What do you think?
Rate this book
James Bond comic strips #2
Octopussy
When an old friend's body is found in the Alps 20 years after he disappeared, James Bond quickly finds himself caught between Nazi gold, the Chinese Tongs and the eight-armed embrace of Octopussy!
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Jim Lawrence
93 books4 followersAka Hunter Adams, Victor Appleton II
Jim Lawrence has written fiction extensively for both children and adults in a variety of media: books, magazine articles, film and radio scripts, and comic strips, including "decision" strips. He estimates that he has written some sixty books of fiction, many of them under pen names for series like Tom Swift Jr. and Nancy Drew. His radio credits include weekly scripts for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, The Green Hornet, and Sky King. He has written for, and in some cases created and illustrated, the comic strips Dallas, Joe Palooka, Captain Easy, Friday Foster, and Buck Rogers. To date, he has authored two works of interactive fiction: Seastalker and Moonmist.
Jim Lawrence has written fiction extensively for both children and adults in a variety of media: books, magazine articles, film and radio scripts, and comic strips, including "decision" strips. He estimates that he has written some sixty books of fiction, many of them under pen names for series like Tom Swift Jr. and Nancy Drew. His radio credits include weekly scripts for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, The Green Hornet, and Sky King. He has written for, and in some cases created and illustrated, the comic strips Dallas, Joe Palooka, Captain Easy, Friday Foster, and Buck Rogers. To date, he has authored two works of interactive fiction: Seastalker and Moonmist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 27, 2023
eponymous sentence:
p7: These were the questions Bengry at the Institute wanted answered, and today, since it was going to be the beginning of the end of Major Smythe's life at Wavelets--and though it might mean the end of his darling Octopussy--Major Smythe had decided to find out the answers and leave one tiny memorial to his now futile life in some dusty corner of the Institute's marine biological files.
Read as part of the collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights.
***
28October2023
Somehow, Jim Lawrence's comic strips were unified with the prosaic version.
p7: These were the questions Bengry at the Institute wanted answered, and today, since it was going to be the beginning of the end of Major Smythe's life at Wavelets--and though it might mean the end of his darling Octopussy--Major Smythe had decided to find out the answers and leave one tiny memorial to his now futile life in some dusty corner of the Institute's marine biological files.
Read as part of the collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights.
***
28October2023
Somehow, Jim Lawrence's comic strips were unified with the prosaic version.
April 14, 2014
I'll be perfectly honest, I picked this one mainly because it's really short and I'm way behind on my 50-books-a-year pledge. Sue me.
Actually, this is the better of the bond novels I've read. Really, it's three short stories. Frankly, I like it better this way, there's less filler. Yes, a short 90-page thriller can have filler in it.
My favorite part of these books is finding out how different they are from the movies. Usually, they're hardly anything alike. Moonraker doesn't involve colonizing the moon. Octopussy doesn't have a circus. However, The Living Daylights DOES have the KGB agent who plays cello. That's about it. Otherwise, they're entirely different stories.
This is the epitome of light reading for me, and it even feels classy (unlike a 40k novel). However, my copy has a huge blown-up picture of Fleming on the cover posing with a snub-nose. There's a good reason they don't put authors on the covers of books.
Also, I really want to see a movie use the name "Property of a Woman", which is the least Bond-like name for a Bond story ever. Beyonce would likely do the theme song, and the intro video be straight out of a Lisa Frank trapper keeper.
Actually, this is the better of the bond novels I've read. Really, it's three short stories. Frankly, I like it better this way, there's less filler. Yes, a short 90-page thriller can have filler in it.
My favorite part of these books is finding out how different they are from the movies. Usually, they're hardly anything alike. Moonraker doesn't involve colonizing the moon. Octopussy doesn't have a circus. However, The Living Daylights DOES have the KGB agent who plays cello. That's about it. Otherwise, they're entirely different stories.
This is the epitome of light reading for me, and it even feels classy (unlike a 40k novel). However, my copy has a huge blown-up picture of Fleming on the cover posing with a snub-nose. There's a good reason they don't put authors on the covers of books.
Also, I really want to see a movie use the name "Property of a Woman", which is the least Bond-like name for a Bond story ever. Beyonce would likely do the theme song, and the intro video be straight out of a Lisa Frank trapper keeper.
August 25, 2021
A well-done comic strip though the two stories collected here are not the best work.
June 26, 2008
I read this because I'd seen the new Sebastian Faulks Bond novel and I was thinking, "Did Fleming really have these long, tedious scenes where Bond natters to his housekeeper about the latest fashions in 1960s pop music?" Well, of course he didn't. Fleming wrote in lean, unsentimental prose with flashes of the kind of startling character insight that makes a good action thriller worthwhile. Most importantly, his Bond is an adult - read some of the original novels and then the new one, and you'll see what I mean.
June 18, 2023
Classic comic strips... and only intermittently offensive, which is the best we can hope for from content published back then. One glaring exception aside, Yaroslav Horak's illustrations are great, and Jim Lawrence's adaptations of very slight stories are masterful. Heavily nostalgic, and just as enjoyable.
