Octopussy & The Living Daylights: Discover two of the most beloved James Bond stories (James Bond 007, 14)

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James Bond, as written by Ian Fleming, is much more human and vulnerable, often struggling with the moral dilemmas of taking lives for the service of his country.

I wonder, even as Sean Connery had charmingly taken Bond from the books and made him his own character, so much that Fleming had to create a Scottish family background for his spy hero. There is a good attempt at characterisation of Smythe, but I found the alternations between 1960s Jamaica and post-war Alps clunky, the ending contrived and the whole narrative style somewhat approximate. The collection consisted of two short stories--the title piece and "The Living Daylights"; a third story, "The Property of a Lady," was added for the book's paperback incarnation. Two of these titles were made into full-length films only because they were the only two that had half-decent endings and enough of a back-story to build a script around.Brocklehurst suffered from frostbitten feet, and was unable to complete the climb; the others reached the summit on 10 March. In light of this unfortunate and stupid setback I will probably try to get my paws on something else by or about Fleming, depending on what's available in the library. The hardback edition of the book contained only the two stories mentioned in the title, although when the paperbacks editions were published, "The Property of a Lady" was also included. I now realise that this slim volume of four posthumously published short stories are quite atypical of the Bond oeuvre and possibly not the best introduction to Fleming’s work. The critic for The Times Literary Supplement wrote that the book was "slight and predictable, and usual sex and violence yield to a plausible use of ballistics and marine biology".

The real Octopussy story involves some underwater creatures, which I'm all about, even if it means going to Jamaica (ugh, it's humid there, right? According to some sources, such as The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson, The Property of A Lady was under consideration as the title of Dalton's third James Bond film to be released in 1991, but it went unfilmed; little of the original short story would have been available for use, given it having been used in the Octopussy film. Bond himself, as said before, is hardly his usual self - instead of reading Eric Ambler, he settles for a cheap sleazy paperback when waiting for the moment to arrive and, needless to be said, is far from certain of not missing his mark.The mission, while successful, is also considered a failure due to Bond's last second decision to spare her, and it ends with Bond hoping that M fires him for it. A very good copy, dust jacket spine head and tail rubbed, prelims and final few leaves a little age toned and spotted. Whether it is tracking down a wayward major who has taken a deadly secret with him to the Caribbean or identifying a top Russian agent secretly bidding for a Fabergé egg in a Sotheby’s auction room, Bond always closes the case—with extreme prejudice. in New York", meanwhile, provided character and plot elements for the first two films starring Daniel Craig as Bond, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.