 I am one of those people that needs to do things in order. If there is a new movie coming out that happens to be a part 7 of a franchise and I've never seen the parts that came before it, I need to check those out first before seeing that film. The same holds if it's been a very long time since I've seen the previous parts and my memories on them is too fake. I would often revisit those in order to get them fresh in my mind again before getting into the new thing. The same holds for the Bond books. And this quirk is admittedly why I never made it past this point in the series. I would often start reading the books fresh again with Casino Royale, which is why it's the book I've read the most times by far. Then over the months I would read them in order, but at some point there will be a pause where I don't read any of the books. And maybe years go by and instead of just continuing where I left off, I feel like I need them fresh in my mind again and I would start over. I know it's crazy. I can't be the only one though, right? But since doing the reading 007 series, I kind of freed myself from starting over as I've already reviewed everything up until this point. And everybody that follows this little series seems to enjoy them, so thanks for that. And thus I finally made my way to my first time reading Thunderbolt. Now if you're a Bond fan, you're very likely aware that Fleming based it on an unfinished screen treatment he dreamed up in collaboration with Kevin McClurry and Jack Whittingham. And how some of the ideas that he used for this book became a lawsuit. And I'm not going to go into detail on that in this video. Instead of assuming most people that watch this series are likely aware of all of that anyway. So without further ado, let's dive into the waters of the Bahamas as I review Fleming's Thunderbolt. And Kevin McClurry's, technically, you get the idea. With this being a novel based on ideas for a screen treatment, you can totally feel Fleming was starting to write the novels more with the big screen in the back of his mind. As Thunderbolt feels very grand in scope with the security of the entire world at stake. The book starts off small enough, though, with Bond being sent out to a health clinic, Shruplins, as he isn't in the greatest condition. It might certainly have something to do with the daily alcohol and the 70 plus cigarettes. But hey, it's the early 60s. That's clearly normal consumption, so who knows. In the health clinic, he comes across a certain Count Lippie who he discovers is linked to a criminal organization in Macau. Once Bond learns of this connection, Lippie tries to kill Bond by tempering with a spinal traction table that Bond is being treated on. Bond retaliates by trapping Lippie in a steam bath. The plot picks up Moore's team as we learn that Lippie is just a small fry in another much bigger criminal organization, as we are introduced, for the first time in the novels, to the top secret organization, Spectre. The special executive for counterintelligence, revenge and extortion, and an independent criminal organization led by the mysterious Ernstavro Blofeld. There have been planning out an ambitious plot to hijack a bomber carrying two nuclear weapons through the help of an Italian Air Force pilot Giuseppe Patacci. They managed to hijack the plane, have it crash land in the ocean near the Bahamas, kill Patacci and take the nuclear bombs into their procession, holding the world at ransom in a fret to launch the weapons on a major city. And so, American and British intelligence launch Operation Fundable and dispatch their agents all over the world in a desperate bid to recover the two stolen nuclear bombs before it's too late. A race against the clock ensues, and of course, Bond happens to be sent out to the correct part of the world at the Bahamas where he once again gets to work with Felix Leiter, who is recalled back to duty in the CIA because of this crisis. He also meets the beautiful sister of the killed Air Force pilot, Domino Patacci, who happens to be the capped woman and mistress of Spectre's second in command, Emilio Lago. And so the stage is set, 007 in a tropical setting, the safety of the world at stake on a secret mission to retrieve the stolen nuclear bombs before it's too late. So Bond turns out to be in poor condition, according to his latest health assessment. And M happens to recently have visited Sruplins and is in a phase of his life where health is taking center stage. Bond gets all grumpy about the whole Sruplins thing and is completely against it all. After getting engulfed with all the healthy stuff, for a brief moment Bond is a changed man and actually gets some of the lust for health himself. He comes out of the clinic much healthier and in better condition and I find it very amusing how his secretary and even his housekeeper May all get slightly worried about Bond's new lifestyle. It's not May's place to see it, Mr. James, but you're poisoning yourself. Bond said cheerfully, I know May, you're quite right, but at least I've got them down to ten a day. I'm not talking about yer wee bitty smoke, I'm talking about this. May gestured at the tray, this pap. The word was spat out with disdain, having got this off her chest, May gathered steam. It's no recht for a man to be eaten burns food and slopes and such like. It kind of tells you a lot of the error that was