Casino Royale
by Ian Fleming · first published 1953
18% recommend73% neutral9% critical
Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome, chillingly ruthless and licensed to kill. This, the first of Ian Fleming's tales of secret agent 007, finds Bond on a mission to neutralize a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called simply "le Chiffre" -- by ruining him at the Baccarat table and forcing his Soviet spymasters to "retire" him. It seems that lady luck is taken with 007 -- le Chiffre has hit a losing streak. But some people just refuse to play by the rules, and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster and an unexpected savior...
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…Fleming wrote 2000 words per day and was able to produce a v1 of a novel in 6 weeks. This appeared on HN a couple of weeks ago: https://lithub.com/ian-fleming-explains-how-to-write-a-thril... I read Casino Royale (the first Bond installment) for the first time last week; it's quite good and fast-paced. The chapters follow the 2000 words rule quite closely, and it's working.
on “Show HN: Write 500 Words a Day” ↗Until Fleming started writing the books with the films in mind, Bond was already a very different Bond. The books are uneven, IMHO, but "Casino Royale", the first of Fleming's novels — written well before the "Dr. No" film — is enjoyable and will give you a very different Bond from what you are used to. Insecure, self-doubting, no "gadgets".... "Diamonds…
on “Where is James Bond? Trapped in an ugly stalemate with Amazon” ↗A ‘Vesper’ is a cocktail drink that was introduced in Ian Fleming’s novel ‘Casino Royale’. John Gruber is a fan of the James Bond stories and of high alcoholic beverages. I don’t see how the name has anything to do with note-taking, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesper_(cocktail)
on “Vesper app” ↗Which is presumably where Ian Fleming got the name for Vesper Lynd, the love interest in Casino Royale, for whom the drink (a martini with gin & vodka [usually an either/or thing with a martini] and lillet insted of vermouth) is named.
on “Vesper app” ↗Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. This was after I finished Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. As far as non-fiction goes I'm reading Backgammon by Paul Magriel and Beginning iPhone Development.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading right now?” ↗Casino Royale - It's kind of jarring how different the book and film versions of Bond are. Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! - partially read it before online but couldn't get into it, bought the book and hope to…
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗…Bradbury 27% A Game of Thrones George R.R. Martin 27% The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 26% Dune Frank Herbert 26% Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 25% To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 25% Casino Royale Ian Fleming 24% Neuromancer William Gibson 22% Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 20% Brave New World Aldous Huxley 19% Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 18% Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip…
on “ChatGPT Secret Training Data: The Top Books AI Bots Are Reading” ↗Yea, I had the good fortune of reading it in a class in school where we went through a number of spy thriller books as a genre exercise. Reading it alongside something like the original Casino Royale by Ian Fleming is a really interesting pairing. In some ways, it's similar to other splits in genre - Neuromancer vs. Snow Crash, Agatha Christie vs. Conan Doyle. Neither is objectively better, but they…
on “John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is the ultimate spy novel” ↗A few months ago I listened to Casino Royale (narrator Dan Stevens, pretty good) and was kind of bummed at just how poorly it read. It's an OK story with very middling language, badly in need of an editor especially around the end. I was surprised…
on “Becoming James Bond” ↗…Authoritarian Moment by Ben Shapiro - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen - Darkest Hour by Anthony McCarten - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown - Casino Royale by Ian Fleming - Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming - Moonraker by Ian Fleming - Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming - From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming - Dr No by Ian Fleming - Goldfinger by Ian…
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗Just finished Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
on “Ask HN: What Are You Reading?” ↗