A review by jdglasgow
For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming
3.0
I was almost tempted to go four stars on this book but that’s based mostly on the intrigue I felt at the unusual format of this entry in the series—a set of five Bond short stories rather than one continuous tale—and the positive feelings I have for the first story in particular, “From a View to a Kill”, which is easily my favorite James Bond story to date.
In “From a View to Kill”, Bond actually seems somewhat competent. He does some detective work, then dons camouflage and hides until he finds a troupe of baddies with a crazy Dr. No-level fortress hidden in some rose bushes. Then the day is saved by Agent 765, who saves Bond’s ass when he almost gets himself killed and quips something like, “I didn’t want you to be late for our date.” Very cool.
The second story, “For Your Eyes Only”, is almost as good. The opening scene of baddies gunning down an honest family in Jamaica in order to buy their land is pretty badass: the way the guy says “Fine. I’ll negotiate with the next owner, your daughter.” Chills. And this one has a good deal of Bond agonizing over the morality of killing, which I like to see from him even though he always ends up pulling the trigger anyway (“Here I go killing again…”). Last, the way Judy kills the bad guy just as he dives into the pool is very cool.
What I don’t like is what Bond does when he encounters Judy scoping an assassination location, which is the same thing he did to Tilly Masterson in the last book when she was trying to kill Goldfinger… that is to say, he interrupts her, tries to mansplain sniper rifles to her, and basically fucks up her well-thought out plan, resulting in random gunfire and her getting shot. But she ends ready to sleep with Jim anyway, breathlessly exclaiming with apparent seriousness, “I’ve never been to a real motel before!”
In “From a View to Kill”, Bond actually seems somewhat competent. He does some detective work, then dons camouflage and hides until he finds a troupe of baddies with a crazy Dr. No-level fortress hidden in some rose bushes. Then the day is saved by Agent 765, who saves Bond’s ass when he almost gets himself killed and quips something like, “I didn’t want you to be late for our date.” Very cool.
The second story, “For Your Eyes Only”, is almost as good. The opening scene of baddies gunning down an honest family in Jamaica in order to buy their land is pretty badass: the way the guy says “Fine. I’ll negotiate with the next owner, your daughter.” Chills. And this one has a good deal of Bond agonizing over the morality of killing, which I like to see from him even though he always ends up pulling the trigger anyway (“Here I go killing again…”). Last, the way Judy kills the bad guy just as he dives into the pool is very cool.
What I don’t like is what Bond does when he encounters Judy scoping an assassination location, which is the same thing he did to Tilly Masterson in the last book when she was trying to kill Goldfinger… that is to say, he interrupts her, tries to mansplain sniper rifles to her, and basically fucks up her well-thought out plan, resulting in random gunfire and her getting shot. But she ends ready to sleep with Jim anyway, breathlessly exclaiming with apparent seriousness, “I’ve never been to a real motel before!”