2006-12-01 For Bond Geeks ONLY

The book has an interesting idea behind it: What if James Bond were real. What things would have happened to him? How would you explain that someone wrote books about him that were said to be fiction?

Pearson tries to be true to the Bond of Fleming, in one sense: he tries to fill in the "back stories" that Fleming spoke about. Thus, while Fleming mentions that Bond came to New York and killed a man during WWII, Pearson imagines how this could have happened and writes about it.

About 50-75 pages are, thus, new Bond stories. The rest of the book dealing with the following: Bond lives off of women he does not love, inc. one he will marry for money, he dislikes M, M almost once went crazy, Bond thinks many of the Bond girls are good-for-nothings. He3 is always carping about them.

Oh, and Fleming at first wrote the Bond stories to make SMERSH think he was a fictional being to keep Bond from being killed. Then, afterwards, when there was no SMERSH, M kept Fleming writing the books of Bond's doings to make the Service look good and because he was very vain and liked the way he was pictured.

As a fan of Fleming, I saw all this as too much and not very true to the people in the books.

At 17, Bond kills his lover and tries to kill himself because, on the basis of old pictures and bad information he was (kowingly!) given by MI6, he was told she was a spy. MI6 did this, because it was getting bad publicity!!

His reaction years later: to feel bad for the Service! They were in a jam needing to find a spy, after all, Says Bond. And if they gave him a set of misleading pictures, this is only part of the Great Game. And then a friend hires Bond - in his stints between WWII and his 00 - and later tries to have him killed because he thinks Bond and his wife are cheating. Bond is not cheating and when this happens, he lets it go. Bond does nothing to get back at him, and only quits his job. Any one who has read Thunderball and, Bond with Count Lipi, will know that this is not the way James Bond works.

Then he fight large genetic rats at the end of the book, rather than marry the girl from Dr. No. He was going to marry her for her money - not love. But adventure calls.

This is a bad book which is very untrue to Bond and the people around him. Can you imagine Bond bad mouthing the women from his past or M as vain!