So listen, I was bored when a tutoring student didn't show up and plowed through this. It's pretty dumb.

Octopussy is the name of an octopus that an old codger takes care of though, it's not a woman's name thank god.

So, I did finish this before I finished 'The Man With The Golden Gun'.

This book comprises four short stories - Octopussy, The Property of a Lady, The Living Daylights and 007 in New York.

The latter is almost a throwaway but gives a nice insight into Ian Fleming's view of New York (and the correct way to make scrambled eggs.) The other three are interesting in that they are Bond on fairly ordinary jobs. Octopussy lets us see him from the outside as he closes up an old case, The Property of a Lady is - almost - a LeCarreesque tale of observation and entrapment and The Living Daylights gives us a chance to see the ugly nature of Bond's role as a state-sanctioned murderer and the effect it has on Bond himself.

It's not a bad little book and certainly made a good pallet cleanser after the madness that was 'You Only Live Twice.' And 'Property of a Lady' builds on a line from the beginning of 'The Man With The Golden Gun' when Bond's identity is being established when he returns from his long post-Live Twice absence.

I'm not sure when these were written or why but I believe they were published after Fleming's death but they make for an interesting addendum to the novels. And helped the James Bond filmmakers with the quest for suitable film titles. Indeed, Octopussy is - sort 0f - alluded to in the film version of 'Octopussy' whilst the auction in 'Property of a Lady' is also altered and used in the same film. Whilst 'The Living Daylights' is part of the film version of 'The Living Daylights.' No stone left unturned or unused in the world of Bond.

I listened to the audiobook because Tom Hiddleston read it, and he does a fantastic job! I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the stories themselves. I would recommend this.

(B+) 76% | Good
Notes: James Bond, in each episode, searches for people: to apprehend, to identify, to shoot and to warn, with mixed results.

4 Stars. I surprised myself on giving this a four. Looking at my individual story reviews, three of them fell into that category! Only "007 in New York," which was more like a travelogue, rated below that threshold. Collectively 4. They say a great deal about variety in the life of a Secret Service Agent in the early 1960s. Or at least how Ian Fleming saw it. From travelling to Jamaica to put case complete on a murder in Austria which had occurred just after WW2 while that country was under Allied occupation, through finding an interesting way in "Property of a Lady" to out a senior Soviet spy, or stopping a Soviet snipper from killing a defector to prevent him crossing the East-West border in Berlin, these short stories are all over the place. In geography and types of activity. We learn a great deal about Bond, his dedication and his foibles. He understands the implications of his intervention in all four cases. In "Octopussy," he offers the miscreant an opportunity to decide his own fate, and in "The Living Daylights," he takes the shot but it is likely not a kill shot. There's more depth and subtlety than we find on the big screen. Perhaps that wouldn't sell as well. (December 2020)

I like this book not just because I'm a Bond fan but more because of the descriptions of a world gone by. The start of the cold war and a post war Britain still in possession of its colonies populated by wealthy ex-pats enjoying the swansong of Empire. They and Fleming are blissfully unaware of the changes coming and it this that lends this and the other bond books not just a touch of nostalgia for the reader but might also be part of the historical record of a point in time. All the better for being contemporary and not an historical novel.

It is a bittersweet thing to come to the end of an author's run on such a beloved character as James Bond. Ian Fleming meant to kill him off in From Russia with Love, but I'm glad he didn't because the previous thirteen books have brought me to a place where I can say, I thoroughly enjoyed these books. Don't get me wrong, The Man with the Golden Gun is still the worst of the lot, but even that one has things about it to love.

Octopussy and the Living Daylights is book #14, the final book of the original Bond series written by Ian Fleming who died in 1964. The book is a short anthology that includes four stories: Octopussy, The Living Daylights, The Property of a Lady, and 007 in New York. The stories, themselves are not great, but as a fan, I appreciate them for their significance as the final work of a distinguished creative talent.

Octopussy is the story of an octopus used by Major Dexter Smythe to remedy 007's investigation of the murder of a Bond "father figure when I most needed one." The Living Daylights is about a British agent that needs Bond's help to escape from East Berlin via his marksman ability. The Property of a Lady is a rather staid story about trying to get an enemy agent to reveal himself at an auction. 007 in New York is about Bond communicating to a friend that her boyfriend is a member of the KGB.

I'm sad that it was only four stories, but definitely a successful second career for a wonderful writer. 007 in New York is wonderful for its both positives and negatives about New York City, not to mention the fact that it's the only Bond story with a recipe for scrambled eggs.

Tom Hiddleston really gave a fun reading to the material. He created distinct accents and personalities for each character. I liked his take on Dexter Smythe...you could tell he was having a lot of fun recording the stories. He reads at a slightly slower pace than I tend to like (I usually like narrators who don't pause and act out the characters' deliberations), but he injects a lot of personality in the readings and this collection is under 4 hours long.

I think each story in this collection highlights a different angle of James Bond. You get him through the perspective of a villain, running a suspenseful but no where near life-or-death mission, running a high-stress life-or-death mission, and debating where to eat and what sites to visit in New York.

These are great stories for readers who relish random, interesting factoids. Fleming discusses exotic, deadly fish and extravagant jewelry auctions with such finesse it is hard to imagine what he wasn't an expert in.

Out of the 4 stories, I enjoyed The Living Daylights the most. It really gives you a sense of the stress Bond goes through on some missions, as well as a mini-overview of his psyche (here he is tracking a sniper with his own sniper rifle, yet still manages to get distracted looking at a beautiful woman...). I haven't seen or read a ton of James Bond, but it is easy to see some of the seriousness and depth to the character in Fleming's writing that I think to movies tend to gloss over with camp (well the bad ones anyway).

