Of course we compare Bond with Flandry and I think that Bond in Japan (in You Only Live Twice) is a bit like Flandry on another planet. Fleming matches Anderson with descriptions of natural phenomena like receding tide, setting sun etc.
Fleming acknowledges the passage of time:
"...the great battle across the baize he had had with Le Chiffre so many years ago."
-Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (London, 1965), 2, p. 21.
However, Bond remains apparently at the same age - Fleming even plays a trick to cut ten years from his life - whereas Anderson presents Flandry's career from teen-aged Ensign to Fleet Admiral and elder statesman. I will probably reread On Her Majesty's Secret Service to its end but will also continue to post about A Stone In Heaven.
"James Bond will return in..."
1 comment:
I don't think Fleming anticipated how popular the Bond series would be! Like Patrick O'Brian with Aubrey-Maturin -- he eventually had -two- 1813 years! Alternate history in action...
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