James Bond Books

He seems like more of a real person in the books as opposed to a larger than life superhero in the movies. It's just another example of the books being more believable than the movies. Take Moonraker for example. The movie involves some ridiculously huge and complicated space station the world has still yet to create firing lasers to destroy humanity with an incredibly tall and indestructible villain with bad teeth. The book has none of that, just a good old fashioned nuclear bomb plot.

 

In WWII Ian Flemming was in British Naval Intellegence and did a lot of work with the OSS. Legend has it that he was involvced with creating a lot of subterfuge to divert attention from Operation Overlord ( Normandy) . His service proved to be a good incubator for ideas.

 

I have some printed in the 60's from my dad. They're on my bookself, have been for about a year now. The type is so damn small! Been meaning to read them, think I'll start this weekend.

 

That explains a lot. At the beginning of From Russia With Love he has an authors note that says the background to the story -- that there is such an agency as SMERSH in Russia -- was true. I wondered how he knew and his intelligence background explains it.