For Your Eyes Only

Before 007 appeared on the big screen Ian Fleming was involved in an aborted series for US television. When the project fell through many of the stories were reworked by Fleming  and published in the collection For Your Eyes Only.  At the beginning of last month Ian Fleming Publications announced a new James Bond novel to be written […]

Sean Connery so much loved The Bahamas when filming Thunderball that he decided to move there and still has a house at Lyford Cay. The territory, which until 1973 was part of the British Empire, is comprised of 700 islands of varying sizes and most of them uninhabited, spread over 650 miles from the east […]

When James Bond arrives in Spain on the tail of Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales in For Your Eyes Only, he sees him killed in front of him, shot with an arrow. Making his escape from the scene he runs into the assassin, Melina Havelock, who turns out to be the daughter of Sir Timothy Havelock, a marine biologist working for the British who had been murdered by Gonzales, triggering Bond’s investigation.

For the finale of For Your Eyes Only (1981) – the twelfth James Bond film and the fourth to star Roger Moore – Melina Havelock and Colombo assist 007 to gain access to an abandoned Greek monastery where Kristatos plans to hand over the top secret ATAC over to KGB chief General Gogol. The monastery […]

As a tribute to the late John Barry, professional musician Tim Mottershead takes an in-depth look at John Barry’s contribution to the James Bond films.

All Ian Fleming’s short stories are collected on one volume, entitled Quantum of Solace. For the first time the stories from For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy & The Living Daylights are found within the covers of a single volume. You can order it from the outlets below: Amazon UK Amazon US The opinions expressed […]

With For Your Eyes Only Ian Fleming broke with tradition. Rather than the regular annual novel his fans had become used to expecting he used the plotlines from an abandoned TV show for four of the stories and added a fifth. Author: Ian Fleming Publication date: 11th April 1960 Publisher: Jonathan Cape Cover artist: Richard Chopping Search for […]

The Bond series frequently follows the same pattern.  Films get ever more action-packed and begin to feature increasing numbers of gadgets and explosions.  That is, until a director decides to change direction and revert back to a more subdued affair, more faithful to Ian Fleming’s books.  It happened with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as […]

When James Bond drove a Lotus Esprit S1 directly into the water on the Sardinian coast to escape a helicopter in hot pursuit in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), he introduced what is one of 007’s best-known gadgets; flipping a switch the car turns into a submarine. The Lotus Esprit was a mid-engine coupé […]