James Bond has been sent to Jamaica for a fun assignment - to act as an inquiry agent. He resents this. He loves Jamaica, but he hates that M thinks his last assignment (From Russia With Love) has wrecked him. He's afraid, not that he will ever admit to M he HAS fear, that M might be wondering if Bond should be permanently on light duty from this point on. Oh well. Bond will soldier on. He's also mourning the loss of his beloved .25 Beretta. The Secret Service's Armourer took away the Beretta, exchanging it with a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver and a Walther PPK 7.65 mm. M's orders.

Jamaica's Head of Station Strangways and his number two Mary Trueblood have disappeared. The gossip going about is that the two have eloped, but how they vanished is peculiar. They left behind everything. M wants Bond to look around, especially since the Governor of Jamaica is an ass.

The case Strangways was investigating before he disappeared was damage to a bird sanctuary for the Roseate Spoonbill on a small island, Crab Key, near Jamaica. The American Audubon Society is angry, very angry. M is disgusted, very disgusted, that the Service has to be at the beck-and-call of an "old women's society". "Sourly", M thinks it is the perfect busy-work assignment to ease Bond back on his feet after his terrible illness from being poisoned on his last job. Adding to M's disgruntlement, is the story going around that a dragon on the island killed the two Audubon wardens.

The Chief of Staff explains that Crab Key is owned by a guano-mining industrialist, Dr. No, who agreed to leave the Spoonbill sanctuary alone.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Dr. Julius No is a 'researcher' into the effects of pain on people. He has been studying pain for decades. He has used up all of the prisoners he had been holding in the cells he built in his secret underground home on Crab Key. Of course, his acceptance of the bird sanctuary is a cover for the various illegal enterprises he is also undertaking. But without a doubt, he will get more prisoners to experiment with. People are always trespassing, like investigating secret agents....


Poor James Bond. If you have seen the movie, and who hasn't, you can guess what kind of Jamaican vacation Bond is in for. The only good thing is he falls in love yet again (Bond falls in love in every book in the James Bond series so far). On the island he meets Honeychile Rider, gorgeous and blond, a seashell entrepreneur.

Ok then.

Adding to my running list of explicit prejudices author Ian Fleming is piling up in these exciting but very upper-class White male British Romances for ex-World War II aficionados and PTSD survivors:

16. Chigroes (a Chinese and a Black parent)
17. Portuguese Jews (maybe two cultures - Portugal and Portuguese Jews, idk)
19. Jamaicans (maybe two at one blow again - Jamaican Indians and Blacks)
21. Indians in general (?)
22. Animal Rights activists
23. Environmentalists
24. Old American women

For the record, I am a liberal, so, I should be outraged, but omg, I believe Fleming was slyly bum-flashing some of the Brit audience along with most of his more sensitive and maybe, some reactionary, readers. Maybe his American publishers, too, since I suspect they spanked Fleming for the obvious real racism and prejudices in his earlier novels. Wow. Witty British writers who graduated from Eton College, right? Terrible, yet hilariously self-aware. And so in-your-face in response, I think, to American publisher/public concerns. I am ROTF! I wonder who it is Fleming next decided to take down in book seven!

As I stated in my review of Casino Royale, I was surprised to find that Bond (as created by Ian Fleming) was not a superhero but was a regular man with physical vulnerabilities (aside from the weaknesses of the flesh that the Hollywood movies put such strong emphasis on). I like the book version better (even though I love the movies and have seen all of them), because they are much more realistic.

This was a good book, similar to the storyline of the Hollywood movie. Bond travels to the Caribbean to find out what happened to the agents who mysteriously disappeared, and he finds the treacherous Dr. No, an exotic island, and a beautiful girl that helps him.

This is one of the original “thrillers” that defined a whole genre of books.

Another Bond. The first one to be made into a real movie.

Carino, ma un po' troppa roba: il caldo, il freddo, le tarantole, i millepiedi, il calamaro gigante... Neanche Superman ce l'avrebbe fatta.

Who do evil villains spend so much time gloating -- especially when your audience consists of the resourceful and vengeful James Bond? If I were an evil villain, I would calmly dock a large caliber bullet somewhere between 007's eyes. And I would enjoy his girlfriend, the cute Honeychile Rider, before doing the same to her.

I realize now why the Bond movies are so different from the books: Ian Fleming is writing for a pulp audience, so he could imagine sequences that no self-respecting film director would touch.

Doctor No the novel has its moments, but it is a bit far-fetched. The book's villain, except for his compulsion to divulge all his plans, is quite interesting and, except for his mechanical hands, looks as if he would be ideally cast as a basketball center.

Never mind, it's all just fun.

Dr.No is one of the James Bond movies, I can never be interested to watch. The book is worse with a wafer thin espionage theme and an unimaginative mad scientist villian who is so dumb that untrained village belles can outwit him!

Bond comes back after sick leave and agent M shows passive aggressive by taking away his favourite weapon and assigning him a 'vacation' assignment in Jamaica. There he comes to know that the previous agent was investigation Crab Key island belonging to Dr.No before the secret office was abandoned.

