Over the last year or so I began the process of reading through Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. I have been a fan of the movies for a long time. In fact, when I was younger, when I had to pick “a hero”, I picked James Bond. But I have never read the books. Motivated by the release of Casino Royale, I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through them.

I’ve read three so far – <i>Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, and Moonraker</i> and I have been enjoying them. Well, I enjoyed the first and third so far. LaLD is plagued with problems of racism which detract from the narrative, and I found it the least interesting of the three. But <i>Moonraker</i> excited me enough to continue with the series.

The books differ quite a bit from the movies. They take place earlier, for one. The novels take place in the post WWII period and that is very much a part of them. Bond is also less of a womanizer in these novels, and indeed seems to fall in love with one woman. He’s also more damaged. More of a brute at times. And yet utterly civilized.

But all this is a sidetrack to the main concern of this post. The new movies. I was really pleased with Daniel Craig and Casino Royale. Though I never minded Pierce Brosnan as 007, Craig really nailed it for me, with an intensity that was missing since Connery. So after seeing that, I was looking forward to the new movie.

It now has a name. <i>The Quantum of Solace</i>. It’s a bit of a strange title for a Bond movie, in my opinion, but since it is an Ian Fleming related title, I guess it works. Frankly the title doesn’t matter as long as the movie is decent.

More information at the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7206997.stm

Let’s try this again.

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted – either here or elsewhere. I actually wrote a long post about the reasons for that and recent events, the end of 2007, the beginning of 2008, and somehow, due to the vagaries of technology, the post disappeared into the ether without ever appearing anywhere other than my own mind. This was some time last week, or perhaps the week before, only I didn’t realize it until the other day.

Which is ultimately depressing because I no longer feel the need to explain all that again. That was last year. Once expressed, all of the need to speak of it disappeared. Suffice it to say that there were ups and there were downs, but thankfully things seem to have ended on an up note and 2008 has so far exceeded my expectations.

Now that I’m back to work, I expect my posts will become more frequent, and I’m starting to feel that familiar urge to spit my comments out into the world, so hopefully things will be more regular here.

So rry to those who I’ve lost touch with over the last few months. I hope to catch up (as best I can at least) with you soon.

Hope everyone out there is doing well.

Later…