Welcome to this week’s installment of ‘in their own (code) words’, one of a series of posts, featuring excerpts from the writings of the world’s spymasters. I’m taking from Allen Dulles’ The Craft of Intelligence, written in 1963. Dulles (1893-1969) had a long and storied career in intelligence, including a role as the first civilian […]
This post originally appeared on the Mister 8 website, July 3rd, 2009 and coincided with the passing of actor Karl Malden Starting today, and continuing every Sunday, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on […]
Tagged Harry Palmer, Karl Malden, Ken Russell, Len Deighton, Michael Caine, Mister 8
Welcome to the first part of a six part series, ‘in their own (code) words’. This series first ran in November/December 2009, on the Mister 8 website. I’m looking at Allen Dulles’ rather stolid The Craft of Intelligence, written in 1963. Dulles (1893-1969) had a long and storied career in intelligence, including a role as […]
Happy 2013, everyone! Let’s check in again with agent-of-unnamed-government-organization Matt Helm, and his creator, author Donald Hamilton, in the second volume of the Helm series, The Wrecking Crew. First, I want to address an issue I had with the last novel, Death of a Citizen, and a comment that addressed that somewhat, because that comment […]
We’ve been talking extensively about robots so far, so let’s switch gears today and take a look at computers. I was originally going to cover a bevy of espionage films today to build my ideas around, but why bother? Why bother when a shining example has been provided by one of the greatest films, espionage, […]
Tagged Alphaville, Eddie Constantine, Jean Luc Godard, Lemmy Caution, Mister 8
Fiction, especially spy fiction, is rife with robots created by evil geniuses bent on world domination and/or destruction. Sometimes those robots are destroyed by superhero secret agents, but sometimes they miraculously develop a moral consciousness, turn on their creators, and choose to do good. Let’s take a look at a pair of those today! The […]
Tagged Brad Bird, Cybernauts, Get Smart, Mister 8, Ted Hughes, The Iron Giant
Peel and Steed encounter a Cybernaut Today, we’ll be looking at the trenchcoat- and trilby-wearing metal automatons known as the Cybernauts! The bots made their first appearance in the October 1965 episode of The Avengers that was later the first one to be broadcast in the United States (in March 1966). The episode has proved […]
Tagged Cybernauts, Emma Peel, John Steed, Mister 8, Peter Cushing, Television Series, The Avengers, The New Avengers