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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780142002032
ISBN number: 0142002038
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: August 27, 2002
Publishing house: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Sale Popularity Level: 29395
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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James Bond travels to the Caribbean to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a secret service team. As he uncovers the astonishing truth about strange energy waves that are interfering with U.S. missile launches, he must battle deadly assassins, sexy femmes fatales, and even a poisonous tarantula. The search takes him to an exotic tropical island, where he meets a beautiful nature girl and discovers the hideout of Doctor No, a six-foot-six madman with a mania for torture, a lust to kill, and a fantastic secret to hide.
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Rated by buyers 
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Doctor No starts off weakly but finishes strong. Picking up a few weeks after the conclusion of From Russia with Love, Doctor No finds Bond just returning from a long stay in hospital after being poisoned. M is determined to keep Bond out of strenuous duty, so he sends him on a presumably easy mission to investigate the disappearance of British Intelligence's Jamaican operator. And by the way, M seems to add as an afterthought, some people have been dying mysteriously on nearby Crab Key.
Bond resents the easy assignment but has a hunch that the deaths on Doctor No's private island may have something to do with the missing intelligence man and his secretary. He pokes around Jamaica, is sharp enough to detect a poisoned fruitbasket and narrowly avoids being bitten by a giant centipede. He meets up with Quarrel, the Cayman Islander boatman from Live and Let Die, and sneaks onto Crab Key one night. On Crab Key he meets Honeychile "Honey" Rider, who collects rare shells--in the nude, of course--on the island in hopes of earning enough money to correct a broken nose.
Of course, things on Crab Key are not what they seem--or perhaps they are, since there's never much question whether Dr. No is the villain or not. Bond and Honey are captured, tortured, and, in the end, manage to foil Dr. No's plot--and spend some "slave-time" together.
I was disappointed with Doctor No at first. It follows on the heels of From Russia with Love, one of the best Bond novels and one that ends in a major cliffhanger: at the end, Bond collapses to the floor after being poisoned. The end. Doctor No quickly tidies up the loose ends from the last novel and sends Bond on his way to Jamaica. There Bond pokes around, searching for information the reader already knows. But perhaps the biggest disappointment was Honey Rider, who may be the quintessential movie Bond girl, but here is a bit of a cipher.
But while the very first third or so of the novel is mediocre, the story dramatically improves once Bond has reached Crab Key and the party beings its trek inland. While there had been only moments of suspense before--the centipede in Bond's bed was a good scene, but only one among a lot of mediocre ones--the suspense steadily builds as Bond and Honey are captured, led before the Doctor himself, and then separated for equally miserable fates.
Bond's dilemma at the climax of the novel reminded me quite a lot of "The Most Dangerous Game," a short story you must Google if you haven't read it. Bond is placed in an obstacle course of Dr. No's design, where he is subjected to claustrophobic spaces, 50-foot drops, cold, heat, spiders, and finally, the sea and its monsters. This section was among the best writing of the Bond series--by this point, I couldn't put the book down.
Doctor No would have been a forgettable entry in the Bond series had it not been for the final half. If you read this novel, be prepared for sometimes boring sections in the very first half, but keep reading--the finale is worth it.
Recommended.
Rated by buyers 
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Published in 1958, "Doctor No" is a transitional novel for the James Bond series. Gone is much of the moral queasiness, realism, and psychological turmoil of earlier tales. In its place is a Walther PPK, vodka martinis shaken not stirred, and a supervillain living in a hidden fortress. Given all that, "Doctor No" should be fun at least, but it's not.
Set in Jamaica, site of earlier series entry "Live And Let Die" and the last Fleming novel, "The Man With The Golden Gun", "Doctor No" has Bond investigating the disappearance of two British secret agents. The trail leads to the title character, a six-foot-six bald man with metal pincers for hands, metal contact lenses, and an interest in harvesting guano from an island just beyond Jamaica called Crab Key. No doubt Bond knows No's up to no good. Soon 007 is in the clutches of a madman, facing an imminent and horrible death just as soon as No explains what he's all about over a nice meal.
Maniac, you call him? No couldn't agree more: "All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal."
What's driving Fleming here is less clear. He seemed to resent having to bring Bond back from death at the end of his last book, really putting the character through the torture test this time. There's a casual cruelty to this book that makes it hard to digest as entertainment. I had a real Quarrel with the fate of one cool Bond ally. And the finale is about as silly as Fleming ever got, Bond fighting tarantulas and an octopus for some silly test of No's that the villain himself can't even bother to watch to completion while there's bird dung to harvest. The villain's fate suggests a sad laugh by a disillusioned author at his readers' gullibility.
Good points include some decent descriptive mileage regarding the mangrove swamps of Crab Key and the social life of Kingston; both the rich whites who live in the affected splendor of the Queen's Club "which for fifty years has boasted the power and frequency of its blackballs", and the blacks who play calypso and drink Red Stripe at scenic outdoor cafes. There's also Honeychile Rider, Bond's latest lady. The movie version famously gave us Ursula Andress in this role, but the character in the book exudes vulnerability more than hotitude, and her backstory is one of the best of any Bond woman.
The movie "Doctor No" was what launched the whole 007 movie phenomenon, still alive and very well at this writing. You can see how it was the right choice, too, as everything here is amped up for cinematic consumption. No lives inside a seaside cliff with a transparent face, so he can watch all the creatures swimming around. Instead of sending men with guns to shoot the birds he doesn't want on his island, he has them drive around in an automotive contraption disguised as a dragon, complete with flame-thrower inside its mouth.
Alas, these ideas would be more welcome if Fleming knew what to do with them. Unfortunately, his much-talked-about "Fleming Sweep" sputters once the story kicks into a higher gear.
"Doctor No" is a series low point that ironically became a franchise high point thanks to the movie. If you are reading the books in order like I am, you have no choice but to read it, but if you are like me, you will find it a surprisingly tedious chore.
Rated by buyers -
I've been working my way through Ian Fleming this summer, and this book is as much fun as any of the Bond novels. Honey Rider is not the most believable of Bond girls, but the descriptions of Jamaica are marvelous.
Rated by buyers 
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Even though Dr. No was dreadfully intolerant by today's standards, had subsequent to no real plot, and neglected to include any substantial characterization, I couldn't put it down.
James Bond is confident, capable, cocky, rather sexist, and perhaps even racist in Dr. No, but the prose is written at such a fast pace, Fleming concocted such a ludicrous villain in Dr. No, and Bond prevailed in such "manly" manners, it's hard not to get engrossed in it all.
Dr. No is a brisk, leisurely read that entertains and quickens the pulse. I didn't find Fleming's writing style terribly adept, but the man knew how to hook a reader, and in the end, some would say that's all that matters.
~Scott William Foley, author of The Imagination's Provocation: Volume II: A Collection of Short Stories
Rated by buyers -
If you can get past the parts of the story about the pink spoonbills, or whatever those birds are called, you will see that Doctor No is one of the best novels in the Fleming series. The story starts off slow, but really picks up when Bond arrives on Crab Key. This is just full of adventure, great dialogue and Bond goes through one of his worst beatings in the last chapters of the novel. If you enjoyed the movie, then you will definitely like this 100 times more since it expands and tells more than the movie does, even going into why his name is Doctor No (which isn't his birth name). This is just a really good book that you won't be able to put down once the real action gets started, just be warned that there is a slow beginning.
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