[Sans-Culotte]

As for authenticity, Fleming was involved in British Intelligence, which informed many of the novels. Also, I think most of Bond's likes/dislikes (cigarettes, vodkas, gins, "sea-island" shirts, etc) were probably Fleming's, which added to the realism of Bond's reactions and sensations in the books.

When one reads the books, one is struck by the idea that Bond would die early from his excesses if he did not end up getting killed on duty. In a way that happened, as Fleming only lived to be 56.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Like the best Fleet Streeters of his generation, he was an extremely good writer, at least in the sense that he was all but incapable of writing a bad sentence. Do you know how rare that is in this field?

I < heart> good British writing of any sort. Brits have a knack for it. Some British writing is rubbish, but the best of it is unsurpassed.

[wildbill]

So many folks think they KNOW the Bond stories and Fleming’s writing because they saw the movies.

As much fun as those wonderfully camp movies were—and Sean Connery will always be “Bond, James Bond”—the books, especially the earlier ones, had enough reality to them to stir my desire to write adventure/spy thrillers.

[Cicero]

To give him credit, Alan Furst’s thrillers are pretty good, too. I especially liked “Kingdom of Shadows.” They are both good writers in their different ways, IMHO.

That snotty, catty quotation indicates more than a tad of jealousy, maybe because Furst isn’t getting the same kind of movie money. Dumb thing to say, because it only makes him look small.

On a personal note, I happened to get to know Charlie Engelhardt, the former chairman of Engelhardt minerals in South Africa. He was a friend of Fleming’s, who as a private joke portrayed his friend as Goldfinger.

[Tribune7]

As I think most of us should know, James Bond was a Pennsylvanian.

[Ciexyz]

Happy birthday to Ian in the great beyond. He created characters that will live forever. I stand in awe of his talent for connecting with readers (even tho the sexism of his novels makes the works a bit dated.)

[TChad]

Here is an MP3 of Ian Fleming interviewing a somewhat drunk Raymond Chandler in 1958. I got the link from here.

[ctdonath2]

Before writing spy dramas, Ian Fleming allegedly was a spy: Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming

IIRC (been a long time since I read it), The Puzzle Palace notes that while spying indeed existed for a long time, it was the James Bond character which prompted governments to hugely increase their intelligence agencies, as world leaders influenced by 007 began speculating that maybe, after all, their enemies did have vast secret networks supporting super-spies - and "even if they don't, we should have our own".