 Continuing my journey through all the Bond books, I've reached for Your Eyes Only, the 8th Flemming novel. And this one isn't a fully-fledged novel, instead it's a collection of 5 short stories, because Flemming at the time was in talks to get Bond to the TV screen and these 5 short stories were essentially ideas for episodes. Obviously that series never got made. It's still interesting to read how Flemming did writing short stories. So let's go over all 5 in this collection. The first story in this collection is From a View to a Kill. Yes, From a View, that's the original title. The story involves the mysterious killing of a motorcycle dispatch rider and the theft of his top-secret documents by a motorcycle-riding assassin. The dispatch rider was en route to station F in Saint-Germain, France. Much like the previous novel, Goldfinger, Bond just came off a dreadful mission involving a lot of killing and he's recharging, this time in Paris. That is, until Bond girl Mary Ann Russell shows up to pick up Bond. A resourceful girl described to have absolutely everything that belonged in his fantasy. He's a grade 2 assistant that has the modern air of a 60's girl, driving fast, talking fast and playing fast as he readily accepts Bond's offer of dinner, preferring his ways to the French, who make the business of seduction so tedious in her words. So anyway, Bond is asked to assist in the investigation of the murder of the dispatch driver and he disguises himself as a dispatch rider following the exact same route to station F as the previous rider. As expected, the assassin attempts to kill Bond. Bond, however, is ready and kills the assassin. He then uncovers the assassin's hidden bunker of operations and this is a combination of being quite ingenious and a bizarre read as the base is underground hidden under a rose field. And one of the roses has a hidden periscope in there, suddenly coming up from the rest, looking around and I really found that ingenious and enjoyable. Bond ends up uncovering the Russian spies in the bunker, ends up in a fight and Mary Ann Russell ends up becoming the first Bond girl to save Bond's life. In the end, it's more than implied that Bond sleeps with the girl, dragging her into the bunker to show her the burst nest. I found this first short story enjoyable. It's fast, it's mysterious and very easy to see as a TV sort of episode in the life of Bond. From what I researched, Fleming initially wants to use this material as the backstory of his villain Hugo Drax from Moonraker as Drax would have been the dispatch driver that ended up in the hospital. The story does lack the presence of any real villain characters. I mean, there are enemy spies, goons so to speak of, but the short story doesn't really have the time to set up an overarching villain or anything grand. That spy bunker under the flowerbed is still cool though, solid first short story. The second story, the one that the entire collection is named after, is fantastic as well. For your eyes only tells the story of an old happy couple living in Jamaica, the Haverlocks. When suddenly they get a visit from a bunch of Cubans looking out to buy their house. Mr. Haverlock kindly lets them know that his property isn't for sale and the conversation slowly goes from being light-hearted to becoming dark as the Cubans brutally kill the Haverlocks. The Haverlocks turn out to be personal friends of M, who is in serious self-conflict on this whole affair. On the one hand this has nothing to do with MI6, on the other hand these were personal friends of him, justice is called for. So eventually he decided to send out Bond, half-record, to go and take out the people responsible of this brutal murder. The Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales turns out to be working for a villain by the name of Von Hammerstein, currently residing at a lake house in the mountains and forests of Canada. It's very cool to see Bond go out on a stealthy assassination mission in Canada, something we never saw before in neither the novels nor in any of the films. This is when he runs into Judy Haverlock, the Haverlock's daughter who is out for revenge. She reminded me somewhat of Honey Child Rider in the ways he's described to be wild and rather animal, who knew wild country and forests and is not afraid of them. She ends up shooting Von Hammerstein in the back with an arrow from 100 yards at the exact moment he dives into the lake. She's quite the skilled girl. A shootout then commences and Bond ends up killing all of the Cuban hitman. Judy gets wounded in the gunfight and again in the end it's more than implied that Bond ends up sleeping with the girl. This one was great. The setup is intriguing, M's personal connection raises the stakes and his debate whether or not to settle this affair is interesting and different and you really feel yourself agreeing that rough justice needs to be served here and these villains should be taken care of. I especially like the lake house setting and Bond and Judy sneaking around the lake to try and take out these people from a distance. Very enjoyable read. The third short story in the collection, Quantum of