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November 25, 2008

Fancy pants design studio Pentagram have directed their considerable skills toward the hardback edition of Penguin Books' Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories. The results are spectacular:


"Hyland created a cloth-covered hardback with cover imagery restricted to a silver foil-blocked image of Bond's infamous Walther PPK (shown here with silencer). A subtle diamond pattern is debossed on to the boards, which combined with deep burgundy endpapers evokes the discerning elegance of Bond?s world. An embossed manila bellyband with typewritten cover information on the label evokes the official documents of the period."

Who doesn't appreciate a good debossing? Additional images at the Penta-blog.

It's a shame to see the title of such a package tied into the recent QS film. Here's the skinny on the movie:

The Good:
- Daniel Craig is still a solid Bond.
- It's direct sequel to the very excellent Casino Royale.

The Bad:
- No Q, no gadgets, no Moneypenny, no martinis, very little of the Bond theme.
- The villain was extremely unimposing and his nefarious master plan (for Bolivia) was kinda lame.
- Plot was ridiculously difficult to follow. What's the deal with the super-secret Quantum organization? Still no clue.

The Ugly:
- What the hell is up with the editing? The action sequences are impossible to track. It's all super quick cuts, blurred action, and poorly timed close-ups. It's as if editor Richard Pearson decided the best tool for his job was a woodchipper. Pearson's The Bourne Supremacy back in '04 suffered from the exact same problem. Frustrating.

It all boiled down into an below-average Bond outing. Which is unfortunate.

See Also:
QS Wikipedia page (lots of plot details)
Official Quantum site
Pentagram.com
Debossing defined


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