written in. Health is good and all, but come on, less smoking, more fruits, pap. I mean Jesus, don't overdo it. As soon as Operation Thunderball comes about though, Bond is quickly back to his old self as more important things start to occupy his mind. Now, the safety of the entire world is at stake. Unlike the movie, it is M who has a hunch to go on and sends Bond out to the Bahamas. I really like the tropical setting of the book. Maybe it helps that I was reading Thunderball on vacation last summer at the time, and I was in a tropical setting myself and got more engaged in it. But there's something appealing about being on an important mission to uncover a plot while simultaneously being in a relaxed tropical setting. I find it quite relatable that at first, Bond and Leida really feel like they're not even close to fighting the bombs out here. The world is huge. What are the odds that they happen to be on the correct part of the planet? They are looking for a needle in a haystack. But later, as more and more obscure puzzle pieces are put together, indeed some things don't add up, and indeed they appear to be in the correct part of the world. Of course, we as the reader already know that they are, as Fleming wrote about the entire hijacking in detail. So on the one hand it's kind of a shame that you're reading all these chapters of Bond and Leida catching up to what you as the reader already know. But on the other hand, their investigation is interesting enough that is still entertaining to read about. It is great to see Felix return once again, and he's featured probably the most out of all the books in this one. The friendship and respect has clearly developed a lot at this stage, and it makes for a very fun dynamic between the two. Bond first runs into Dominetta Patachi, better known as Domino, in a place where you would meet women in the early 60s, a tobacco shop. His introduction to her is quite smooth as she's looking for cigarettes in conversation with a shopkeeper, and Bond mingles into the conversation with his exquisite taste in the subject matter. Once again, a very amusing look at the times this was written in. Domino feels like sort of a woman Fleming has already written about more often, like Jill Masterson in Goldfinger, or Lysol in the Risicot short story. But she also has that modern air of the 60s woman about her, like Mary Ann Russell from the A Few to a Kills short story. Clearly, she's a stunning woman, but I like that she plays the hard to get act towards Bond, while at the same time sort of having a secret interest in him too. Largo tells her that he and his men are just here in the Bahamas on some sort of treasure hunt, unaware that he's secretly leading Spectre's operation in hiding the nukes. It is not until Bond reveals he's a secret agent and found out that Largo killed her brother and tells her that she starts to understand how serious this situation is. So as mentioned before, Spectre is introduced for the first time in this novel, in what is going to be a trilogy in the Fleming books. It is uncertain whether or not Fleming or McClory came up with the idea of Spectre, they probably did so together, but I'm pretty confident that Fleming must have at least come up with a name. I mean, the guy just loves using that word, doesn't he? Spectreville in Diamonds of Forever, the Spectre decoding machine in From Russia with Love. There's no way this wasn't Fleming. I like the idea of a secret criminal organization working from some secret backroom in Paris, while nobody has ever heard about them. And it's a whole lot less cartoony reading about that than their movie counterparts might be. Blofeld seems sinister and mysterious, a dominant personality, but clearly he's not to be the main villain of this book yet, and I can't wait to see him return in the future books of this trilogy. It's Largo that takes the center stage as the main villain of this book, being described as the epitome of the gentleman crook and sort of a Roman playboy type of character. You can't help but think of a Julius Caesar type of man when reading about him, but he doesn't really get as much background or depth as most of the villains have received in previous novels. He's kind of forgettable. He has a yacht called the Disco for Landy, which Bond and Leiter inspect somewhere in the middle of the book, but not really much goes on in that chapter. Much more interesting is Bond's nighttime swim on the water inspecting the hull of the boat, when they start throwing grenades at him. Now in terms of suspicious things of Bond investigating this self-proclaimed treasure hunter, that is definitely a slight red flag. I also like how Bond uses the word spectre to try and see if it triggers a reaction in Largo. You know, these people are not wearing a ring with an octopus like they are in the movies, but you can tell Largo is sort of startled by Bond's use of the word. It's the little things like this where Bond comes closer to uncovering the people behind it all. And Bond is often reluctant to report his suspicions and instincts when he really doesn't have much concrete evidence yet to report. And I remember as the reader going, just tell them what you know. You are on the right track. They threw freaking grenades at you for God's sake. Eventually Bond and Leiter do connect the dots and uncover that Largo is indeed working for spectre and