August 20, 2018
This one was quite a lot fun also. Not as good as previous comic-daily-strip-Bonds, but still fun. Better than the movie, anyway.
September 5, 2014
I started reading the slim volume because of my love for the hazy memory about the film. Octopussy is not a typical bond novel, but a very short story, which I finished in half a day. But where is Octopussy as a woman, where is Udaipur, where are the jewels, where is James Bond to start with? There is, however, a reference to Faberge Egg, in another story in the collection, Property of a Lady, which is also a very quaint tale, full of pathos about cold war era politics, and it involves a auction scenes as exciting as the opening scenes of Fleming’s Casino Royale. (The slim volume contains three stories, Octopussy, Property of a Lady and The Living Daylights; the latter being the title of another 007 film).
The original story is a moving tale of WWII crime, guilt and redemption, not on the level of Dostoevsky, of course, but quite a little, interesting yarn, full of telling details, especially about scorpion fishes and octopuses and post-war Jamaica and post-war Germany. You can imagine how close Fleming was to his Jamaican landscape. And, Bond appears just for a faction in the tale, and he is not important at all.
This is a tale of Major Smythes, who may be dying of alcoholism, who loves his fishes and his octopus, whom he calls Octopussy, than the real people and he has a terrible past, about a cold blooded murder and Nazi gold, and when past catches up with him, there is an accident…
Intriguing.
The original story is a moving tale of WWII crime, guilt and redemption, not on the level of Dostoevsky, of course, but quite a little, interesting yarn, full of telling details, especially about scorpion fishes and octopuses and post-war Jamaica and post-war Germany. You can imagine how close Fleming was to his Jamaican landscape. And, Bond appears just for a faction in the tale, and he is not important at all.
This is a tale of Major Smythes, who may be dying of alcoholism, who loves his fishes and his octopus, whom he calls Octopussy, than the real people and he has a terrible past, about a cold blooded murder and Nazi gold, and when past catches up with him, there is an accident…
Intriguing.
September 28, 2014
This was my first Bond novel ever, after finding it on my bookshelf and not knowing where I got it from.
The main story, Octopussy was different from how I expected, and maybe there are other Bond novels like this, but I noticed that James Bond himself barely appeared. Instead, the book introduces Major Dexter Smythe, who as we learn is a bad guy (a gold smuggler, as it turns out) who was foiled by 007 himself.
The story of how this happened is then told in flashback, and I found it thrilling once I got into the story, although it felt slow-moving and overly descriptive before the extended flashback started. I am keen to read other Bond novels though, and I guess it's never too late to start.
This copy, which seems to have been a promotional version to help with the sales of Sebastian Faulks' "Devil May Care" (continuing the Bond series), also included a short story, "007 in New York"
Apparently, this was originally entitled "Reflections in a Carey Cadillac", but Ian Fleming changed the title after complaints from New Yorkers, mostly at the story's content. This also made for interesting reading, and revolved mainly around Bond and his own thoughts; curiously, the one footnote was a recipe for Scramled Eggs "James Bond".
The main story, Octopussy was different from how I expected, and maybe there are other Bond novels like this, but I noticed that James Bond himself barely appeared. Instead, the book introduces Major Dexter Smythe, who as we learn is a bad guy (a gold smuggler, as it turns out) who was foiled by 007 himself.
The story of how this happened is then told in flashback, and I found it thrilling once I got into the story, although it felt slow-moving and overly descriptive before the extended flashback started. I am keen to read other Bond novels though, and I guess it's never too late to start.
This copy, which seems to have been a promotional version to help with the sales of Sebastian Faulks' "Devil May Care" (continuing the Bond series), also included a short story, "007 in New York"
Apparently, this was originally entitled "Reflections in a Carey Cadillac", but Ian Fleming changed the title after complaints from New Yorkers, mostly at the story's content. This also made for interesting reading, and revolved mainly around Bond and his own thoughts; curiously, the one footnote was a recipe for Scramled Eggs "James Bond".
February 7, 2012
I got this at a used book store along with all the other Ian Fleming 007 stories. It was without doubt the best literary "bang" for the buck I ever spent, since not only are they all terrific adventure yarns with exotic travelog locales, but i only paid half the 60-cent cover price for those early Fawcett Crest editions.
In the movie, "Octopussy", the exotic species of octopus as well as the story of Bond's generosity en-extremis toward Octopussy's father, are both found in this Ian Fleming 007 adventure-thriller. The rest of the plot is totally contrived for the movie, except for the plot device of substituting a fake jewel for the real one at an auction (what Alfred Hitchcock called 'the MacGuffin') to get the ball rolling, which comes from another 007 short story in "For Your Eyes Only".
In the movie, "Octopussy", the exotic species of octopus as well as the story of Bond's generosity en-extremis toward Octopussy's father, are both found in this Ian Fleming 007 adventure-thriller. The rest of the plot is totally contrived for the movie, except for the plot device of substituting a fake jewel for the real one at an auction (what Alfred Hitchcock called 'the MacGuffin') to get the ball rolling, which comes from another 007 short story in "For Your Eyes Only".
