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.
I remember reading almost all of the Bond novels while I was in the hospital at Clark AB in the Philippines in 1965. I could not wait for the book cart to come around so I could get another one. The books are SOOOOOO much better than any of the movies. Just wonderful writing.