on_her_majestys_secret_service

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE by Ian Fleming

(1963) 2002. Penguin Books. Paperback.

Book 11 of the 14 James Bond books. It took me a long time to get
started on this book. I was put off by the page count; at 259 pages it
is the longest of the Bond novels. The front cover picture of my
gorgeous silver Penguin Modern Classic is less than gorgeous; it shows
a skier coming down a snow cover mountain with a small cloud of snow
behind him; hardly the most dynamic image.

The title of this book is ridiculousy long, and I was tempted to name
the text file of this review ohmss instead of the absolute mouthful
on_her_majestys_secret_service. The laborious title is unique in the
Bond canon and also unique is the movie made of it; the sixth James
Bond movie.

Sean Connery had tired of playing James Bond after the first five
movies and the Australian George Lazenby was improbably cast in the
role. The beautiful Avengers star Diana Rigg is cast as Bond girl
Tracy; the most independent of the Bond girls and the woman who James
Bond would marry. There's no theme song (imagine Shirley Bassey having
to belt out the five words "On her Majesty's Secret Service!) there's
a brassy instrumental tune to begin the movie. The playout song is a
quiet Louis Armstrong ballad, "We have all the time in the world".

Back to the novel. Ian Fleming is back on top form after the unusual
womans-point-of-view "The Spy Who Loved Me". Blofeld and SPECTRE are
back; Blofeld traced to neutral Switzerland where he wishes to
establish his connection to a title, the Count Balthazar de
Bleuville. Bond poses as an expert on coats of arms and hereditary
titles; and travels to Switzerland to meet Blofeld at his high alpine
lair and see what he is really up to.

Blofeld has ten young Englishwoman in his retreat undergoing hypnosis
cures to animal allergies. He is completely changed in appearance but
the SPECTRE model of groups of three goons from several nationalities
is present. Without trying to ransom the world as he did in
Thunderball, Blofeld plans to cripple England by introducting
biological weapons in critical parts of England's agricutlure. The
English girls have been hypnotised and one lady has already decimated
England's turkey farming.

There are two escape sequences; Bond first having to ski down the
mountain to escape Blofeld's goons and later having to chase Blofeld
down a luge run. The opening chapters with Bond on holiday and back at
Casino Royale are also very satisfying.

There's an unusual dedication to two of the book's characters; perhaps
Fleming used real names after suffering writer's block? With short
poetically-formated lines, the dedication is

For
Sable Basilisk Pursuivant
and Hilary Bray
who came to the aid of the party.

This is one of the best Bond books and deserves a better title and a
better cover image. I only have three Bond books to go and I look
forward to the next title, You Only Live Twice.

                                            11th September 2024

My book reviews are at https://github.com/stucooper/booksiveread