Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Excellent plot. No nonsense prose and a perfect adventure. September 1, 2008
Alejo (Andorra)
By now I have already understood the pattern, every second book is a Caribbean adventure.
But if Dr No is full of imaginative technicalities and perhaps incredible background for the villain... THUNDERBALL could be considered the true ancestor of so respected techno thriller's writers as Tom Clancy.
What is frightening even for the date it was written is the plot, it produced probably one of the best film adaptations (without too much distortion if the book) ever and it was REMAKED in the movies series (quite unnecessarily in my opinion (NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN with a past the age Connery...).
I only have four novels to read to complete the cycle but so far the experience was up to the expectations... and seldom are.
ADB
 Cliche today, but still exciting July 20, 2008
Colin (Maryland, USA)
The subject of this book (steal two atomic bombs and hold the world hostage) would be considered cliche these days, but only because this was the first book to use that formula.
Fleming wrote a pretty good one here, but it seemed to end in a hurry. You really don't get to know what happened with the SPECTRE operatives in full detail. The character of Domino was only seen briefly, and you don't get to see her tortured by Largo (thank God, though) but she's described well enough to be a "real" person. The beginning was a little slow. On the whole I'm really glad these novels aren't too long, they're exactly the length they need to be.
And those two points are the only complaints I have...it was otherwise a great book, certainly a classic James Bond, with enough excitement and detail to make it real. And I like the sexy covers on the new editions :)
Bond vs. Blofeld, Part 1 November 26, 2007
mrliteral (Woodland Hills, CA United States)
With Thunderball, Ian Fleming's James Bond books take a new direction. Gone is the Cold War threat of SMERSH; now Bond must contend with villains motivated not by ideology but instead simple greed. In particular, Thunderball begins what I think of as the SPECTRE or Blofeld trilogy (along with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), in which Bond battles his greatest opponent, the cunning Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who is also the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies).
Actually, Blofeld may be the ringleader of the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (no glossing over the evil of this group!) or SPECTRE, but it is actually his number two man who is the main villain. Emilio Largo is the head of operations for a global extortion plan: either pay 100,000,000 British pounds or SPECTRE will use two stolen nuclear bombs in a week.
Bond has initially gotten tangled up with SPECTRE in an inadvertent manner. During an idle period between missions, Bond has partied too hard and now requires time at a health spa; while recovering there (and briefly becoming something of a health nut), he crosses paths with Count Lippe. Their quarrel will inconvenience Lippe, a minor SPECTRE operative, and in turn cause a temporary setback for Blofeld, Largo and company.
Once out of the spa, Bond is briefed on the extortion plot and is sent to Nassau in the Bahamas to see if there are any leads there. He meets up with old CIA friend Felix Leiter and soon has reason to suspect Largo, who is maintaining a cover as a treasure hunter. In today's era, when there it is common to arrest possible terrorists and worry about due process later, Bond and Leiter's concerns about legality and probable cause seem almost quaint, but they do delay any action against Largo.
In a way, this is the first "cinematic" Bond novel. The copyright page indicates that this was not even fully Fleming's book; instead it was based on a screen treatment by Fleming, K. McClory and J. Whittingham. This shared copyright has definitely had its effects on the Bond movies, allowing an "unofficial" remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again. It has also stood in the way of a "resurrection" of Blofeld as a Bond villain, whose apparent death at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was rather ignominious for the bad guy most closely associated with Bond.
Back to the book, Thunderball is a good enough read, but this is not Fleming at his peak (which is really From Russia With Love, Dr. No and Goldfinger). Perhaps his hope that this novel would be made into a movie made this tale a little shallower (although none of the books are really deep). Bond fans, however, should be reasonably pleased with this effort.
Super Reader August 4, 2007
Blue Tyson
M has received Bond's medical report. Basically it says two packs a day smoking ain't good. He sends him to a health farm to get himself back together. He comes across a man from a Macao tong, who is also working for Blofeld, head of SPECTRE. A confrontation between the two is violent, and Bond is helped out by a nurse. He gets some of his own back.
Bond ends up in the Bahamas, and working with Leiter again, now back in the CIA. Emilio Largo is working there with his bombshell woman, Domino, and he is Blofeld's top man.
SPECTRE had hired Domino's brother to nick a couple of warheads, having access as a military officer to at transport flight. Then they offed him.
When Bond tells Domino this information, he turns her and uses her to his advantage. The book ends with a confrontation between Bond and babe vs Largo, and an American submarine vs Largo's crew.
James Bond #9: Thunderball February 8, 2007
The JuRK (Our Vast, Cultural Desert)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Published in 1961, THUNDERBALL hit the bookshelves a year before Sean Connery debuted in the first film, DR. NO.
The Bond novels have always been very fluid and visual but THUNDERBALL reads as the most cinematic of the stories up to this point. That's for a very good reason: the project began as a screenplay between Ian Fleming and a producer, Kevin McClory, along with a screenwriter, Jack Whittingham. After finishing the short story collection of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and suffering some health problems that would increase until his death, Fleming wasn't sure what to do with James Bond, especially after trying to kill him off in FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE several books before.
The THUNDERBALL film project appeared to be stuck in development hell, so Fleming took the script and wrote a novel from it. Which promptly put him in court with McClory for the next several years. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producing team who eventually did put 007 on the silver screen, had wanted to make THUNDERBALL their first film but as the court case continued, they moved ahead with DR. NO. The case was eventually settled but probably not to many of the participant's liking since Fleming had to share the rights to THUNDERBALL and another producer outside of Broccoli & Saltzman could legally use the character (which led to the "renegade Bond film" of 1983, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN).
The novel is fun to read because it has so many elements of what made the Sixties Bond films so much fun. A plot that involves saving the free world. The master villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld is introduced. The setting is incredibly exotic and beautiful. Domino is one of the more livelier Bond girls of the novels.
It's nice to have Felix Leiter along but...his condition after being fed to sharks in LIVE AND LET DIE stretches an already-strained believability to almost Austin Powers levels. I could accept him working for Pinkertons in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER but to get back into the CIA for THUNDERBALL...a bit much.
From reading Fleming's biography, I thought it was interesting that he would create SPECTRE about this time, the terrorist organization introduced here. In reality, he was bored with making the Russians his baddies all the time and--I thought this was funny--Fleming believed that the Cold War would be over before he could finish writing FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE!
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