THE‌ ‌GREAT‌ ‌COMPLETIST‌ ‌CHALLENGE:‌ ‌In‌ ‌which‌ ‌I‌ ‌revisit‌ ‌older‌ ‌authors‌ ‌and‌ ‌attempt‌ ‌to‌ ‌read‌ every‌ ‌book‌ ‌they‌ ‌ever‌ ‌wrote‌

Currently‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌challenge:‌ ‌Margaret‌ Atwood‌ |‌ ‌JG‌ ‌Ballard‌ |‌ Clive‌ ‌Barker‌ |‌ Christopher‌ Buckley‌ |‌ ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philip‌ ‌K‌ ‌Dick‌ |‌ ‌Ian Fleming | CS Forester's Horatio Hornblower | William‌ ‌Gibson‌ |‌ ‌Michel‌ Houellebecq‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Irving‌ |‌ ‌Kazuo‌ ‌Ishiguro‌ |‌ Shirley‌ Jackson‌ | ‌John‌ ‌Le‌ ‌Carre‌ |‌ Bernard‌ ‌Malamud‌ |‌ Cormac McCarthy | China‌ ‌Mieville‌ |‌ Toni Morrison | ‌VS‌ Naipaul‌ |‌ Chuck‌ ‌Palahniuk‌ |‌ ‌Tim‌ ‌Powers‌ |‌ ‌Terry‌ ‌Pratchett's‌ ‌Discworld‌ |‌ Philip‌ ‌Roth‌ |‌ Neal‌ Stephenson‌ |‌ ‌Jim‌ ‌Thompson‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Updike‌ |‌ Kurt‌ ‌Vonnegut‌ |‌ Jeanette Winterson | PG‌ ‌Wodehouse‌ ‌

Finished: ‌Isaac‌ ‌Asimov's‌ ‌"Future History" (Robot/Empire/Foundation‌)

2024 reads, #32. It’s summer again here in Chicago, which means it’s time for me to delve back into my usual summer reads, fairly easy-to-read genre titles (often also called “airport and beach reads”) being read to honor ten-year-old Jason, who used to read such books in kid’s form for his public library’s summer reading program every year. Ian Fleming’s original 14 James Bond novels from the 1950s and ‘60s are a great series to add to this, because as we’ve discussed in previous reviews, they turn out to be almost nothing like the bombastic, overly melodramatic movie adaptations that are even more famous by now, but rather are tight little thrillers set much more in the real world than you might expect from this name now so closely associated with expensive action setpieces, futuristic secret weapons, and the gigantic boobs of that year’s Playboy Playmate of the Year (or at least if you came of age during the ‘70s Roger Moore era of the Bond films, like I did).

And indeed, this fourth book in the series, originally published in 1956, continues that trend, with Bond this time doing a police-style investigation into a black market ring that has risen up among the African diamond industry, and with not a single gadget from Q in sight besides a hidden compartment in Bond’s luggage to hide a gun’s silencer. This time the action is mainly set in the US, and it’s easy to see why so many people consider this book to be the very first time in the series that everything really clicks in a satisfying way; fresh off an excursion to America himself, Fleming gets his across-the-pond setting very, very right here, and also finally balances Bond himself out from the cruel sociopath territory he’s dipped far too much into in the previous books.

To remind you, Fleming started the Bond novels in the first place not because he necessarily wanted to write secret agent stories, but rather that he wanted to write stories about gambling, a favorite pastime of his in his personal life (back when gambling was still largely illegal in the UK, part of what made it so thrilling for Fleming), and made the main gambling character a secret agent simply because he thought it’d be more interesting than writing a book about a dentist gambler or a truck-driver gambler. That led to a first book, 1953’s Casino Royale (my review), that got all the details about casinos and the game baccarat exactly right, but gave us a 007 who was unnecessarily mean, openly misogynistic, and who could barely function in normal society. After all, as Fleming explicitly states in that first book, the main reason various members of MI-6 were handpicked to become “00” agents was because they were people no one else at the agency could stand, and so were put in a special division where they basically stayed out in the field 365 days a year so that no one else back at the home office ever had to deal with them.

