::READERS REVIEWS::

Last Bits Of Bond - The hardest thing about "Octopussy" for me was special-ordering it at a book store circa 1982. The woman behind the counter didn't know the title and fixed me with a funny look. No matter; I was determined to have this, the final 007 book by James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming. Completists like me may be the book's only audience.

Published in 1966, two years after Fleming's death, "Octopussy" features the title short story, along with "The Man With The Golden Gun" his only remaining unpublished manuscript. Also included originally was another short story, "The Living Daylights". Two other tales, "The Property Of A Lady" and "007 In New York", were added to subsequent editions; all three had seen prior publication in other forms.

Thus "Octopussy" amounts to a housecleaning exercise more than anything. As a short-story collection, it pales in comparison to the other 007 collection, "For Your Eyes Only", documenting more routine spycraft than the fanciful adventure stories Fleming produced elsewhere. Bond aficiandos will be pleased; the rest beware.

Only "The Living Daylights" is in the same class as the stories in "For Your Eyes Only". It is actually one of Fleming's best Bond stories. Bond is assigned a job to protect a man targeted by a Soviet sniper in Berlin before the wall. His job: Kill the sniper before the sniper kills the target. To accomplish this, Bond must wield a special rifle and don a black velvet hood to keep from being seen while he waits for the kill. The hood reminds a guilty-feeling Bond "of old prints of the Spanish Inquisition or of the anonymous operators of the guillotine platform during the French Revolution".

As good as the set up is, with Bond watching a weed-strewn, bombed-out ruin at night, sweating every shadow until the hood becomes a sweaty mantle of misery, the execution and resolution are even better, suggesting some notetaking of John le Carre with the latter's more jaded view of the Cold War. A first-class story all the way.

The other stories are far from must-reads, however. "Octopussy" takes the interesting tack of presenting Bond from the viewpoint of his target, a jaded man of late middle age living out a pointless life of luxury in Jamaica, enjoying the spoils of a dastardly long-ago crime. Like "the JuRK" says in an earlier review, it's hard not to read this late Fleming effort without thinking of the author, suffering like the lead character from a bad heart, idling away his days awaiting the inevitable. As a mood piece, it has its moments, but offers little story.

"The Property Of A Lady" has a story, just not an interesting one. Bond is sent to watch a Sotheby's auction where a Soviet double agent (whose cover has been blown by Bond's superiors) is selling a valuable bejeweled globe. Bond must spot the top KGB agent trying to bid up the sales price so the agent can be identified and sent home. What exactly this is going to accomplish is not explained. The set-up offers some creativity, but nothing interesting is done with it, and Bond's purpose in the story seems negligible.

The last, "007 In New York", is by far the lamest tale here. Bond alternately ponders the awfulness of New York and thinks fondly of it ("New York has everything") while en route to a minor assignment. Nothing is accomplished here by either Bond or Fleming, and the story winds up a waste of everyone's time, most of all ours.

No end notes here, no final bow from 007. Just leftovers from an author's sudden death. If not for the taut and morally challenging "The Living Daylights", this would be a hard book to recommend even to Bond fans.

Accurately described. - The product was accurately described by the seller and was received in a timely manner. overall, good experience.

The REAL James Bond - This is not the James Bond of the movies. This is real life as it was for intelligence agents in the Cold War. Been there, done that. Friend of mine was machine-gunned down by East German Stasi.

No laser wristwatches, no amphibious Lotus Esprits. High tech here is an Opel sedan with a plug wire removed so that it will backfire when needed to cover gunshots. This is the real human drama and tension of clandestine warfare.

Good reading. Good listening.

The Final of Fleming's Bond Books - Having read the other 13 books in the series, there was nothing, short of death, that was going to stop me from reading every page of this, the final of Ian Fleming's James Bond Adventures. Unfortunately, though, this collection of Bond short-stories, published after Fleming's death, just wasn't very good and if I wasn't determined to read it from cover to cover, I probably would have given up.

The Bond series started off extremely well, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the books up to and including "Goldfinger" (including "Casino Royale", "Doctor No" and "Live and Let Die", among others), but the later Bond books (written after Fleming's health started to fail) have thin plots, little excitement, and feel like little more than extended short stories. This book, "Octopussy", is, in fact, a collection of three or four (depending on the edition that you have - the Coronet edition which I read did not contain "007 in New York") short stories, only one of which is really worth reading ("The Living Daylights"). There are no "Bond girls" and very little action throughout and I found the first story, "Octopussy", so boring that I actually fell asleep while reading it.

If you are working your way through the Bond books, like I did, then you will read this book regardless of what I say. However, if you are new to the series, start at the start with "Casino Royale" and don't let the later books put you off what is, in general, a wonderful series of books.

A weak conclusion to a great series - Although by copyright date it is the last of Ian Fleming's James Bond books, Octopussy is not actually not the chronologically final Fleming book. That would be Octopussy's immediate predecessor, The Man with the Golden Gun. Instead, Octopussy is a brief posthumous collection of four Bond short stories which are only impressive in their unimpressiveness.

The title story has Bond back in Jamaica, visiting the retired Major Dexter Smythe. Bond suspects Smythe of a crime, and the story has Smythe recounting the crime in question. The title refers to an octopus that Smythe is trying to train.

The Property of a Lady has Bond using the auction of a Faberge Egg to ferret out a Soviet Spy. The Living Daylights has Bond hunting a sniper, and 007 in New York has, well, 007 in New York, not doing much of anything.

The big flaw in this collection is that Bond doesn't really do anything outside of The Living Daylights. There are no grand villains and very little action or suspense, so all the stuff that makes the James Bond stories good is missing. If you've read all the other Bond books, you might as well read this one too to complete the set, but it is sadly a disappointing conclusion to an entertaining series.

You Would do Better to buy Quantum of Solace! - These are great stories but they are all in "Quantum of Solace" along with all of Ian Flemings short stories starring James Bond. It basically reprints "For Your Eyes Only" and "Octopussy and The Living Daylights."