Solace is definitely the odd one out of the five. It's not really a mission or an adventure but more Bond being in a conversation with a governor in the Bahamas. I did really once again find myself identifying with Bond though. James Bond said, I've always thought that if I ever married I would marry an air hostess. Having my own girlfriend be a flight attendant too, I couldn't help myself smiling from ear to ear sharing this opinion with James Bond. Unfortunately this particular stewardess in the short story isn't the most sane of characters. The governor basically ends up telling a story of a man he used to work with called Philip Masters who also happened to have been falling in love with a stewardess by the name of Rhoda Llewellyn and the governor ends up telling how they met and eventually got married and went on to live in Bermuda. Things seemed romantic and fun until Rhoda started having an affair with some rich guy. As a result, life got pretty awful for Masters who deteriorated at his job and suffered from a breakdown. Long story short, Masters ended up dividing their home into two sections, half to each and he refused to have anything to do with his wife in private but they still maintained to appear as a normal couple in public. Eventually he left Rhoda with lots of unpaid debts. The governor then explains a concept to Bond he calls the Quantum of Solace meaning the level of comfort a healthy relationship should have. If the Quantum of Solace drops to zero, the human consideration and respect between two people is gone and a relationship no longer works. After a while Rhoda just ended up marrying some other rich guy, one that Bond happened to have been seated next to at the start. And Bond found Rhoda to be particularly dull in the beginning without knowing anything about her life. Now he found out that this was in fact Rhoda and he heard some of the life that she went through. And though I found myself identifying with the part of falling in love with a stewardess, I really started to question what the point of this short story even was, that you shouldn't judge a person by its cover, that a relationship can run its course when someone is having an affair or when the other one puts financial debts onto the other person. I mean duh, it's not really a profound, mind-blowing moral or anything interesting. Apparently Fleming had this story told to him in real life too by some admiral and he decided to adapt it for this short story, for whatever reason. While the story isn't necessarily uninteresting, I don't really see the point of adapting it to a James Bond story. I'd say this is the one story out of the five you can just skip and not miss anything from. The fourth short story moves us back into regular Bond territory in a tale of drug smuggling in Italy. Bond has a meeting in a restaurant with CIA informant Cristados, who tells Bond that a man called Enrico Colombo is behind a large smuggle racket. Later on, Bond gets into touch with Colombo's mistress, Liesel, and has a rendezvous with her at a beach near Venice. Fleming actually describes the exact location this beach is located at and you really get the sense that Fleming has visited this location himself with his usual level of detail of where places are and what things look like. Anyway, as Bond arrives at the rendezvous with Liesel, she changes her mind and Colombo's men come after Bond. After a short chase, they eventually capture him. They take him aboard of Colombo's ship and what do you know, Bond has been fooled and learns that Colombo isn't the smuggler he should be after, but it's Cristados instead. Now obviously, if you've seen the movie for your eyes only, this big plot twist comes as no surprise and Colombo turns out to be a jovial and colorful ally in the same vein as Karen Bay from From Russia With Love. He asks Bond to join him to eliminate Cristados and raid his warehouse. And this whole part of Bond sailing the Adriatic Sea while Colombo and his men prepare for the raid is great. It's like Bond suddenly became part of some pirate's crew. Colombo obviously isn't crime free himself, smuggling various things like cigarettes and spices, but you know, not drugs. And he's more likeable, so it's easy to go along with this stuff. The warehouse raid is well written and action packed and it all ends with Bond taking out Cristados and receiving the key to a hotel room where Liesel is located. So essentially, Colombo gives Liesel as a reward for helping him. So again, it's implied that Bond will be sleeping with the girl at the end of the story. This was another really likable story and much like for your eyes only, one I wish was expanded more into a full blown adventure because there's definitely potential here. And speaking of potential, the Hildebrand rarity was the only one in this collection I somehow never got around to read before and I was very surprised to really like. This one really feels different to all the other stories in this collection. Bond has pretty much finished a routine mission in the Seychelles and has to go and sit out some time, which he mostly spends diving in the tropical ocean. That is until an ally