The problems with the story is that there is no excitement despite the forced danger on the island. Also, the Bond girl Honey has such a ridiculous back story that I was surprised this was made into a movie. Maybe it was my frame of mind, but I found myself bored reading what seemed like a juvenile attempt at thriller.

Insipid read.

A kind of sequel to From Russia with Love, this novel picks up several months after the cliff-hanger ending of that novel. We learn that Bond has survived Rosa Klebb's poisoned stiletto thanks to some quick thinking by his associates. After a long period of convalescence M decides that Bond is due for a "working vacation" in Jamaica to follow up on the disappearance of another operative, Commander John Strangeways, and his mistress. It seems that Strangeways was looking into the activities of a reclusive Dr. No before vanishing. The assumption is that Strangeways has run off with his beautiful assistant, but it's determined that Bond might as well look into it and get his feet wet again.

Somewhat resentful at what seems at first a cushy assignment, and armed with a new gun, Bond arrives in Jamaica and quickly learns he's being watched by nefarious parties. His hotel room is tossed, he's presented with a basket of poisoned fruit, and is visited one night by a poisonous centipede in his bed. It's clear, by this time, that Strangeways has met a dastardly end somehow, and the man behind the disappearance is the mysterious Dr. No.

Dr. No is clearly a riff on Fu Manchu. Born into a German Chinese heritage, he's got claws for hands, black contact lenses and a heart on the wrong side of his chest. It's not long before Bond is captured on Dr. No's island, along with the beautiful Honeychile Rider. Together they'll suffer ingenious torture and death at the claws of the fiendish (yes, fiendish is the appropriate term here) Dr. No. But first, a gourmet meal is served wherein Bond will drink vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred) with twist of lemon peel as Fu Manchu...er, I mean Dr. No. will inform his guests just how much of an evil genius he really is.

This novel is something of a 180 from the carefully plotted novel before it. It's easy to see why it was selected as the first of the Bond movies. Evil villain, dashing spy, beautiful woman, exotic setting, heat well and serve.

This is the best of the series so far, by far. Until now the highlight of the James Bond book series has been his underwater battle with an octopus in ‘Live & Let Die’, and this book one-ups that... no, wait... 100-ups that by having Bond fight a freakin’ giant squid. This is the content I’m here for.

Yes, okay, there’s the requisite racism. Here it’s mostly limited to the way Fleming writes dialogue, though there is at least one reference to “the colour problem” (i.e. the fact that black people exist at all). Also, if you were skeeved out by Kerim Bey’s tale of chaining a woman to his table to keep as a sex slave (haha what fun), just wait til you find out about the terrible island of Dr. No, where there are literal *generations* of sex slaves who never see the sun. Why didn’t that endear Dr. No to Bond, I wonder?

Those types of things are in the blood of Bond. The meat specific to this book is where the intrigue lies. First, there’s the memorable introduction of Honeychile Rider, inexplicably nude but for a belt with a knife. I haven’t seen the movie, but my understanding is that she wears a bikini in the film?? What a bastardization of the author’s vision! I’m only sort of joking. It’s unnecessary, but... definitely memorable.

Next is the mystery of the “dragon”, which is neat until Bond is like “It’s probably just a tractor” and “See? It’s just a tractor.” The terror of the beast before it is seen adds a level of tension to the first leg of the book which wasn’t reached by the earlier “poisoned fruit basket” scene.

Then there’s Dr. No himself, with Doc Ock-style metal pincers for hands and seemingly metal eyeballs as well, though Bond derisively refers to them as contact lenses. He’s a creepy villain! And his underwater lair, with a view into the ocean, is actually pretty cool.

Finally, there’s Dr. No’s plan for Bond, tossing him into a SAW-style torture maze he can barely survive, ending in the aforementioned giant squid battle. This is all wild! It’s far more action-packed and weird and interesting than, say, an interminable train ride.

I’m actually excited to read the next one for a change. Up to now it’s mostly been momentum carrying me along, but are they starting to get better? Guess we’ll see.

James Bond is racist, sexist, misogynistic, you-name-it-ist. He is the antithesis of everything I believe in.

But, but... it's all so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh? I mean, I've started this project with my brother in which we're watching all of the James Bond movies in order, and then I'm reading the book of the same movie, after watching it. (Yes, this means reading the books out of publication order, but I can't stress about everything.) So the first movie is Dr. No from 1962. It's so 1962 it hurts at times.

But in a lot of ways, the movie is toned down, Hollywood-ized, in comparison to the novel of 1958. That's hard to believe. And somehow reading Bond's actions or thoughts or behaviors are even more ridiculous than watching them on the screen by Sean Connery. Let's just say I rolled my eyes a lot. And snorted. And "OMG"ed a bunch.