After finding much bigger success with the books than he was expecting, though, Fleming started toning down and rounding out the character in subsequent titles, until we have a Bond here who’s now a regular habituate of the Special Service office in London, with a healthier if not still sexist attitude towards women (in this book he has the closest thing he’s had yet to an actual romantic relationship, making it clearer here that it’s not that he hates women in general, but that he only likes particularly complicated women who happen to come from dark, interesting backgrounds). I mean, sure, he’s still haughty and arrogant (he basically spends the entire book dismissing both the CIA and the American mafia as worthless soft pansies), and he engages in the same casual racism as pretty much every other white male did in the 1950s (get read to hear Bond use the n-word a number of times here, to which his exasperated CIA buddy admonishes him, “Now, James, you can’t use that word in the US anymore -- in fact, you’re no longer even allowed to order a jigger of liquor in a bar, but must call it a ‘jigro,’ ha ha”); but when all is said and done, this is a more enlightened and certainly a more vulnerable Bond than we’ve seen in the previous three books, much to the series’ benefit.

What really sells this book over the previous ones, though, is that Fleming picks such interesting milieus in which to set his story, and then writes out these milieus in such exacting, memorable ways, based mostly on him having just finished visiting these places himself in real life a year before writing this. So after first flying in to New York on the brand-new “jumbo jets” of the age, he’s then off to Saratoga Springs for the first major plot point, which Fleming fascinatingly describes as still basically a backwoods village whose one and only thing going for it is its famous racetrack (and if you’ve ever wanted to see James Bond drink Miller High Lifes while having a country-fried steak at a highway-exit diner, then brother, you’ve picked the right book); then he’s off to a pre-gentrified Las Vegas, which as Fleming interestingly reminds us, New York didn’t even have direct flights to in the 1950s, visitors basically having to fly to Los Angeles first and then take a rickety propeller plane from there to Sin City; and then eventually he heads back to England on the RMS Queen Elizabeth, the same luxury ocean liner Fleming himself took during his own trip home from America, where we have basically the most exciting action scene of the entire novel, one that involves Bond climbing around the vertical outer skin of the ship using nothing but a makeshift ladder made out of his cabin’s bedsheets.

That’s really what saves these novels, is that the action itself is much more of the realistic Jason Bourne type, versus the “jumping out of helicopters while wearing skis” nonsense of the Hollywood movies; and that combined with the more well-rounded, easier to injure, and easier to root for Bond makes this fourth novel of the series easily the best one yet, and definitely the place to start if you’re going to be only a casual fan of this series and not a completist like me. (That said, get ready for yet more ridiculous descriptions of what British people considered “fine dining” in the 1950s; there is not one but two separate times here, for example, when characters say with a lot of admiration that their dinner beef “was boiled for so long, it can be cut with a fork,” which I guess is something people found pleasurable about red meat in the ‘50s?) Today it becomes the first Bond book of the series to get a full five stars from me, and I’m now eagerly looking forward to the next title, 1957’s From Russia, With Love, come this time next summer. I hope you’ll have a chance to join me here again for that one.

Ian Fleming books being reviewed in this series: Casino Royale (1953) | Live and Let Die (1954) | Moonraker (1955) | Diamonds Are Forever (1956) | From Russia, With Love (1957) | Dr. No (1958) | Goldfinger (1959) | For Your Eyes Only (1960) | Thunderball (1961) | The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) | On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) | You Only Live Twice (1964) | The Man With the Golden Gun (1965) | Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

In this fourth installment by Ian Fleming, James Bond finds himself shipped undercover to America to follow the illegal diamond smugglers. Bond must use the unknowing diamond smuggling-extraordinaire, Tiffany Case to infiltrate the operation. Perhaps getting mixed up in American gangs proves to be more than Bond signed up for...