by the name of Fidel Barbe requests Bond to help an American millionaire Milton Crest to find a rare fish called the Hildebrand rarity. Bond agrees to this task and with Barbe he boards Crestes yacht, the Wavecrest. Crest is described as probably one of the most obnoxious and dislikeable men in existence, beating his wife who he punishes with the use of a stingray tail that he dubs the corrector. Bond does his absolute best not to try and get annoyed with Crestes ego and just get on with finding that damn fish for this guy. Eventually they find the fish and like Living Let Die, Fleming always excels in describing underwater life. Bond even wants to save the fish because Crest will be using poison killing hundreds of them. I really like this surprising moral and humanitarian side of Bond that he is displayed having in this short story. The same holds for Bond feeling sorry for Crestes wife and wishing he could help her from the abuse, but also knowing there isn't much he can do about it. Eventually that night on the Wavecrest, Crest is getting exceptionally drunk and more obnoxious than he already is sober when they eventually turn in for the night. And Bond can't get to sleep because of Crestes snoring in the other cabin above, so he gets out of bed. Then the snoring turns to choking and Bond finds Crest murdered with the Hildebrand rarity stuffed into his throat and there is no killer to be seen. And the great thing about this story is we never found out who did it. Is innocent wife or barbie? Who killed Crest and Fleming just leaves it open for the imagination. And I really like that because I found myself theorizing and going over who I thought must have done it. I personally lean more towards the wife having been beaten by Crest many times and she might have found the courage to free herself from him so to speak. I don't know, we're obviously not meant to know who did it and that's kind of unique and cool for a Fleming Bond story. Since this particular book didn't feature just one story and the TV series never really got made, you can't really compare this to the movies. However, most of the content of these short stories for Your Eyes Only and Risico were adapted into the 1981 movie for Your Eyes Only. Only the killing of the Havilocks by a Cuban hitman and their daughter, now named Melita instead of Judy, taking revenge. Not with a bow and arrow, but with a crossbow. The killing of an assassin with an arrow before diving into the water is also there. From Risico we get the characters of Cristados and Colombo and the same plot twist of the villain turning out to be the ally and vice versa. From the Hildebrand rarity, the character of Crest, who was loosely adapted into License to Kill, along with his boat, the Wavecrest. The woman beating was given to Sanchez though. The name Hildebrand shows up as an homage of the name of the safe house inspector. So this collection gave us a look at Fleming's short story writing and a look at what a potential Bond TV series might have looked like. You can kind of see it. Most of them are mini-adventures featuring murder, an objective and Bond ending up sleeping with a girl. It's a mixed bag though. It's fun to read short stories, all of which can be consumed quickly in about an hour or so, but obviously the lengths don't allow for the time to really flesh out characters and plot elements more deeply. That isn't to say Fleming failed, I'd say 4 out of 5 stories are really enjoyable and I had a lot of fun with it. It's just not as special as most of his full-blown stories are, because every time you're about to really get into these stories again, they are already over. From a few to a kill for your eyes only and Risico felt the most like classic Bond adventures, offering interesting missions while Quantum of Solace and the Hildebrand is rarity, where more or less character studies that put Bond into a completely different role, where Fleming didn't excel in Quantum, but definitely did on Hildebrand. If you were to ask me to rank these 5 stories in the collection from worst to best, I'd say Quantum of Solace comes rock bottom and then a huge leap up from a few to a kill in number 4. At number 3 I'd put Risico. At number 2 I'd put the Hildebrand rarity, which I wouldn't have fought beforehand, because I felt that this was just the most unique and different to anything that came before and I honestly had a blast reading it for the first time. At number 1 I'd rank For Your Eyes Only, which I felt was the most solid James Bond story in mini form, featuring a colorful Bond girl and villains and an interesting theme with the rough justice aspect of it. And so I'm happy they gave that title to this whole collection of short stories. Apart from Quantum of Solace, I would recommend to visit or revisit these quick to digest short stories as they are very enjoyable, but ultimately these stories also left me hungry to get back into full-blown Bond adventures again, especially because I never got to read beyond this particular point in the series. So I'm super excited to start the Spectre trilogy next and all that is to come after that as a first time reader from here on in.