Title: Quantum of Solace
Author: Ian Fleming
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 298
Rating: 7/10
Ian Fleming – Quantum of Solace
This one might be a little bit difficult for me to review, because I didn’t actually read it. I don’t think this has ever happened before, but there’s a good reason for it – the stories that are included here are exactly the same stories that you’ll find in For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights.
Still, it’s a decent selection of stories and probably the best introduction to the Bond series that you’ll get, which is a bit of a shame because this is one of the last Ian Fleming books that I got round to. It’s a shame, because one of the good things about the stories here is that they’re short and to the point. Fleming has a habit of going into far too much detail in some of his novels, but it doesn’t happen so much in his shorter fiction, and that’s a good thing.
Overall then, this comes recommended from me, although I don’t feel justified in giving it more than a 7/10 purely because I didn’t read it. I just flipped through each of the stories, reading the first couple of pages of each one until I was sure that I had actually read them. But Bond is in good form, as always, and by reading this collection you’re effectively reading two books in one.
Plus, it’s notable for including 007 In New York, which is one of the more obscure of the stories because it wasn’t actually written as part of a collection but rather for an American newspaper. There’s actually a pretty interesting story behind that one and so it’s worth checking that out if you get a chance.
Ian Fleming
