"Fleming lead an interesting life, but then, so did many people who lived throught the Second World War. By the end of the fourties, society was opening into what would become the Swinging Sixties...."
"....and I set my own first novel in 1951, where Stuart, like Fleming an ex-soldier, lets his hot blood overcome his cooler reason in the South China Sea."
"In 1953 Fleming first made his mark with the introduction of James Bond, an MI6 agent with a taste for the high life, who must undermine SMERSH operative "Le Chiffre" at the card table."
"The following year - 1954 - saw the beginning of a pattern that lasted until Fleming's death: one Bond novel per year, as in this foray to New York to help out his old CIA buddy, Felix Lieter."
"1955. The homeliest of all the Bond novels, as he travels no further than the county of Kent to unearth a nest of surviving nazis. In 1955, it is reasonable to hang onto the last war for a plot."
"That spicyness of location and character (are they perhaps one and the same? Does Bond, a cold Englishmen, blossom in the warmer, easier climes?) is continues in his 1958 adventures in The Carribean?"
"1959 saw the publication of what think is the most Bondy of all Bond novels. Some critics have panned it. Should we worry? I think not. They tended to become more outlandish, but... that's fiction."