This installment has an overall different flavor than the ones previous, which makes it difficult to rate. Bond is certainly still Bond, but otherwise this novel was a different breed. I knew things were off when Bond didn't find himself in a life threatening position within the first third of the book. It was lacking the suspense the novels normally contain. That being said, this suspense was traded for time spent putting a spotlight on Tiffany Case. Not only do we receive a thorough backstory to this woman, but she also becomes a heroine, rather than a liability for Bond to save and inevitably bed. It was an interesting and welcome change, I just wish it didn't happen at the expense of the thrilling element these books normally hold. Why can't I have both?

Best one yet. Still seems a little shallow in the character department, and Bond falling deeply and helplessly in love every book is getting a touch old.

This is good, but not the best of Bond. I am a huge fan of Fleming’s villains. The movies super size them for the screen and over-do it, it the originals are fun. Unfortunately, here is no central villain in this novel. Bond faces off against a series of slightly bumbling mobsters with the intermittent help of his former counterpart at the CIA who has bounced back nicely from a terrible shark inflicted mauling battling Mr. Big. He has left government and is now enjoying thwarting organized crime from the riveted sector as a Pinkerton. Fleming's descriptions of America are also terribly unflattering and mildly unfair. I am sure there were plenty of seedy, tacky places in 1950s Europe, but Bond never visits those.

Four stories in and Ian Fleming already has Bond returning to the United States to take down another racist stereotype. Last time the target was an African-American Voodoo cult which was smuggling gold; this time it's an Italian-American mob smuggling diamonds from Africa through Las Vegas. Both stories suffer slightly for the reason reason: taking place in the States required Flemming to spend more time establishing and explaining 'Americanisms' for his European readers, which for someone who is American can bog down the pacing. However, I find this story edges out Live and Let Die solely for the unique premise of 007 infiltrating the smuggling pipeline in disguise as a criminal. Through Bond's eyes, we learn everything that makes a criminal enterprise tick first hand, which makes up for Jack and Serrifimo Spang who are damp squibs as far as main villains are concerned.

The movie adaptation only utilized a fraction of the book story, mostly twisting events and set pieces to fit into the new plot developed by Cubby Broccoli. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd interestingly are quite different from their film counterparts, though presented equally as offensive.

My favourite part of this novel was the relationship between Bond and Tiffany Case. I liked seeing this softer side of bond. It helped add some light-hearted feeling to the darker parts of this book.
That being said, this wasn’t one of my favourites from the bond series. It was very good, but it didn’t make me feel the emotions/tensions that other installments have managed to do.

Let's ignore the racism and sexism for a second, as that is well-covered elsewhere and also perhaps a product of the times for a novel that pre-dates the Civil Rights Act. The (again: second-tier) cardinal sin of Diamonds Are Forever is just that... it's boring!

The plot is incredibly thin, the characters are underdeveloped, the villains are hardly in it and make no sense. Perhaps unfortunate that I've seen the movies since this one, at least, is improved by the film.

If I were a woman, I might conduct a séance, and then throttle the spirit of Ian Fleming. He’s not a bad guy, mind you, but just once, I’d like to see a female character give James Bond a run for his money. So far I’m still waiting for a return on my initial investment. And I know this is one investment that probably won’t pan out, but I can still hold onto a faint glimmer of false hope.

Vesper Lynd did come close, but she ultimately failed when paired next to Bond’s wit and charm. Tiffany Case, however, pales in comparison. But you don’t read James Bond to gain profound insights into the female psyche, unless you want to end up several miles in the wrong direction with a broken radiator and a flat tire.

I do find it interesting that once again Bond is tortured, and once again the reader completely misses out on the experience. Mr. Fleming must have decided that he couldn’t top the scene in CASINO ROYALE, which brought a whole new meaning to the word punishment, so he decided to not even try. Life, though, proves a whole lot more interesting and fun and exciting, when you toss a cement wall in the middle of the highway every once in a while.

