Thunderball is one of Fleming's best! The scuba diving battle beneath the Caribbean between Bond and Largo is epic, but the most enduring feature of the novel is it marks the first appearance of the criminal organization SPECTRE, and it's diabolical leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld!

Did Ian Fleming have any idea how much impact this character would have on the rest literary world when he created him? Blofeld started out as just an arch rival for James Bond, but his character became the role model for all evil genius villains with megalomanical dreams of world domination!

Thunderball is a must-read for all 007 fans.

Analyses of James Bond seem to fall into two categories: analytical or anecdotal. The former is the most common -- generally consisting of a look into such quantitative topics as what kind of cigarettes he smokes, how he prepares his martinis, and other easily categorized trivia. But such an analysis -- while thoroughly enjoyable -- never seems to answer the larger question that looms in everyone's mind: "Just why is this guy so cool?"

"Dressed to Kill: James Bond, The Suited Hero" does an admirable job of handling this question. Half a collection of essays, and half a picture-laden coffee table book, "Dressed to Kill" purports to examine the way 007 attires himself and how this has both borrowed from the heroes of the past and contributed to the heroes of the present.

Four essays on Bond are sprinkled throughout the book, written by authors like Jay McIrnery and Nick Sullivan. The essays range from rambling expositions of a boy's love for the hero his parents forbade him to watch, to an almost scholarly look at Bond's dressing habits and how this has contributed to the character.

But the real stars are the pictures. Compiled within "Dressed to Kill" is perhaps the best collection of Bond pictures this side of Cubby Brocolli's personal photo album. The pictures range from Dr. No to GoldenEye, from publicity stills to advertising copy, from black-and-white to color, and they neatly explain the mystique of 007 at a level that the essays never reach. The pictures have been culled from the EON Picture Archive and other collections, and each includes a knowledgeable quote explaining just what 007 is wearing and why.

While Bond receives star billing, the book does try to expand the examination to "the suited hero" in general. Non-bond pictures include such figures as James Coburn as Our Man Flint, Alan Ladd (he had his suits tailored to make him look taller), Humprhey Bogart from Casablanca (the predecessor to Bond's "tuxedo in the midst of chaos" look), and such anti-suits as Bruce Willis from Die Hard and Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones. In discussing the latter two, and Hollywood's eschewing of the suit, Neil Norman writes:

"At the same time, a curious thing happened. The suit wouldn't die. It simply transferred its allegiance from hero to villain. Paul Freeman's villainous Frenchman Belloq, in Raiders, confronted Indy in an immaculate linen suit. And the moment that Alan Rickman strode on to the screen to do battle Bruce Willis's slobbily attired cop hero, villainy meant tailoring sharp enough to slash your wrists on."

In and around the essays are picture-filled asides devoted to topics like Bond's three-piece suits, his sport coats, his naval style, and his tuxedo bow ties:

"The width remains fairly constant while the depth rises and falls, beginning with Sean Connery's 'Slim Jims' up to Roger Moore's velvet high of 1974, and gradually shrinking back down to Timothy Dalton's restrained 1987 version, before deepening yet again for GoldenEye."

"Dressed to Kill" is a wonderful celebration of everyone's favorite secret agent. If you can't tell an Armani from a Brioni, or if you can't tell in which film Bond's "lightweight suit, whose cut, along with the curled trilby hat, gives him the look of a traveling businessman," then it's time for you to give up your underwear and T-shirt look just long enough to get to a bookstore.

(Deane Barker is the forum manager for The World of James Bond on The Microsoft Network

DRESSED TO KILL explores the mystique of Bond in a tasteful coffee-table edition crammed full of rare photographs and enjoyable essays addressing the age old question of just what suits a man.

It wasn't until I read this book that I realized the profound cultural impact which the Bond movies had and have, and the deep and lasting impact they'd had on me, personally, and how they'd unconsciously formed the basis of my impressions of male style.

From the suited hero of the 40's, 50's and 60's (witness Cary Grant), to the styleless 70's (Roger Moore's mod Bond looks just a little ridiculous amongst the Jermyn Street of Connery and the Brioni of Brosnan), the suited antihero of the 80's (and his doppleganger the antisuited hero of the "Die Hard" and Indiana Jones ilk), into the 90's and the new millennium, this ultimately enjoyable book is a paean to the way we all want to look. Gentlemen, fold your pocket squares!

How many steps is it from a boy in a sport jacket pretending to be Bond to an Armani man carrying a slim black briefcase? Not so far as you'd think. Rate this one FIFTY GOLD SOVEREIGNS.

