With over 200 stunning photographs, exclusive new interviews with the Bond filmmakers and detailed maps, Darker than the Sun will transport you to the very places where the action unfolds. The early James Bond films starring Sean Connery and Roger Moore were made during the dawn of the jet set age and gave audiences a visual experience that television could not possibly compete with and they themselves could not get to. Today, exotic has become undiscovered, forbidden, and inaccessible. In the recent movies, starring Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, some of the locations have been less glossy but dangerously intriguing such as North Korea, Azerbaijan and Haiti...

Darker Than the Sun: An Atlas of James Bond Locations is an unofficial and unauthorized hardback book which is designed for new and old Bond movie fans alike.

Over the course of 240 pages, the authors take us on a tour of some of the more famous film locations, showing us how resourceful the productions were, as a lot of English locations were dressed to appear as exotic foreign sets.

While every one of the 25 official James Bond movies has been a globe hopping adventure, more often than not, the filmmakers filmed here in the UK which doubled some of the most surprising worldwide locales. Beginning in the 1960s, the Scottish Highlands doubled for the Balkans in From Russia With Love (1963) while RAF Northolt, with the help of a few palm trees was transformed into a convincing South American banana republic for Octopussy (1983). Some of the most surprising locations include Hollywell Beach in Cornwall which became the North Korean coastline in Die Another Day (2002), and Black Park in Buckinghamshire, which was transformed into a Ugandan jungle in Casino Royale (2006). Immerse yourself in the allure of these settings, with images capturing both the real-life locations and behind-the-scenes shots from the film sets. Each movie is accompanied by a global locator map charting Bond’s mission and a detailed feature map that brings key 007 destinations to life. Written by two Bond experts who have a wealth of movie knowledge, this is not just a book: it’s a cinematic journey, an atlas of adventure and a treasure trove of Bondian lore.

I worked in London's Docklands in the late '90s and our offices overlooked the filming location of one of The World is Not Enough's set pieces. The high speed boat chase was filmed near a wine bar I used to frequent and the scene where the boat flips was filmed outside a building which I worked in as features editor. So it was interesting to read the information on that movie. Sadly, though, it wasn't quite as detailed as I'd hoped.

If I had one complaint, it's that with so many movies to service, the details on some are not quite as indepth as some would like. For those interested in tracking down any of the locations for themselves, I'd use this book as a jumping off point before doing a little more research online.

It's an interesting and well researched release, but may be a little to broad for some.

7

Darren Rea