Most helpful customer reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
hey, it's not THAT bad, Jun 15 2004
Afraid I've got to take issue with a one-star rating for this novel. Sure, it's not the best Bond novel -- that's probably "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," although I've also got a soft spot for the unusual "The Spy Who Loved Me" -- but it's hardly a bad novel. Scaramanga, far from being a terrible villain, is actually one of the more memorable Fleming ever wrote. I enjoy the way in which he serves as a sort of dark mirror for Bond himself, and that makes me feel like Fleming was actually just trying something different with this novel. That may or may not make it one of the lesser of his Bond novels, but I think saying that it's just plain bad is an overstatement.Anyways, if you're a Bond fan, you still ought to give the novel a look.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
A disservice to Fleming's legacy., May 25 2004
"The Man With the Golden Gun" was published in 1965, the year after Ian Fleming's death, and was his last work of fiction to feature the character of James Bond. After the magnificent "You Only Live Twice" (1964), which carried the Bond series to a level beyond its previous heights and remains Fleming's finest novel, many readers had high hopes that Fleming's final Bond outing would be of high quality as well. They were bound to be deeply disappointed.This is the worst published fiction (albeit posthumously) Fleming ever wrote; indeed, it is, by common consent, the worst of all the James Bond novels (including the much maligned "The Spy Who Loved Me"). Even some of John Gardner's later forays from the 1980s are better than this. Fleming is clearly uninspired, even bored, and the limp plot is in no way helped by the character of Scaramanga, who, rather than being menacing, is reduced by Fleming to an obnoxious, stupid, loudmouthed bully. Easily the worst villain Fleming ever conceived. This was written in the last months of Fleming's life, and it may have been a rough draft. Let us hope it was very rough. It probably should never have been published, but it is not worth reading unless one is a Bond completist.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Bond adventures far different from the movies, May 12 2004
How influential were the Bond comic strips? Desmond Lewellyn (Q) was on record saying he never read the Flemming novels, but was quite a fan of the Daily Mail strip.Clearly the casting of Sean Connery had to be inspired by the image of Bond in the original run of the comic strip, which began in 1958, four years before the film Dr. No.These stories were published in 1966 , nearly 10 years before the Roger Moore film version, and 20 yrs before the Timothy Dalton movie. These are not the gadget driven romps that the films have become, this is solid, cold war action. The plots and characters share names with the film versions, but their charcterizations and motivations are far different, and surprisingly more complex. This JB is the classic Ian Flemming Bond,adapted by Jim Lawrence, with beautiful art from Yaroslav Horak, that carrys on the tradition of excellence established by the strips first core team of Henry Gammidge & John McClusky. Titan Books has produced a solid collection , that begs for more volumes to follow.
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