I was handed a stack of Ian Fleming novels a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to reading through one of them.

“From Russia With Love” is the story of a well-planned, well-executed trap, one into which Secret Agent James Bond walks blindly, right up until the jaws are snapping shut. It’s a gentleman’s travelogue with occasional violence and one instance of sex. The book’s more interested in the meals and cigarettes than with setting and story, let alone characterization. The most meaningful relationship in the book isn’t between James Bond and Tatiana Romanova, but between James and his Turkish friend, Darko Kerim.

In short, it’s not at all what I expected. Bond’s hardly the supercool hero who has everything figured out from the start. For one thing, he’s a bit squeamish about cold-blooded killing. Perhaps this is because it’s ungentlemanly… as is smelling of rat tunnels. He makes an entire series of strategic blunders throughout, and in fact only survives through a combination of dumb luck, some preparation from Q Branch, and a suddenly stupid and self-absorbed opponent. Even then, at the very end of the book, he botches things again and is left for… well, not quite dead, but he’s in bad shape.

I mean, what?

It’s a very odd book, and certainly not timeless. A bit of research after-the-fact tells me that this is one of the best-regarded selections from the series. I think that’s my cue not to pursue Ian Fleming’s books further, don’t you?

I’m not going to bore you with a lengthy review. If you’re a Feist fan, you’re going to read this book. If you’re not familiar with his work or not a fan, there’s very little chance that you’ll make it far enough through his written output to end up at this book.

I just want to say two quick things about “Wrath of a Mad God.”

One: This is the first time that I’ve spotted glaring, huge continuity problems in one of Ray’s books. Erik von Darkmoor never married? Are you kidding me? A major part of the last two Serpentwar books just gets thrown away like that, eh? That’s not the only continuity error, but it’s the one which sticks out most in my mind. There are several others that even I was able to spot. And I’m not good at that sort of thing!

Two: I’m glad it’s over. (No, I don’t care if he’s intending to write more books in this setting. Really, it’s over.) Enough of the questions are answered. Kind of. I mean, let’s count how many times have we seen Feist use a variant of this line: “Okay, the truth this time. I mean it.” Right. Sure. Whatever. But that’s not really my point. It’s just gotten to the point where the levels of threat and destruction and mayhem and sacrifice have gotten out of hand. There’s always going to be one more bigger badder threat which requires a total rewrite of the series’ mythology (how many versions of “the nature of the gods” have we been subjected to?) and a higher body count and… let it go already. There are only so many times you can crank up the threat levels before your story becomes… well… Dragonball Z. You don’t want your story to be compared to DBZ, do you?

I consider this book to be closure on the Pug-And-Thomas storyline. I’m not even that curious about the Quor (who, of course, it is now revealed in the very book in which they’re introduced that they were native to Midkemia from before the Chaos Wars or some-such and the Valheru respected them (what??) and blah blah blah) since it’s actually kind of obvious what they’re meant to be (if the Dreadcritters are from a lower plane, where do you suppose the shiny Quor come from, duh) and… I’m tired of mythology rewrites.

I still count the Riftwar through the end of the Serpentwar as my favorite storyline ever. This is much the same way that I still love (most of) Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books up to All The Weyrs, and the same way I (against all logic or decency) love the Eddings’ Belgariad and Elenium. It’s just that after a certain point all of these writers seem to have lost their sense of perspective and common sense. Sad, really, but apparently also inevitable. So be it.