The Game of X

Ridiculous but enjoyable story of an American in Paris recruited for a one-time spy mission who finds himself invited back for a much more dangerous mission a few weeks later. In the meantime, the spy service has seen fit to give him a larger-than-life reputation as "Agent X". Not the knee-slapper the blurbs on and inside the cover would lead you to expect. Instead, there is an amusing sense of ironic detachment interspersed with righteous indignation and sudden urges for self-preservation. This appears to have been written with a bottle of some sort of spirits close at hand.....

I am a great fan of Robert Sheckley's work - but this sadly is not one of his best. A very forgettable spy spoof - I read it less than a month ago and, even flipping through the pages of the copy in front of me, have no memory of the story at all. That said it probably only took him a few days to write and paid his bills for a week or two. It served as the basis for the Disney movie Condorman.

A good deal short of Sheckley's best ideas, this is a kind of James Bond pastiche. I wasn't impressed.

Pretty good space spy thriller by Sheckley. Fun read.

Frankrig, Paris, ca 1965
En amerikaner, William P., bliver rekrutteret som agent.

???
James Bond pastiche skrevet med et glimt i øjet og måske en vis funktionspromille.