Forget ever James Bond movie you ever saw when you read the books. These are much more a mystery/adventure story. Recommended

Back in the summer of 2018, I found myself trapped in a humdrum job in a company that underwrote insurance policies. Yes, you can imagine how dull it would have been. There were a lot of veterans there, who, while good-natured and affable enough, were extremely resistant to even the slightest change and there I was, a twenty-five year old man only interested in writing, reading, films and music, who was trying to stir things up in vain. Most of the day would be spent in just restraining myself from expressing my wild and impracticable ideas for sending emails and messages with attractive headlines to our customers, as old and dotty as the people in my office. I am so glad that I left the place for something better in a year itself.

But the summer of 2018 was also a time for me to discover Ian Fleming, for the first time, and while I was gently and fortunately interrupted in my discovery by a gentleman named Graham Greene who walked into my life and has stayed there, I think, for eternity, my brief encounter with Mr. Fleming was enough to leave in my mind a good impression of a stylish, flamboyant thriller writer who was one of those rare things - a man who could write.

And so, I then read about four of his widely popular James Bond novels - out of which, two were downright masterworks of thrilling action, suspense and intrigue, one was an interestingly downbeat and sobering story of intense revenge and the last one was a middling affair - even as it inspired what is called rightly as one of the most iconic Bond films of all time. And then, today, out of the blue, I remembered another book of his that I had read back in that exasperating summer, sneaking the slim, small paperback with me into the office lavatory and reading as much as possible in those stolen minutes.

"Octopussy & The Living Daylights" is a slim collection of short stories from Fleming that feature James Bond in, how shall I put it, a different light than the portrait of his penchant for glamour and romanticism that we get in the novels. The four stories showcase him, variously, as the official Grim Reaper of Her Majesty's Secret Service, a sharp-eyed detective on the prowl for a possible game of deception at an auction, a quick-footed messenger and, most memorably of them all, a downbeat secret agent assigned to help in a defection with his sniping skills.

It is this last story, then, "The Living Daylights" that is the finest story in this worthy ensemble and that also lent its tightly wound plot of suspense, paranoia and even professional nonchalance to the opening scene of the eponymous film starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond. Could there have been a better fit for the Bond of the books than Mr. Dalton? 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. The Bond of the short story, however, is even more serious and downbeat than Mr. Dalton's suave, almost Richard Hannay-like portrait of James Bond in the film. He is disinterested in this almost mundane job that he has been assigned and he cannot wait to get done with it. And he is not even interested in getting it done right, which also explains the perfectly imperfect ending as well.

Fleming creates the atmosphere of the story superbly, setting the scene of a dangerous defection in the glare of the lights of the border between East and West Berlin with skill and authentic tension and it is hard not to be reminded of Graham Greene (the anarchic final act of "The Third Man" particularly) as well as John Le Carre (is it a coincidence that "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" was just a year away from this story's publication?). 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 gritty atmosphere of the story, coupled with a rubber-taut prose style, makes it unforgettable.

The other stories, too, are quite good, save for one, which I will come to in the end. "Octopussy" (no resemblance to the audacious film which featured, among elephants, auto-rickshaws, Faberge Eggs, Bond disguised as a clown) is again a lot more serious story than what we normally expect from Fleming and, as a matter of fact, is not about Bond at all. Rather, it is about a retired British army major whom Bond is dispatched to hold responsible for a crime committed in the aftermath of the Second World War - a crime that this major, fond of underwater swimming and particularly an octopus to whom he talks had not quite forgotten as well. Again, we are given evidence of what a skilled writer and storyteller Fleming could be and how much he was influenced by Greene again in this particular aspect. Major Dexter Smythe feels like one of the guilt-ridden and melancholic sinners from the latter's novels and his crime, unfolding in Austria just after the war, again reeks of "The Third Man" in its portrait of a moral duplicity on the side of the Allies rather than the former Axis powers, proving that war corrupts all innocence and idealism, irrespective of allegiances or loyalties. Fleming assuredly leads the dark story to its doomed denouement and even tinges the climax with an enigmatic, seductive mystery.

The third story, "Property Of A Lady" also lent the setting of its story - a grand auction at Sotheby's involving a Faberge Egg - to the opening act of "Octopussy" the film but it is again refreshingly different - there are no thrills or spills or even Roger Moore's smirks to be found here. Instead, Bond is a sharp detective in this story who finishes his job with unerring skill and uses his roving eyes for once to detect the truth with almost clinical precision.

The last story of the collection, "OO7 In New York", is the only disappointment, simply because it has nothing to tell. The only thing of interest is an inclusion of a recipe of Bond's favourite scrambled eggs, just as he likes them. Those who think that Bond was only crazy about martinis would welcome this bit the most.

So, four stories from Fleming - one masterpiece among them, two short but brilliantly sustained off-kilter stories and one middling disappointment. On the whole, though, this collection is worth reading, even only to be convinced that there is more to Mr. Fleming than meets the eye.

2 and 1/2 stars. the pros and cons of the audiobook:

pros: the stories are entertaining on a sunday afternoon and tom hiddleston, who has a voice like warm butter, narrates

con: casual racism and misogyny. not as bad as other bond stories but oh boy, it's there. also, dunno who let hiddles do that weird "engrish" accent in the first story, in the year of our lord 2014 no less (!) but yikes...

not the best writing, but it does show a human side of Bond. Good afternoon read