming

About:
Octopussy and The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming is the 14^th novel featuring James Bond. This was the last published work that Ian Fleming wrote before other authors took to the series.

My rating for Octopussy and The Living Daylights– 3
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Thoughts:
Octopussy and The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming is a collection of four short stories, each one featuring James Bond in some way. One of the theme running throughout these stories, and frankly through the series, is that James Bond doesn’t like killing, but is good at it. Bond struggles with cold blooded murder and even hopes the not completing the mission (by missing) will rid him of his double-0 status.

The character of James Bond does not fit into a short story narrative. Bond is a big character, with big, intercontinental adventures which the format of a short story simply does not play well into. The stories seemed like an outline to something much bigger and were predictable. The movies implemented these stories but they were short scenes, which says a lot.

But we got the recipe for how Bond likes his eggs – so that’s something.

It’s too bad that this book was the last one written by Ian Fleming. The novel is not that good, I simply feel that the James Bond series should have gotten a much stronger finish than two short stories and two outlines for short stories.

Synopsis:
The book consists of four short stories:
Octopussy – told from the point of view of the villain, Major Smythe who found Nazi gold.
The Living Daylights – James Bond is on a sniper assignment in Berlin. The story concentrates on the boring aspect of being a secret agent
Property of a Lady – A double agent for the Soviet Union received a valuable Fabergé egg and is planning to auction it off.
007 in New York – Bond is sent to New York City to warn an MI6 employee that her new boyfriend is a KGB agent.

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Books by Ian Fleming*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I bought this book.
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