Bond, James Bond--Books Before Movies

OK, I admit it, I'm a move nut. Last night I watched Quantum of Solace and was lucky to escape with only singed eyebrows and powder burns. Now that was some action flick.

Years ago, when I was a student, I read all the Bond novels by Sir Ian Fleming. Sir Ian wrote 12 novels and nine short stories about our hero as well as the children's story, Chity, Chity, Bang, Bang. Casino Royal was the first in the series published in 1958. The first movie Dr. No, is the sixth novel in the series.

Sir Ian was an officer with British Naval Intelligence in WWII, holding the rank of Commander and organizing a commando group which specialized in snatching Nazi intelligence material before the enemy could destroy it. Obviously the inspiration for many of his plots.

Now to say the books are like the movies is like saying Ben Stiller and Daniel Craig are a lot alike. In the books, Bond is a slightly overweight, alcoholic, Turkish cigarette chain smoking sexist who drives a Lincoln Mark 5, has a cruel smile and sleeps with his hand on the Walther PPK under his pillow and has none of the whiz bang gizmo's dreamt up by Q for the movie Bond. As uninteresting as that sounds, the books were really fun and unlike anything I had ever read. It is the opinion of many aficionados of the Bond books and movies that fans either like the books or the movies, but not both.

I like them both and you might as well.