However, on the critical side, this book didn't live up to my expectations in terms of describing the off-screen lives of the Bond girls. It spends a majority of the exposition describing the plot of each James Bond movie and then reserves only a minimal amount of page space to briefly, and I mean BRIEFLY, tell you about the actresses who portrayed Bond Girls in the movies. It is just not detailed enough. I was hoping to learn more about where Honor Blackman is right now in her life, or what became of Shirley Eaton after she became popular as a "Golden Girl". The book doesn't go into some of these things. Maybe this is because of the lack of information available, but if this is the case, I think the book should be advertised as more of a photo album rather than an expository book. Although the plot descriptions are very good, we have plenty of books which explain the plots of the James Bond movies. It doesn't have to be the emphasis in this book. The emphasis should be on the actresses themselves, not the characters they portrayed in the context of the story.

I give this book four stars because of the quality of the photographs, but it falls short of a five because of the reasons I stated.

Having all of the Bond books, the collections, and "encyclopedias," etc., I didn't think there'd ever be another Bond book that I'd want to have, much less need, but "The James Bond Girls" is a must have for everyone who's ever thought of themselves as a Bond fan.

Nonetheless, this is overall, an informative work. Benson provides a chapter on Ian Fleming's background. Of particular note is a chapter in which Benson pieces together the biography of the James Bond character. This is reminiscent of John Pearson's Unauthorized Biography of James Bond. Benson provides an excellent analysis of the James Bond novels. He identifies trends in Ian Fleming's writing nad points to specific examples of what he calls the "Fleming Effect." For hard core fans of the novels this section is excellent. Benson includes analysis of the works of Ian FLeming, Kingsley Amis, and John Gardner. Curiously, many of the apparent criticisms that Benson had of Gardner's work, he is guilty of committing in his own novels. The film analysis is also excellent. Benson provides detailed analysis of every film through the Living Daylights.

It should be noted that this book will probably not be of much appeal to the casual James Bond fan. Benson tries to provide an in depth analysis rather than focusing on the superficial. Of distraction to the hard core fan, are occasional factual errors that appear to be the result of sloppy editing. Additionally, the quality of the text and photos is generally poor. The formatting of the text is somewhat erratic with occasional omissions of glaringly obvious punctuation. The photos are all black & white. The photos are generally blurred. This appear to be the result of poor printing.

Overall, the quality of the author's analysis is generally educational and informative. However, the production of the actual book borders on shoddy. An excellent reference work for the hardcore fan, but if you're looking for color photos of Bond girls and gadgets, then you should look elsewhere.

For Your Eyes Only, a compiliation of James Bond short stories, doesn't work. It is best read by Bond fans who either want to read all the books in chronological order (however, there is no continuity between this book and the others, so that hardly matters), or Bond fans who want to say they read every Bond story Fleming published. But it is not very good. The book includes the following short stories:

"From a View to a Kill"
"From a View to a Kill" is possibly the shortest of all James Bond stories. As such it is hardly developed and doesn't leave much impact. It is hardly worth considering as a story, but rather as Ian Fleming's scratch pad. Considered in this way the story is interesting for some of its elements.

Fleming is at his best when describing Bond's meals and drinks. "From a View to a Kill" contains an obligatory meal scene that works especially well. Fleming not only describes food and drink in exacting detail, but manages to turn these descriptions into commentaries on the culture and society of the meals' location. This time Anglo-centric unleashes his opinions on has-been post-war Paris. In the process he manages to reveal some interesting background points about Bond's early life. But all this quickly evaporates into more of an action/detective in which Bond investigates a murder.

Fleming's stories usually include a point during which a plot or a scheme is revealed to be bigger than it first appeared. Bond discovers what he suspected to be the case, that the murder was an assassination by unearthing a hidden underground base of sorts. The logic of this thing's existence and purpose are hardly believable, but the gadgetry of the place is interesting because it is a step beyond what had been typical for Fleming up to this point. Indeed, the rose-periscope and bush-door seem more like something out of the Roger Moore Bond movies, still years away. It is worth noting that "From a View to a Kill" has nothing at all in common with the Roger Moore movie, A VIEW TO A KILL, other than the name and the setting in France.

"From a View to a Kill" is too short to skip, but it ultimately isn't very satisfying.

"For Your Eyes Only"
After re-reading the second short story in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (also titled, "For Your Eyes Only," I reached the conclusion that James Bond works much better in novels than in short stories. This is in part because this short story, much as the last one, left me wonder why I was reading it. While the story had action, it lacked the type of suspense, plot development, and surprise endings that move the Bond novels along. Also, that I had completely forgotten most of this story from my first reading of it many years ago was telling. "For Your Eyes Only" is more of a story than From A View to a Kill," but it is still a scratch pad of sorts, interesting more for ancillary reasons than for the story itself.