has the bombs in this part of the world. So they get the American nuclear submarine in and the climax comes down to an underwater fight with Bond and a dive team versus the spectre goons. And it's surprisingly tense and satisfying to read. It keeps you turning the pages. It's Domino that gets her revenge killing Largo for the murder of her brother, which is very satisfying. Of course, as Bond and Domino recover from injuries, they end up in bed together. Again, alluding more towards the cinematic type of Bond endings. Speaking of the cinematic bonds, this story of course got adapted twice. First that's Thunderbolt itself in 1965 and then of course later in 1983 as Kevin McClory's production in The Unofficial Entry never say never again. Both starring Sean Connery. Both are pretty faithful adaptations of the novel, adding in twists of their own. For one, both movies added fantastic femme fatale which was not present in the novel's counterpart. And I truly feel both Fiona Volpe and Fatima Blush are the highlights to mention in their respective movies. I felt that the novel dealt with the tense race against the clock element far better than both movies did though. But that perhaps comes natural with the fact that you just spend more time with a book than you do with a movie. It also comes with a bit of a downside as I feel the novel has plenty of passages that could have been dropped. Like Bond's visit to the disco Valenti and such. I feel the novel is heaps more entertaining than never say never again, which mostly added loads of uninteresting additions like that whole tears of Allah aspect or that weird video game sequence and lago with that weird bunker on his boat where he probably secretly masturbates the domino dancing in front of that mirror or something. Lago in Thunderbolt also seemed much closer to its novel counterpart. I'd say the movie Thunderbolt is probably slightly better than the novel. In some ways. I do feel the character of domino was better worked out in the novel and had a more interesting personality in there. It's also more tense in parts than the movie is. But the movie has Luciana Palluzzi and Sean Connery and Claudine Argier is just smoking hot despite being more bland than her novel counterpart. Oh yeah, in the book she's Italian. In the movie she's French. And her last name is changed to Deval. In never say never again, she does get the original Italian last name of Patachi. But come on, Kim Bassinger feels far from an exotic Italian beauty. So, to sum it up, I'd say the novel and the movie are both worth your time. And I would skip never say never again. So, that brings us to the conclusion. Like I said before, you can definitely feel the cinematic potential with this novel as we're now reading the period in which the Bond movies were almost made. But Thunderball is definitely a middle ground Fleming novel. It's very entertaining in parts and certainly tense. The setting is great and with this being written in the midst of the Cold War, the fear of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands is extremely realistic and obviously very contemporary for the time this was written in. It just screamed to become a Bond plot at some point. But I also feel Fleming maybe tried to reach the magic he did in From Russia with Love. And he never does. You see, in both of these novels, the villain scheme is laid out at the beginning of the book and you're waiting for Bond to catch up. The big difference is that in From Russia with Love, it's a trap that is set up and you're reading as Bond is falling into Smerch's ingenious trap. For that book, it just clicked incredibly well and that book is just one of Fleming's crown achievements that he just ever put to paper. Here, you know exactly who stole the nuclear weapons and where they are. You're just waiting for Bond and Lider to find out what we already know and it doesn't work in the same way that it did work for From Russia with Love which I think is a flaw of how the story is laid out. It would have been much more interesting if we still got the Spectre introduction and their plan to steal the nuclear weapons. But then, the reader does not get to read the details on how they do it. Instead, I would just have it skipped to the part where Spectre's plot has suddenly happened and Bond is just told about this. That way, we as the reader know just as little as Bond does and we as the reader don't know if Largo is just some treasure hunter out in the Bahamas or if he really has anything to do with Spectre's plan. That way, we unravel the investigation alongside of Bond instead of being ahead of him. That would add far more mystery to the story, like the Doctor No novel had. That, I feel, would have been much more engaging for this particular novel. Again though, it's not a fatal flaw, it's still worth your time and you won't feel like you've lost hours of life reading this. It's the perfect book to take on a summer vacation. It's just middle ground Fleming. It's not brilliant, but it certainly keeps you entertained. I can't wait to see what's in store from here on in the rest of the Spectre trilogy. But not before taking a little detour in the next book, The Spy Who Love Me which I heard nothing but negative things about. I know it's written from the perspective of a woman, so I'm very curious to delve into that one for the next Reading007 episode.