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[Brisco]

It's not in my nature to be a troublemaker in general, but the disproportionate attention that DMC has gotten vs. The Moneypenny Diaries really bothers me, because I thought that The Moneypenny Diaries ended up doing a much better job of the whole exciting "Bond back in the Cold War again" concept. There are threads in the Weinberg section like Ignored and The Moeypenny Diaries Appreciation Thread lamenting this, but I'd like to pit the two interpretations of Bond in the Sixties directly against each other.

I was very disappointed that Sebastian Faulks kind of squandered the period setting. Other than some mentions of the Rolling Stones (which didn't really fit in) and the Ekranoplan (which was cool--but wasted), DMC might as well have taken place today. Even the whole [minor spoiler alert] UK vs. Russia provocation angle [end spoiler] has become relevant again. Samantha Weinberg, on the other hand, incorporated events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the defection of Kim Philby well into her books, and it was cool to use the "hindsight" advantage to feature actual events that Fleming couldn't when he was writing, as they were just unfolding. I also thought Moneypenny Diaries (Vol. 1) created a more exciting sequence of Bond infiltrating a sort-of real world version of a villain lair, when he breaks into the missile facility in Cuba, as opposed to Gorner's desert base in DMC.

Does anyone else feel the same way? If there's anyone who was disappointed in DMC and still craves real adult Bond novels, I can't recommend The Moneypenny Diaries strongly enough!

Brisco