Still, these ancillary reasons are worth mentioning. Bond's job is never more illicit than in this story. He is sent to commit an assassination more or less as a personal favor for his boss, not as an official governmental act. He struggles with this a bit, and a different type of writer could have made more out of that struggle than Fleming does. But he trudges along to carry out his assignment. This story, perhaps more than any of the novels, establishes Bond as a "cold blooded killer."

One of the features of Bond stories that I enjoy is their 1950's setting. Fleming wrote from the 50's, obviously without any knowledge of how the future would unfold or how his time and thought process would be viewed years after he committed them to paper. The alieness of all of this is stark in "For Your Eyes Only." The target of Bond's assassination attempt is a former Nazi, who had recently been inn the employ of Cuba's dictator, Battista. Battista was still in power when Fleming was writing, and Castro is mentioned not only sympathetically, but as an admirable quasi-ally. He certainly isn't one of the Communists under just about every bush Bond looks under in most of the novels.

Neither the Nazi origins of the villain, Von Hammerstein, or even the villain's name, ever make it into any of the Bond films. But much of this short story does. For such a weak story, I was interested that most of it made it into the movie version of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. The movie was bigger, and the short story really comprised about a quarter of the film, but I was reminded once again that some of the Bond films improved upon the stories rather than just borrowing the names.

"Quantum of Solace"
"Quantum of Solace" is only superficially a James Bond story. Oddly, then, it is the most interesting and compelling at least of the first three stories in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Bond is in Jamaica on assignment, but the story is not about the assignment. In this one, Bond mostly listens to a story within the story, told by the colonial governor of Jamaica, with whom he had just had dinner. This story within the story is the thrust of "Quantum of Solace." It has nothing to do with espionage, action, or adventure. Rather, it is a brief tale about a failed relationship. That's it. Somehow Fleming manages to make it interesting. I was wondering where the story was going and was caught off guard by its mild, but unexpected surprise ending. In this regard, Fleming achieves on a small level some of what he otherwise better captures through novels than short stories. While "Quantum" has little to do with Bond (or, more accurately, Bond has little to do in Quantum), it is the most enjoyable story so far in this collection.

"Risco"
A good portion of the plot of the movie, For Your Eyes Only, is taken from this short story. After reading this and the short story version of FYEO, I came to a greater appreciation of the movie-maker's desire to blend the two stories together into a coherent one that remains as faithful as could be hoped to a couple of short stories.

"Risco" plays out the Kristatos-Columbo rivalry around which the plot of the movie turns. Of all the short stories in this book it is the one that most resembles the previous Bond novels. It involves a mission to a foreign land, colorful characters, a devious villain with vague ties to Russia, and in Columbo, an ally somewhat reminiscent of Karim Bey in From Russia with Love. Nevertheless, "Risco" is not as good as any of the previous books, probably in part because it is not developed like a full novel. Also, not for the first time, while reading it I felt that the moviemakers did this story better. I was actually somewhat bored reading it.

There are no great surprises in "Risco," perhaps because we all know Kristatos, not Columbo, is the real villain. Nothing special is revealed about Bond's past or his predilections. As with most of the rest of the short stories in this compellation, "Risco" seems more like the outline of a story than a complete work.

"The Hildebrand Rarity"
After being worked over by the somewhat boring "Risco," "The Hildebrand Rarity" delivers the knockout punch. For Your Eyes Only saves the worst for last. It is significant to note that very little of this short story made its way into any Bond movie to day. "Milton Krest," the character that passes for a villain in this one, and his boat, The Wavekrest, appear in the movie, License to Kill, but only in name. The story of "The Hildebrand Rarity" is lost in the final pages of this book.

"The Hildebrand Rarity" contains one of the worst elements of Bond stories: Bond is basically an observer of events here. How and why he ends up in the situation of the story, which has nothing to do with spying or even government work, is murky at best. The story is basically a reverse mystery, a Murder on the Orient Express set on a ship, with an all-too-easy search for a rare fish thrown in, and one twist. Fleming's twists are usually the capstones to his Bond novels, but here the twist is that the mystery is never solved. Indeed, the build up to the crime is too long, and the aftermath is wholly inadequate. It is almost as if Fleming got tired of this story and just put it down. I did too.

The story, "The Hildebrand Rarity" is the basis for the Timothy Dalton film "License To Kill", where, though Franz Sanchez, Agent Bouvier and Felix Leiter from the movie aren't present, one of Sanchez's cronies, Krest, IS!

As with just about every OTHER Bond book-to-film transfer, the plots and supporting characters are fiddled around with extensively, but a sharp eye would be able to discern the similarities.

I would have liked it if this book had been in better condition when I got it, but it was one of the original Signet paperbacks, which makes it more than 35 years old. I guess it could have looked a LOT worse! (g) However, as far as reading is concerned....not bad at all!