A Blog Both Wonderful and Strange

For the fullest enjoyment of this blog post, make sure you read  this previous post , in which I go into more detail about this book's existence and review the first one. Also, I would like to dedicate this post to the memory of David Hedison, who passed away shortly before I began work on it. Hedison portrayed Felix Leiter in Live and Let Die and Licence to Kill, making him the first of two actors to play Felix more than once in film. Now, let's get onto this thing; my apologies that it has taken so long. As I noted in an update to my previous post, after presumably getting a cease and desist letter from Ian Fleming Publications, Edward F. Koehler PhD's Felix Leiter books are no longer for sale beyond third-party sellers on Amazon, who are selling them - as of this writing - for no less than $123. Far overpriced, if you ask me, but I suppose they're a rarity now, as I highly doubt many were printed, much less actually sold. However, for a brief period, th...

Felix Leiter. Probably the closest thing James Bond has to a good friend. It's hard to tell that in the movies, though, since he's been played by a different guy nearly every time he's been on-screen. (top row) Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter (bottom row) Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter, Felix Leiter Despite being a recurring character in the books, Ian Fleming never really gave us much background on Felix prior to assisting Bond while in the employ of the CIA and Pinkerton Detective Agency. So, that's where Edward F. Koehler, PhD comes in. I was casually exploring Wikipedia, as I often do, and I ended up on the Felix Leiter page. As a seasoned Wiki editor, my eye caught a bit of something that seemed promotional rather than encyclopedic: Written with speech-to-text by Gomer Pyle So, I thought that maybe this was referring to a pair of new Bond books I somehow had not heard of. I consulted Google and found s...

The most constant question asked to Bond fans: "Who is your favorite Bond?" Being a fan of James Bond (do I italicize that? It's the name of the franchise, but it feels weird italicizing a name), I have thought of this question many times. Rather than listing my favorite Bonds from worst to best or best to worst, I will just list them chronologically and give my thoughts on each of them. Note that I will only be discussing the Bonds of the EON film series, as I have never seen the 1967 Casino Royale and it's been years since I've watched the Climax! episode or Never Say Never Again. I will compare each portrayal with Ian Fleming's character of the novels (to the best of my ability as I'm only on the third book as of this post, so I may come back around to update!) as well as my own personal praises and criticisms. Without further delay, here we go. Sean Connery First off, Connery is one of my favorite actors to ever grace the big screen...