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marlisenicole's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
jcpdiesel21's review against another edition
2.0
For a series that spawned such a long-lasting and hugely profitable film franchise, it sure is going out with a whimper. Notably published posthumously, only the first draft of this book was completed by Fleming before his death, but what is present is so lackluster that I doubt additional details provided in a second draft would have elevated the material much. Bond being held and brainwashed by the Russians to assassinate M after the events of [b:You Only Live Twice|25066319|You Only Live Twice (James Bond, #12)|Ian Fleming|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1425441071s/25066319.jpg|23841292] should have gotten things off to an exciting start, yet this plot disappointingly fizzles out with Bond immediately sent on another mission to prove his worth. Scaramanga is a forgettable villain whose only distinguishing characteristics are his fancy weapon of choice and a third nipple, and Bond defeats him mostly by luck. The best thing here is the welcome appearance of Felix Leiter, who appears briefly to help take down the villains.
dmorett92's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
howattp's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
4.25
readingryan14's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
matt4hire's review against another edition
4.0
Another great Bond book. Also, the last Fleming book (unless you count the short stories). It's great to see Leiter come back a last time, and Bond's rejection of the knighthood at the end is great. Also, his constant prolonging of killing Scaramanga comes off kind of funny. Good stuff.
bookhawk's review against another edition
2.0
The weakest of the Bond books I a have read. Bond’s reticence to kill when he has his assignment detracts from the role Bond plays.
jdglasgow's review against another edition
3.0
It’s kind of unbelievable to me that I’ve now read 13 James Bond books because I’m kind of hate-reading them. I mean, they’re… fine, I guess, but I kind of hate the main character, who comes across mainly as a bigoted right-wing buffoon. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is actually the final full-length Bond novel written by Fleming. It and the final book (a short story collection) were actually released posthumously. This book lives up to its predecessors by being thoroughly mediocre, although there’s maybe one or two scenes of a higher caliber that I’ll discuss shortly.
First, though, the book opens with 007 (he’s back to being 007 instead of 7777, sadly) arriving at MI6 having been brainwashed by the KGB into wanting to kill his boss M.! You may recall that he had amnesia at the end of the last book and this is the result. Of course, because Bond is such a shitty secret agent it’s immediately apparent to literally everyone he encounters both what has happened and what his plan is. They wrestle him to the ground and send him for some RE-reprogramming, to make him love the Tories again, which happens off-screen between chapters, and then he’s back to normal again. And that’s a wrap on that whole amnesia subplot. Pretty uneventful!
To earn his wings back, Bond is sent to Jamaica (of course) to pursue a legendary gunman named Scaramanga, known colloquially as “The Man with the Golden Gun” thanks to a literal golden gun he has. Scaramanga is a cold-blooded killer and a crack shot and is working for the KGB himself I think. Everybody’s pretty well convinced Bond’s got no chance of survival on this one. Scaramanga’s too good! Ah, but they’ve all underestimated Bond’s ability to take up space, start working *for* the bad guy (oh, but it’s a ruse, you see—honest!), and wait for somebody else to save the day. Here the person that saves the day is, of course, James Bond’s lover Felix Leiter. Oddly the book fails to describe their lovemaking in detail, merely implying it by giving Bond a spring in his step and a goofy smile on his face the next morning. It turns out Leiter and the F.B.I. are also after Scaramanga. In fact, they’ve got like professional spy equipment to record his conversations and everything, whereas Bond has to put his sweaty ear up to a champagne glass pressed to the door in order to hear every third word. Leiter, in the end, has a grand plan to capture Scaramanga and a whole gang of hoodlums on a train. Bond blows their cover by jumping the gun, so to speak, when he believes his former secretary Mary Goodnight has been tied to the tracks.
The reason Goodnight was tied to the tracks (or a realistic mannequin body double, at least) is that Scaramanga—like everybody else—clearly knows who Bond is because he is the world’s shittiest secret agent. So he essentially works FOR the bad guy, gets trapped on a train with his cover blown, almost messes up Leiter’s plans, and then in the end he’s got Scaramanga cornered and mortally wounded and yet he *still* manages to almost lose the battle as The Man with the GG gets one more shot off, the bullet dipped in snake venom. It’s played off as a result of Bond’s unwillingness to kill a man in cold blood, but my god. Give the man a lay-up and he still needs a fucking ladder to get to the net.
There is at least one positive thing to say, though, and that regards Scaramanga’s “origin story”, which is described in detail in his file. He was in the circus and trained an elephant named Max. Due to lack of care, Max developed mucus behind his ears which drove him into a rage; he stampeded the crowd, killing several, and then barreled down the railroad tracks for a while until he had expended his energy. The cops, being cops, fired at Max who by this time was completely docile. The gunfire threw him into a rage once more and he charged a second time, returning to the big top. Once there, he tried to resume his act of standing on one leg despite bleeding heavily. The cops, being cops, arrived and shot the elephant in the eye, killing him. Scaramanga took matters into his own hands, shooting the offending officer through the heart. He then absconded. The whole sequence of events—particularly Max’s pathetic attempt to rejoin the circus act—is heartbreaking. That’s definitely not typical of this book or of Fleming generally, but it’s nice to know that sometimes he can write. Just not often.
