Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever suffers from being too short. James Bond spends the majority of the book infiltrating the diamond-smuggling operation of part of the US Mafia and getting inside the operations of said Mafia, then no sooner is he inside he gets himself found out, has a fight, then another fight and that is the end. The ending to me seemed rather hurried and forced, as if Ian Fleming was not allowed to exceed a certain number of pages. Which is a great pity as the event leading up to the ending are certainly full of high intrigue and drama, even if you know rather obviously that James Bond isn't going to get killed (unless the series takes a strange sci-fi twist in the future). It's not to say that the final part of the book is poorly written or dull - it's not, what with the menace of the briefcase emblazoned "My blood type is..." as an example - just that I got the idea that it could have been developed and heightened a little bit more. It is a good story, as ever I am yet to be disappointed by a James Bond tale - but I would say that it doesn't quite reach the pinnacle set by Casino Royale or Live And Let Die. It's a Sir Francis Drake rating for sure, but more toward the lesser of his achievements (such as blowing a trumpet at a Spanish ship and scaring it off in doing so) as opposed to destroying the Armada.

Moonraker

Moonraker is an interesting story. It begins rather slower than the previous Bond books that I have read, with the first 50 or so pages taking place in a Gentleman's Club (the original type, not a strip bar) in Central London. The story does pick up the pace however, as Bond seeks to infiltrate the Moonraker project, lead by a great villain in Hugo Drax. As an aside, it is a pity that the character development behind Drax would be almost impossible to replicate today - but I shan't spoil it for anyone and say why. Being a James Bond story, there is of course some seduction, and a lot of action, including a vivid car chase across the English county of Kent.

This again is a book that I wish they would have replicated more accurately when it came to film, rather than base loose plot strands upon it. I'm not sure quite what it is, maybe the books are a little more serious and less outlandish (and more in tone with the series reboot with Daniel Craig as Bond), but I do seem to prefer the novel version to the cinematic. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good bit of action, adventure and drama in their reading... and the ending certainly won't disappoint.

Oh dear...

Well, I certainly didn't intend upon having a three month vacation away from reading! This just reaffirms my ideas about habits - when you are in the cycle of continually doing something, you think nothing of repeating the action the next day, et cetera, but as soon as you stop and break that habit, it is very difficult to get back into it. I suppose my challenge to read 100 books in a year is over now! In any case, I should get cracking with the books again as I do have 8 or so that I have been sent expressly to review. If I was back home in England, I would cry "to the reading chair!" but unfortunately that was too large to bring on the plane to New York with me, instead I will try to ignore the overtures of producing DJ mixes and playing Football Manager and read once more!

Three months - bloody hell...