The movie sticks to the story pretty well, with a few variations - a centipede instead of a tarantula, Honeychile Rider has a facial deformity that was left out of the movie (because Hollywood couldn't bear to disfigure Ursula Andress?), and Honey was, well, in a bikini in the movie which did not exist in the novel. There are some larger variations like an entire underwater fight scene with a squid (A SQUID) that was pretty exciting, but I'm sure it would have been too expensive to film. Or maybe Connery just doesn't like squid.

Bond is such a slimey bastard, isn't he? He's all "Get in that tub before I spank you" and it's all very disconcerting to read. For a character who is known to be so debonnaire, it's shocking just how crude Bond really is (or is capable of being).

Part of this project is to see how Bond has progressed over the years, both in fashion (Connery was sporting some slacks that reached up to his armpit in the movie, Grandpa-fashion), tone, and themes. And, of course, to see how the villains changed and who were the world-threats at the time. It's all very scientific and sociological, this project. And it also involves eating copious amounts of food.

Next up: From Russia With Love

Muy entretenido y con mucho ritmo.

Despite being the sixth book in the series, Doctor No was perhaps the most quintessential Bond in the series at this point. At least as far as modern eyes and brains are concerned, ones that have been socialised through a few dozen variations on the super spy theme. It’s all here: a ridiculously named Bond Girl, an exotic locale, the Walter PPK, and a maniacal villain with an underground lair and a penchant for long speeches.

Of course, for some book this will be the book that jumped the proverbial shark. Or more appropriately, jumped the giant squid. Coming off the back of a cliffhanger ending in From Russia With Love, arguably one of Fleming’s most sophisticated and literary entries in the series, Doctor No represents something of a more back-to-basics approach. As least as far as anything about Bond’s flings can be described as “basic.”

Bond’s recovery from his injury at the end of the previous book is almost dismissed as a mere plot starter during the exposition. Unlike From Russia With Love, where Bond’s appearance took over 100 pages to manifest, Fleming doesn’t waste too much time before introducing his hero. M’s cushy pre-hospital assignment soon becomes a bigger crisis, setting the scene for something that viewers of the first Sean Connery movie will be well and truly familiar with. Right down to the Three Blind Mice. Sing it with me.

Which kind of brings us to the biggest issues modern readers will face with Doctor No: Fleming’s problems with race and gender. We can only excuse a book being ‘of its time’ for so long, especially when Fleming’s voice (via Bond) perpetuates those views throughout a whole series. We’ve seen some fairly dodgy portrayals in the past outings (I’m looking at you, Live and Let Die), but even in Fleming’s beloved Jamaica there’s an almost sneering approach to non-whites. It’s “a Chinese,” or worse yet, a “Chegro,” Fleming’s portmanteau of choice for “Chinese negro.” The most insidious of these portrauals is with the Man Friday character of Quarrell, whose Jamaican patois is as groan-worthy as it is difficult to penetrate.

The race issue continues with the titular villain. Doctor No is also of Asian origin, described as insect like in his physical demeanour. That might be his metal mandibles for hands, of course, or the fact that he has literally carved out an empire from a mountain of bird crap. The first such Bond Villain prototype before the introduction of the infinitely parodied Blofeld, his elaborate trap of choice is a giant squid. As it wraps its tentacles around Bond, it’s hard not to recall the octopus/squid propaganda imagery used to signify the Axis during the Second World War. Lest we forget Fleming’s proximity to that event.

The gender infantalisation is embodied in Honeychile Rider. Another ‘broken’ woman in Fleming’s estimate – one of three characters in the canon to have survived rape, her nose was also broken in the encounter – she is a Venusian vision of perfection in all other aspects. She is Bond’s equal in many respects, a capable survivalist with a brilliant mind for the natural world, but still subordinate to the ultimate in alpha males. Fleming achieves this by casting her as a kind of innocent savage: fearsome and unabashedly naked when she’s hunting for shells, terrified and confused by something like clothing. So I think the term I’m looking for is “hetero male fantasy.”

Speaking of fantasies, Fleming pushes his hero to his physical limits again. Following his extreme torture in Casino Royale, Fleming has the sinister Doctor No run Bond through an obstacle course that tests the limit of human pain. Question for the ages: convenient plot device, or a writer’s fetish? You be the judge.

Doctor No began some of its life as an unrelated TV series called Commander Jaimaica, which might explain some of the cinematic leanings of this book. When people think about Bond, regardless of whether they have read a book or seen a film, it’s this kind of plotting and narrative they think about. Once the book kicks into high gear, it rips along at a pace. It’s not necessarily an ideal place to start, but if people wanted to dip into a single volume looking for that cool retro spy vibe, this pretty much has all the bases covered.

I listening to the audiobook version of this book, and although it dragged a bit in the middle, the gauntlet Bond was forced to navigate at the end more than made up for it. I loved some of the stereotypical tropes of Dr. No -- a megalomaniac madman with mechanical hands that tells Bond his entire evil plan before sending him to be killed without any witnesses present. Of course, if I read that in a current book, I would roll my eyes, but since these were where some of these tropes originated (see: Bond Villain Stupidity), I kind of enjoyed seeing them.