Review: Double Oh Fleming
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 18, 2014
Everyone knows Ian Fleming as the creator of larger-than-life superspy James Bond, but his own life story, especially his exploits during World War II, are somewhat larger than life as well. Most scholars agree that Fleming's own experiences helped mold the character and exploits of Bond. Author Damian Stevenson goes one step further and creates a fictional version of Fleming who could have been Bond himself had 007 served during World War II. However, although Stevenson shows some skill as an action author, his attempts to turn Fleming into the Bond prototype don't work quite as well."Operation Armada" is based on some little known but highly important actual events during World War II. As France fell to the Nazis, both the Germans and the British became quite interested in acquiring the ships of the French navy. In German hands, they might provide enough naval cover to allow Hitler to invade England. Of course, the Germans never got control of the French ships: some were sunk while others moved to safety overseas."Operation Armada" simplifies the actual events considerably and puts Ian Fleming right in the middle of them. As in real life, Stevenson's Fleming is an agent for British intelligence, code named 17F, whose cover is pretending to be a simple bureaucrat. However, while the real Fleming remained behind the scenes during some crucial intelligence operations in which he was involved, Stevenson's version is right in the middle of things, parachuting behind enemy lines to prevent the Germans from getting control of the fleet.Fleming's first assignment is to team up with French resistance agents in the early summer of 1940 to buy the support of Admiral Francois Darlan, commander of the French navy (in real life as well as "Operation Armada"). Later, he heads a second mission to stop Darlan from providing the Germans with a secret weapon, a super-battleship capable of destroying pretty much any craft afloat. In a nod to 007's Q Branch, Fleming has his share of futuristic (for the time) gadgets. Plus, the villains have some rather sophisticated weaponry of their own: the aforementioned battleship and some state-of-the-art military helicopters. However, take away the gadgetry and Fleming's missions are fairly standard fare for action novels."Operation Armada" is a decent, albeit short, action novel, with some annoying flaws. Stevenson handles the action sequences fairly well, although he has a disconcerting habit of spelling out sound effects throughout the book. On page after page, "Armada" contains lines like: "Pop! A bullet grazed by the wall... Pop! Pop! Two guards were blasting at them ...." I often felt as if I were watching the old "Batman" television series with its cartoonish "biffs" and "whams."  Stevenson also includes considerable, meticulously researched factual detail in the book, but he lacks the skill to seamlessly incorporate those details in the narrative. As a result, sentences often contain lengthy clunky phrases informing readers of irrelevant minutiae such as the types of gun each character is carrying.Stevenson does a good job of fleshing out the character of Fleming, incorporating the real Fleming family and background into the character's backstory and winding up with a hero who could conceivably become James Bond in a few years. Unfortunately, fans of Bond novels will be disappointed by the supporting characters. The Fleming novels had great love interests and villains. Here, the love interest is a female resistance agent who does not make nearly the impression that she should. Still, she fares better than the villains. Darlan, a highly complex character in real life, is turned into a second-rate Napoleon wannabe, while the various Germans seem as if they came directly from an "Indiana Jones" film.I admire Damian Stevenson for what he's tried to do here. "Operation Armada," despite its distractions and shortcomings, is a decent World War II action novel, but it fails to do what Stevenson obviously set out to do, lay the foundation for James Bond. There's bits and pieces of Bond here and there in the book, and Fleming himself is an interesting character, but the effort seems more like fan fiction than a polished product. Stevenson makes a valiant effort, but "Operation Armada" proves the point that there is only one James Bond, and there was only one Ian Fleming.