"Eon" by Greg Bear (1985)

"The glob dropped and fleshed out like a vampire in an old horror movie to form a masculine body, clothed in loose white shirt and forest-green pants.  The figure seemed to solidify."

Greg Bear is highly regarded among certain aficionados of "hard sci-fi."  He's written dozens of books, and his bibliography stretches back to the late 70s.  This novel, Eon, is the first of four books in his "The Way" series.

In the early 2000s, a massive object called The Stone appears near the Earth.  Several teams of scientists investigate this object, and after many years they uncover both the startling secret of The Stone's origin and its connections to worlds (and realities) far beyond their wildest imaginings.

In tone the earliest chapters of Eon reminded me a lot of Larry Niven's Ringworld, in that a cast of decidedly "diverse" individuals study an object that defies our present understanding of physics, only to discover that a shadowy race of "engineers" is lurking behind the scenes.  You could also compare Eon to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 series, which also features a mysterious object(s) lying at the edge of our exploratory capacity, followed by revelations concerning its creators and their "message from the stars."

Yet I think Ringworld is the more apt comparison, given that Eon shares the same flaws.  Despite the "hard science" on display, both novels fail to adequately think through the implications of the ideas presented, and instead attempt to overwhelm our critical instincts with concepts that were cutting-edge at the time.  Both books also feature paper-thin characterizations, and tend to wander more than they ought to.  The chief difference being that Ringworld is much shorter, and as a result much more readable.

I wanted very much to like Eon - I'd heard great things about it - but I found it less brilliant that its reputation would suggest.  I felt like there were glimmers of better novels in its pages, but the whole was much less than the individual parts.

P.S. It may be that I'm being overly hard on this one.  After reading Greg Egan's Permutation City, Eon might be a victim of my newer, higher expectations.  Whatever the case, Eon definitely ISN'T in the same league as Egan's book.

Bond: The Conclusion!

So what have I learned from my 007 movie marathon?  Well, for one thing, I learned that watching all of the Bond movies in order takes a really long time, and, for another thing, I learned that a lot of the Bond movies were better than I remembered.  Sure, a couple of them were worse than I remembered, but many of them were better.

The Bond films (as of late 2015) are, in order:

Dr. No (Sean Connery, 1962)

From Russia With Love (Sean Connery, 1963)

Goldfinger (Sean Connery, 1964)

Thunderball (Sean Connery, 1965)

You Only Live Twice (Sean Connery, 1967)

Casino Royale (David Niven, 1967)*

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (George Lazenby, 1969)

Diamonds are Forever (Sean Connery, 1971)

Live and Let Die (Roger Moore, 1973)

The Man with the Golden Gun (Roger Moore, 1974)

The Spy Who Loved Me (Roger Moore, 1977)

Moonraker (Roger Moore, 1979)

For Your Eyes Only (Roger Moore, 1981)

Never Say Never Again (Sean Connery, 1983)*

Octopussy (Roger Moore, 1983)

A View to a Kill (Roger Moore, 1985)

The Living Daylights (Timothy Dalton, 1987)

License to Kill (Timothy Dalton, 1989)

Goldeneye (Pierce Brosnan, 1995)

Tomorrow Never Dies (Pierce Brosnan, 1997)

The World is Not Enough (Pierce Brosnan, 1999)

Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan, 2002)

Casino Royale (Daniel Craig, 2006)

Quantum of Solace (Daniel Craig, 2008)

Skyfall (Daniel Craig, 2012)

Spectre (Daniel Craig, 2015)

*These two film were not made by Eon Productions, the production company usually associated with the Bond films.  Thus they are regarded as outside the normal continuity.

I offer here a few lists of five.  Make of them what you will. 

I. My Top Five Bond Movies

1. Skyfall (2012)
2. Casino Royale (2006)
3. Goldfinger (1964)
4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
5. GoldenEye (1995)

II. The Best Bond Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes 

1. Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger (96%)
2. Casino Royale (95%)
3. Skyfall (93%)
4. Thunderball (86%)
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (82%)

III. My Five Least Favorite Bond Movies

1. Casino Royale (1967)
2. A View to a Kill (1985)
3. Octopussy (1983)
4. License to Kill (1989)
5. Spectre (2015)

IV. The Worst Bond Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes

1. Casino Royale (1967) (29%)
2. A View to a Kill (35%)
3. Octopussy (42%)
4. The Man with the Golden Gun (45%)
5. The World is Not Enough (51%)

V. My Top Ten Bond Villains

1. Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
2. Ernst Blofeld (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
3. Raoul Silva (Skyfall)
4. Le Chiffre (Casino Royale)
5. Hugo Drax (Moonraker)

VI. My Top Five Hottest Bond Girls

1. Sophie Marceau (The World is Not Enough)
2. Eva Green (Casino Royale)
3. Jane Seymour (Live and Let Die)
4. Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me)
5. Talisa Soto (License to Kill)

VII. My Top Five Bond Theme Songs

1. Goldfinger
2. Live and Let Die
3. Goldfinger
4. Skyfall
5. GoldenEye

VIII. My Ideas for Future Bond Movies

1. Make a movie in which Bond does NOT go to the U.K., the U.S., or the Bahamas.  Maybe put him somewhere unusual, like Turkmenistan, and keep him there for the entire duration of the movie.

2. Make a movie in which the Bond girl is the villain, and not just the villain's henchman or victim.  A woman who uses his sex addiction against him would be a nice touch.

3. Make a period film, or a film that takes place in several time periods, perhaps involving a secondary character who knows or is known to Bond.  Litter this film with trivia concerning previous films.

4. Hire Idris Elba as the next 007 whenever Daniel Craig decides he's had enough.

5. Make a more controversial Bond film.  Something that gets people riled up.  Having Russians, North Koreans, random terrorists, and rich people as the villains is a bit too convenient.  What about a Bond film set in Tibet?  Or Xinjiang?  Or Iraq?

6. CIA agent Felix Leiter appears in many of the Bond films.  What about a movie in which they were working against each other?  With their respective countries on opposite sides of an international dispute?

7. Make a movie in which Bollywood icon Sharukh Khan is the villain.  Of course given India's (long) history of film censorship, setting such a film in India would be a problem, but there might be ways to work around that.

8. For that matter, Laurence Fishburne would also be a great Bond villain.  Or maybe he could play the version of Felix Leiter discussed in #6 above.

Other Bond Entries:

Bond: The 1960s
Bond: The 1970s
Bond: The 1980s
Bond: The 1990s
Bond: 2002 to the Present