February 9, 2015
A collection of short stories pulled from Ian Fleming's notes after his death. They are ok. These three stories are not the grand adventures of the novels, but instead the day-to-day workings of espionage. The writing is good, the scenes painted by Fleming excellent, however they are lacking the clever touch and grand scale that characterises some many of his novels. And the action is minimal. In fact Bond takes only a single shot during all three stories.
Octopussy is narrated by another with Bond playing a supporting role. In Living Daylights Bond is assigned as a sniper to protect a fellow British spy. The Property of a Lady is set primarily in an auction house.
Octopussy is narrated by another with Bond playing a supporting role. In Living Daylights Bond is assigned as a sniper to protect a fellow British spy. The Property of a Lady is set primarily in an auction house.
April 26, 2016
I liked this book even though Bond does not appear for very long. I especially liked the description of the class types of heavy drinkers. The Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric and Melancholic. The Sanguine drunk goes gay(happy) to the point of hysteria and idiocy. The Phlegmatic sinks into a morass of sullen gloom. The Choleric is the is the fighting drunk of the cartoonists who spends much of his life in prison for smashing people and things, and the Mel Melancholic succumbs to self-pity, mawkishness and tears.
January 24, 2014
And… Done. That is all of the Ian Fleming James Bond books that I am going to read.
I refuse to read The Spy That Loved Me because in Fleming was so disappointed in the book and he asked that it never be reprinted after the first run. I will respect his wishes.
This last set of four short stories are pretty good. None of the stories have even the slightest resemblance to the later films of the same names, except for sharing titles.
Don't let the cheesy late 1980s and early 1990s films push you away from this book. The short stories that share the names of the films are actually quite good.
I refuse to read The Spy That Loved Me because in Fleming was so disappointed in the book and he asked that it never be reprinted after the first run. I will respect his wishes.
This last set of four short stories are pretty good. None of the stories have even the slightest resemblance to the later films of the same names, except for sharing titles.
Don't let the cheesy late 1980s and early 1990s films push you away from this book. The short stories that share the names of the films are actually quite good.
May 27, 2015
James Bond
Crimes from the end of World War II have come back to demand justice from retired Major Dexter Smythe, courtesy of James Bond. Smythe has just one more task to complete before he must decide whether to take the “gentleman’s exit”.
Very little Bond in this one. Definitely no sexy women or super villains, just one sad and lonely man already facing death due to a bad heart. 4 out of 5.
Crimes from the end of World War II have come back to demand justice from retired Major Dexter Smythe, courtesy of James Bond. Smythe has just one more task to complete before he must decide whether to take the “gentleman’s exit”.
Very little Bond in this one. Definitely no sexy women or super villains, just one sad and lonely man already facing death due to a bad heart. 4 out of 5.
April 19, 2016
Three very short stories that are 1) Predictable, and 2) Nothing else.
Very basic stories who are so predictable you'll be surprised when your prediction comes true, and not in a fun way.
Honestly nothing else to be said. Very short, and almost void of any content.
If it wasn't for the rather nice descriptions of fish and scubaing in the title story, Octopussy, I'd say this book is worth a half-star, no more. Still, it isn't worth the time or money.
Very basic stories who are so predictable you'll be surprised when your prediction comes true, and not in a fun way.
Honestly nothing else to be said. Very short, and almost void of any content.
If it wasn't for the rather nice descriptions of fish and scubaing in the title story, Octopussy, I'd say this book is worth a half-star, no more. Still, it isn't worth the time or money.
September 19, 2009
This short story was pleasantly surprising. I thought that Flemming's books would feature a lot more outdated language and ignorance, but except for the common use of the word "Ticketty-boo" it was a story that was fun to read and had only a few lines about Bond, James Bond.
November 5, 2012
I liked it, but it's only two short stories! I was listening to it as an audio book so I had no idea until I was waiting for the two threads to wind together and then it was finished. Bit disappointing...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2015
Quite different from what I expected - as these are James Bond stories. They were really short and one had little or no involvement of Mr Bond. However - I was listening to this as read by Tom Hiddleston, so I enjoyed it. He has a great voice, so a good listen.
March 17, 2016
If you to take a peek into the childhood of James Bond, this is the book. It's a VERY quick read, but intriguing story and brings to light a lot of relevant themes in the most recent 007 movie (Spectre).
February 21, 2009
A collection of reasonably entertaining James Bond short stories. The title story has almost nothing to do with the movie, in case you're wondering.
March 11, 2012
Not the greatest graphic novel in history but you can see the little quirks that evolved into the bond we know and love today.
December 18, 2013
Actually, this book has 120 pages. Its short, but a good read. Full of action with extreme danger, and a heartless murder.
December 1, 2014
Listened to the audio book with Tom Hiddleston narrating. Marvelous story telling! Octopussy is one of Ian Fleming's best short stories!
January 29, 2015
I listened to the audiobook. The stories were good, but not what I was expecting of a James Bond story. What made this the best for me was listening to Tom Hiddleston read.
Read
February 1, 2015B C2 R6
Read
February 5, 2016Again, a very different "James Bond" story, with Bond being merely an observer, a bystander, in the narrative.
September 29, 2009
Re-read Sept 2009 to recall how much different the book was to the movie.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews