I think the best Fleming novel is Casino Royale -- it suffers least from the recycling of unconscious tropes of the author, and works best in its historical context: one of the villains is a man who spent time in a Displaced Persons camp after the war, so he quite literally has no identity or nationality at all.
Yes yes yes yes yes and more yes. Also? I think it's the saddest of the Bond novels. Bond is betrayed, he can only deal by hardening himself and betraying his own heart. You'll never see him played that way in all those big dumb movies, damnit.
Well, one of the Brosnan movies has him telling a woman that the only way he survives is by not letting himself care, or some such thing.
t /movie natter
Of course, in the movies, he always gets the girl; not so, in the books. For some reason - maybe its graininess of the personal feelings portrayed - the first of the two Timothy Dalton movies came the closest for me, to the way Fleming actually wrote Bond. When Bond is betrayed by his Russian friend, Dalton just smoked his own pain; you could see it fester.
All the fun I had with Sunshine made me seek out other vampire books at the library. Bound in Blood: The Erotic Journey of a Vampire, by David Thomas Lord, seemed like it would be a sure-fire hit. Not so much. It's quite possibly the only vampire book I've ever not been able to finish. The author spent the first fifteen pages or so discussing the lead character rising, dressing, and admiring himself in a mirror. Seriously -- he gets lost in his own magnificence for about an hour. Bad. Really, really bad. <sigh>
Umm, a mirror? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that vamps don't do that.
Evidently vanity finds a way.
Oh, and did I mention the amazing singing voice that witnesses remember after several decades? And infallible taste in art? And, psychic powers! I don't remember if his eyes were an extraordinary color, or if he could talk to ponies.
So, if Vampires show up in photographs but not in mirrors (as in the Jossverse), does a photograph of a vampire reflect in a mirror?
Oh, and did I mention the amazing singing voice that witnesses remember after several decades? And infallible taste in art? And, psychic powers! I don't remember if his eyes were an extraordinary color, or if he could talk to ponies.
so, sort of a Dracula Sue?
Bound in Blood: The Erotic Journey of a Vampire
I read this! I'm pretty sure I read this...does it have two guys on the front cover? I got so excited when I saw this, I was all "Gay Vampire Snuff Porn in the library!"
And then I read it.
