The Spy Who Loved Me - by Christopher Wood

Hello dear listeners!

We at the James Bond Complex love movies.

We also love books.

Several movies and franchises have books about them, such as behind the scenes encapsulations of a film's production or theoretical books that explore a movie's thematic texture.

That said, one of the oft overlooked marriages between movies and books is the novelization.

At one time an extremely popular tie-in marketing strategy, the novelization has mostly gone the way of the dodo, notwithstanding a few exceptions here and there.

This week on the show, Matt and Edgar dive into what is surely one of the great curiosities of 007 books in the entire franchise's history: The Spy Who Loved Me novelization, penned by Christopher Wood.

Why should a novelization attract so much curiosity you ask?

Well, give this week's episode a spin to find out just how dissonant the book is from the film, especially from a tonal perspective.

The crazy thing is Christopher Wood worked on the film's screenplay too!

There is unquestionably much to talk about this week, most notably what it would be like to see Roger's Bond get electrocuted in the crown jewels, the glorious prose that describes a woman spreading sunscreen on her voluptuous assets, how many Nazi connections we can spot, the importance of celebrating an anniversary BEFORE dying a horrifying death, and most importantly, does the book make it any clearer if Bond intentionally uses the poor Egyptian as a shield?

So sit back, relax, light up your shisha and prepare some mint tea because Matt and Edgar have a real interesting one on their hands this week.

Hooray for R-rated novels about Roger Moore 007 adventures!