Among the whole series, I don’t know, it’s in the middle as quality goes? Nothing especially offensive. Maybe some Jamaican caricatures and a weird aside where Scaramanga is hinted as being homosexual because he can’t whistle (???) but not much. Nothing especially exciting either, except maybe that weird sex show Bond calls up with a woman writhing naked on a giant hand (???). In general, though, there’s better Bond no matter your taste. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN isn’t bad, exactly, but it is weak.
First, though, the book opens with 007 (he’s back to being 007 instead of 7777, sadly) arriving at MI6 having been brainwashed by the KGB into wanting to kill his boss M.! You may recall that he had amnesia at the end of the last book and this is the result. Of course, because Bond is such a shitty secret agent it’s immediately apparent to literally everyone he encounters both what has happened and what his plan is. They wrestle him to the ground and send him for some RE-reprogramming, to make him love the Tories again, which happens off-screen between chapters, and then he’s back to normal again. And that’s a wrap on that whole amnesia subplot. Pretty uneventful!
To earn his wings back, Bond is sent to Jamaica (of course) to pursue a legendary gunman named Scaramanga, known colloquially as “The Man with the Golden Gun” thanks to a literal golden gun he has. Scaramanga is a cold-blooded killer and a crack shot and is working for the KGB himself I think. Everybody’s pretty well convinced Bond’s got no chance of survival on this one. Scaramanga’s too good! Ah, but they’ve all underestimated Bond’s ability to take up space, start working *for* the bad guy (oh, but it’s a ruse, you see—honest!), and wait for somebody else to save the day. Here the person that saves the day is, of course, James Bond’s lover Felix Leiter. Oddly the book fails to describe their lovemaking in detail, merely implying it by giving Bond a spring in his step and a goofy smile on his face the next morning. It turns out Leiter and the F.B.I. are also after Scaramanga. In fact, they’ve got like professional spy equipment to record his conversations and everything, whereas Bond has to put his sweaty ear up to a champagne glass pressed to the door in order to hear every third word. Leiter, in the end, has a grand plan to capture Scaramanga and a whole gang of hoodlums on a train. Bond blows their cover by jumping the gun, so to speak, when he believes his former secretary Mary Goodnight has been tied to the tracks.
The reason Goodnight was tied to the tracks (or a realistic mannequin body double, at least) is that Scaramanga—like everybody else—clearly knows who Bond is because he is the world’s shittiest secret agent. So he essentially works FOR the bad guy, gets trapped on a train with his cover blown, almost messes up Leiter’s plans, and then in the end he’s got Scaramanga cornered and mortally wounded and yet he *still* manages to almost lose the battle as The Man with the GG gets one more shot off, the bullet dipped in snake venom. It’s played off as a result of Bond’s unwillingness to kill a man in cold blood, but my god. Give the man a lay-up and he still needs a fucking ladder to get to the net.
There is at least one positive thing to say, though, and that regards Scaramanga’s “origin story”, which is described in detail in his file. He was in the circus and trained an elephant named Max. Due to lack of care, Max developed mucus behind his ears which drove him into a rage; he stampeded the crowd, killing several, and then barreled down the railroad tracks for a while until he had expended his energy. The cops, being cops, fired at Max who by this time was completely docile. The gunfire threw him into a rage once more and he charged a second time, returning to the big top. Once there, he tried to resume his act of standing on one leg despite bleeding heavily. The cops, being cops, arrived and shot the elephant in the eye, killing him. Scaramanga took matters into his own hands, shooting the offending officer through the heart. He then absconded. The whole sequence of events—particularly Max’s pathetic attempt to rejoin the circus act—is heartbreaking. That’s definitely not typical of this book or of Fleming generally, but it’s nice to know that sometimes he can write. Just not often.
Among the whole series, I don’t know, it’s in the middle as quality goes? Nothing especially offensive. Maybe some Jamaican caricatures and a weird aside where Scaramanga is hinted as being homosexual because he can’t whistle (???) but not much. Nothing especially exciting either, except maybe that weird sex show Bond calls up with a woman writhing naked on a giant hand (???). In general, though, there’s better Bond no matter your taste. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN isn’t bad, exactly, but it is weak.
kevin_coombs's review against another edition
2.0
I have read that a rough manuscript of this book was left by Fleming when he died, and that Kingsley Amis finished the final writing. Whether or not this is true, I don't find any clear break from Fleming's usual style or tone. It's not as bad a book as many reviewers state, and certainly not as good as Fleming's best. The story itself is more shallow than others in the series, and the antagonist, Scaramanga, is uninteresting and not well-developed. He is given a distracting "cheap hood" patois, which was probably never terribly common or accurate. Today, it would sound dated and cartoonish. Several aspects of the book are near re-writes of previous Fleming work - particularly Goldfinger. The gathering of various underworld figures, the use of Bond's alias character as a majordomo-type cover, have been written by Fleming - better - before.
It's a short book, and not without some merit. The series is at least worth the completeness of including this title in your reading.
It's a short book, and not without some merit. The series is at least worth the completeness of including this title in your reading.
mrgale's review against another edition
3.0
This is a weird book where little happens but a guy defo does have a golden gun I guess so I can't complain