While I enjoyed DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, the main bad dude felt a bit nebulous, almost like an evil presence more than an evil person. And while the action was present and accounted for, it felt a bit less than full throttle, and the scenes seemed to end much too quickly.

I’ve enjoyed the Bond study thus far, simply because of his vast influence, and I’m happy to continue my journey, but I am thankful there’s no test at the end.

Cross-posted at Robert's Reads

Bond goes from London to Saratoga to Vegas to an Ocean Liner and finally to Africa to catch an American gang smuggling diamonds.

There’s a horse race, blackjack and roulette, sinister mud baths, and a Wild West ghost town to boot.

The problem with Bond when he goes to America is Fleming doesn’t really like America. When he writes about America he can't stop talking about African-Americans in a disparaging way. It's better when he doesn't have to talk about race and confines his prejudices to Germans, Russians, and the French.

Of course there’s also the misogyny which is so ingrained in Bond’s shtick that you just have to roll your eyes at lines like:

“Her bare arms were folded along the tall back of the chair and her chin was resting on her arms. Her spine was arched, and there was arrogance in the set of her head and shoulders. The black string of her brassiere across the naked back, the tight black lace pants and the splay of her legs whipped at Bond’s senses.”

And that’s how he meets the only named female character (besides Moneypenny.) Like I said, if you can’t deal with mid-Century cads, you don’t read James Bond.

I decided to read through all the James Bond books from the very beginning of Fleming's now wildly popular and evolved character. I'm glad I stuck with it because by book four Fleming finally hit his stride. The first two books had great plots but the writing was clunky. The third book was a mess and I was discouraged. Now I'm revived!

Diamonds are Forever comes in at a tight 175 pages, and it keeps Fleming's typical plot pace but the writing is much smoother and Fleming finally discovered how to use adjectives. This Bond Girl is a full character with a fleshed out backstory and she saves Bond's thoroughly-whopped butt in the end.

Good stuff, Mr. Fleming. Looking forward to number 5.

Review: Diamonds Are Forever

Maybe you can strike a blow for Freedom, Home and Beauty with that rusty old equalizer of yours. Is it still the Beretta?
-Felix Leiter to James Bond, Diamonds are Forever

With diamonds as the catalyst for action and adventure in Ian Fleming’s fourth James Bond novel, Diamonds are Forever features Bond investigating the diamond smuggling pipeline between Africa, the United States and Britain. When the British government realizes that over two million pounds worth of diamonds are being illegally smuggled out of the country every year—taking a toll on England’s most profitable post-war business—M puts Bond on the job.

After assuming the identity of a low-level smuggler in the London end of the pipeline, Bond jets off to New York City with diamonds in tow—but not before meeting one Tiffany Case. Case, a beautiful woman with a troubled past and member of the infamous Spangled Mob, is to be Bond’s escort and watchful eye on his journey. What follows is an enjoyable, if somewhat slow paced James Bond experience. Fleming is able to keep the story interesting with an army of oddball villains, including the Wild West obsessed leader of the Spangled Mob Seraffimo Spang and his odd ball assassins Wint and Kidd. Overall, Diamonds are Forever is a solid, but not the most memorable entry in Fleming’s Bond anthology.

"Sure. Come ahead and try. But, brother, you’d better be good.”

Easily my favourite book in the James Bond series so far. You can tell that Fleming is perfecting his craft while he writes these books, and Diamonds are Forever is a shining example.

Every single character in this book, no matter how insignificant, is distinct. Bond's characterization takes a back seat in this novel and it really allows the supporting cast to shine. I'm not complaining! Tiffany Case is cheeky and and cold and clever and I love her for it. Felix Leiter also gets his time in the spotlight as he helps Bond navigate the glimmer and grime of Las Vegas.

I wish we could've seen more Case-Leiter interaction and maybe gotten a closer look at Bond's pre-established flaws and fears, but those are minor grievances.

"And the eyes of the man whose Blood Group had been F spoke to him and said: 'Mister, nothing is forever. Only death is permanent. Nothing is forever except what you did to me.'"