This is something special, 6 Nov 2002

Ironically, the coverage of the films is the weakest part of the book. There is little there that can't be found elsewhere. On the plus side, most of the misquotations and misspellings from earlier editions have been corrected. Not all, though: for example, the authors still don't recognize that the spelling of a key character's name differed across the prose and film versions of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, and they spell actor Jeremy Bulloch's surname two ways within five pages.

There are a few jarring occasions where the authors take writers of the Bond novels to task for alleged errors, and in so doing, make mistakes themselves. Contrary to the authors' claims, John F. Kennedy didn't become President in November 1960 (p. 45), nor is it automatic that Ambassadors get replaced when the party in government in the UK changes (p. 120). In addition, the authors state that current Bond author Raymond Benson "betrays a fundamental ignorance of the British intelligence services" (p. 113) in labelling the Secret Intelligent Service the "Secret Service." Since the authors themselves adopt the same convention on numerous occasions (e.g. pp. 23, 103, 337), this is a double standard. Moreover, by following the authors' logic here, one could have a field day claiming to have found an error each time that the UK is referred to in the books and films as Britain.

The most striking error on the authors' part, however, occurs when they note that in Ian Fleming's GOLDFINGER book, Goldfinger always carries a million dollars in gold with him. The authors mock this claim, asking: "does he check the markets each morning, and take a little piece out if the price has gone up?" (p. 31). But as part of the Bretton Woods exchange-rate system, the price of gold was pegged (fixed) in US dollars throughout the 1950s and 1960s, so their mockery on this occasion is unjustified.

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