For Your Eyes Only

Fleming's first collection of Bond short stories is a bit of a mixed bag, but enjoyable non-the-less. The Bond on show here is maybe a bit more human, maybe showing signs of frustration.

Three of the stories (From a View to a Kill, For Your Eyes Only and Risico) are fairly straightforward Bond adventures, featuring big baddies, revenge, assassination and explosive action. They are quick easy reads, nothing out of the ordinary.

The other two stories are slightly different. In Quantum of Solace Bond is merely the listener as the Governor of Nassau relates an after dinner tale of a cuckolded colonial civil servant and his wayward wife. The story was told to Fleming, himself a resident of the West Indies, and he decided to translate it into a Bond story, albeit in the style of W Somerset Maugham. What is interesting is that Bond shows a more human, compassionate side than usual. The story certainly bear no relation to the abysmal film of the same name.

Finally, the longest story here, The Hildebrand Rarity, again shows a softer side to Bond. The odious American millionaire Milton Krest is the villain and Bond's pity for Krest's wife, Liz, and his distaste at the methods used by Krest to capture the rare fish of the title (poison) again give a more rounded quality to the character of the superspy.

So a quick, easy read that leads the reader nicely into the run of novels that mark the high point of Fleming's creation: Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice.

A collection of James Bond short stories, entertaining though all in all not nearly as polished as the first installments of the series. You can tell how these later books were simply turned into “action dude does action dude stuff” when the films were made. Some of the internal struggle that defines the earlier books is still present here, to be fair, but he ends up shrugging it off a lot more, in favor of whichever pretty woman crossed his path today.

In For Your Eyes Only, the eighth book published in the 007 series, we get a mixture of five Bond short stories. Most of the stories are standard adventures but a couple are more experimental tales. For example Quantum of Solace and The Hildebrand Rarity.

- From A View To A Kill is about the routine life of a spy. It sees Bond on a minor mission which doesn't include world domination.
- Quantum of Solace is a non-spy related story. Bond listens to a story of a disaffected marriage . This gives an insight into Bond's psyche and mindset.
- Risico sees Bond blocking the flow of heroin into England.
- In “For Your Eyes Only”, Bond takes a personal assignment from M tracking the killers of his friends.
- The Hildebrand Rarity is like For Your Eyes Only. It reduces Bond to an observer.
The stories are all entertaining enough and show Fleming trying out different ideas and styles. Fleming seems to paint a more rounded picture of Bond as he deals with a variety of situations. He also explores the compassionate and human side of Bond too

Justice and revenge are themes that run through two of the stories. In “For Your Eyes Only” Fleming examines revenge from several angles: Bond's, M's and Judy Havelock's and each has a different interpretation. Bond's approach to killing is also dissected in “For Your Eyes Only” whilst the morality of killing is a theme in “The Hildebrand Rarity”.

Bond's relationship with M is studied in “For Your Eyes Only”, with Bond taking a difficult decision for M. This shows that even M has to grapple with the uncertainties related to the weight of command. It also highlights that Bond respects M as he understands that he's trying to do his best for his country.

He comes across as almost an environmentalist in “The Hildebrand Rarity”. Contrast this to Bond's love of the finer things in life.

As a fan of the Bond movies I could recognise the story elements and titles which ended up in the films For Your Eyes Only (1981), A View to a Kill (1985), Licence to Kill (1989) and Quantum of Solace (2008).

So in summary, while these stories are out of the ordinary they could have been better. For example, they could have filled in some of Bond's back story: what did he do in WW2 or flesh out the details behind his 00 status, for example. There is less racism and sexism than previous books but I think this just because there are less words! I definitely preferred the longer Bond novels. The plots are better, the villains are crazier and character interactions and relationships better explored.