4 replies to this topic

[RossMan]

I'm currently reading this for the first time in over a year. It's a lot better than I remember it being, probably Gardner's most cinematic, very fast paced. My only complaint is that the villain shouldn't have been killed off and return in the next two SPECTRE books.

This is probably the one Gardner book I'd like to see most made into a movie. If I'm not mistaken it even ends with a big battle between the "good and evil armies".

What do you think about it?

[Jim]

RossMan (21 Apr, 2002 09:42 p.m.):

zencat (21 Apr, 2002 04:13 a.m.):
And, Jim, I don't remember it suffering from the lengthy hotel room conversations problem. That seemed to be a problem of late-term Gardner, not early Gardner.

It has a short little bit in a hotel room when Bond and Cedar (probably my fav Gardner girl) were on the way to Texas.

Cold (Fall) has the worst of those hotel scenes, Bond just sitting around talking with people about the bad guys and drinking coffee.

Sorry, poor Gardning on my part. I mistook number 4 on the checklist, Hotel Exposition over Coffee and Sandwiches, for number 7, Shootout/Action Sequence in Hotel/Office.

I seem to remember a scene in a lift. I also seem to remember something similar (if not the same) in A View to a Kill.

[Jim]

The twist's fun, but the drugged ice-cream ruse is a bit like the drugged water ruse in Goldfinger. As ever, lenghty hotel dialogue, and the car chase is largely pointless.

As for filming it, s'pose it would be OK, except that the precious artefact ruse is a bit Octopussy and the "taking control of a weapons system" plot is sorta GoldenEye, ish, although of course the book predates both.

[zencat]

I had the same experience, Rossman. When I recently re-read FSS it was even better than I remembered (and I remember it being pretty good). You're right, it's very fast-paced and very cinematic.

And, Jim, I don't remember it suffering from the lengthy hotel room conversations problem. That seemed to be a problem of late-term Gardner, not early Gardner.

[RossMan]

zencat (21 Apr, 2002 04:13 a.m.):
And, Jim, I don't remember it suffering from the lengthy hotel room conversations problem. That seemed to be a problem of late-term Gardner, not early Gardner.

It has a short little bit in a hotel room when Bond and Cedar (probably my fav Gardner girl) were on the way to Texas.

Cold (Fall) has the worst of those hotel scenes, Bond just sitting around talking with people about the bad guys and drinking coffee.