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The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Juvenile Novels
The Calcutta Affair
BLB based on the TV series.
249 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 3, 2019
What a great piece of nostalgia! Growing up when the Cold War was still going on, there were plenty of spy toys and shows over the years that were quite popular. The shows ran the gamut from Maxwell Smart to James Bond. There was even one about the west. The Wild, Wild, West that is. Of course one of my favorite was The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
U.N.C.L.E. was actually a crime fighting organization, and the enemy was T.H.R.U.S.H. Two characters were the regulars of the show. The American, Napoleon Solo, was teamed up with the Russian, Illya Kuryakin. What cool names, huh? And they had all kinds of neat spy stuff, of which the characters in this little book had their fair share. One has to remember that a lot of the stuff we take for granted now like a drone the size of a bumble bee or a Predator firing a Hellfire missile from 40,000 feet were the stuff of science fiction back then. Our heroes had simple little gadgets that gave them the edge in espionage.
As I slowly read this little book I could imagine the magic conveyed as my younger self turned the pages. There was not a lot of text per page, but that didn't matter, as the page opposite was always illustrated in color, like an odd shaped comic book, minus all the ads.
Yes, it was an easy read, and it had a moral to the story. The Good Guys were good and the Bad Guys were bad. Simple enough to make me want to join the team when I grew up.
U.N.C.L.E. was actually a crime fighting organization, and the enemy was T.H.R.U.S.H. Two characters were the regulars of the show. The American, Napoleon Solo, was teamed up with the Russian, Illya Kuryakin. What cool names, huh? And they had all kinds of neat spy stuff, of which the characters in this little book had their fair share. One has to remember that a lot of the stuff we take for granted now like a drone the size of a bumble bee or a Predator firing a Hellfire missile from 40,000 feet were the stuff of science fiction back then. Our heroes had simple little gadgets that gave them the edge in espionage.
As I slowly read this little book I could imagine the magic conveyed as my younger self turned the pages. There was not a lot of text per page, but that didn't matter, as the page opposite was always illustrated in color, like an odd shaped comic book, minus all the ads.
Yes, it was an easy read, and it had a moral to the story. The Good Guys were good and the Bad Guys were bad. Simple enough to make me want to join the team when I grew up.
November 19, 2011
Pretty darn entertaining. Spy mayhem, bubonic plague, sacred cows: what's not to love?
Plus, it's funny haha: "Let's establish shortwave contact at three o'clock. If your tie clasp doesn't tingle at that precise moment, you'll know that I'm in trouble...and if mine doesn't tingle, I'll know that you're in trouble."
Tingling tie clasps, people. This was awesome.
Plus, it's funny haha: "Let's establish shortwave contact at three o'clock. If your tie clasp doesn't tingle at that precise moment, you'll know that I'm in trouble...and if mine doesn't tingle, I'll know that you're in trouble."
Tingling tie clasps, people. This was awesome.
May 29, 2017
I'm sure I first read this one fifty years ago or so, but I had no memory of it all. It's a fun little hardback in the Big Little series, with a page of text alternating with a nice colored illustration. It's definitely a kids' book, with simplified iterations of Ilya and Napoleon and their somewhat silly doings... I don't believe the book even explains the T.H.R.U.S.H. or U.N.C.L.E acronyms. It's a nice comic-strip style story, and a very nice artifact of a bygone era- as many of us are.
March 9, 2016
The Calcutta Affair (1967), George S. Elrick's entry in the assignments of the Man From U.N.C.L.E., finds Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin in the teeming city of Calcutta hunting the evil T.H.R.U.S.H. agents behind the death by bubonic plague of Gordon Thorpe-Smith and the disappearance of Paddy O'Donnell, both fellow agents. O'Donnell had been sent to investigate strange plague death and vanished without a trace within hours of his arrival in India. Before it's all over, Solo and Kuryakin will encounter mice carrying bubonic plague; T.H.R.U.S.H. agents with the usual guns, knives, hypos, & radio-transmitting teeth plus a nuclear sub filled with enough plague to wipe out half the world; and Solo will have a brush with the disease that took out O'Donnell. But, hey, these are the men from U.N.C.L.E.--so it's no spoiler to tell you that they turn the tables on the bad guys and fly off into the sunset to fight evil another day.
This was a fun little book. Well, a Big Little book. I had several of these when I was growing up, but they were all cartoon characters--Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, Mickey Mouse, etc. This was the first one I'd seen based on a T.V. show and when I found it at a local flea market a couple years ago I knew I had to bring it home. It was nice to revisit my childhood through both the Big Little book medium and the familiar figures of Solo and Kuryakin. I first met the two U.N.C.L.E. agents through books based on the series and later watched episodes in syndication (I'm just a bit young for the original showing of the T.V. show). Very enjoyable in all mediums.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
This was a fun little book. Well, a Big Little book. I had several of these when I was growing up, but they were all cartoon characters--Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, Mickey Mouse, etc. This was the first one I'd seen based on a T.V. show and when I found it at a local flea market a couple years ago I knew I had to bring it home. It was nice to revisit my childhood through both the Big Little book medium and the familiar figures of Solo and Kuryakin. I first met the two U.N.C.L.E. agents through books based on the series and later watched episodes in syndication (I'm just a bit young for the original showing of the T.V. show). Very enjoyable in all mediums.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
June 6, 2015
While of course not as adult-oriented as a regular Man from UNCLE episode, this story would've made a great Gold Key comic back in the day. It could've used a bit more of the series' signature humor, though.
June 10, 2022
Found this in an antique store; it’s only like three inches tall and I thought that was really fun, plus I like The Man From UNCLE anyway.
Pretty fun, and exactly what you’d expect from this: Solo and Kuryakin are on a mission from UNCLE to take down their enemy THRUSH. Lots of ‘60s spy cheese, all the fun gadgets and run-ins with adversaries. Also racism, which I’m sure we all expected from a book from 1967 that takes place in Calcutta.
Pretty fun, and exactly what you’d expect from this: Solo and Kuryakin are on a mission from UNCLE to take down their enemy THRUSH. Lots of ‘60s spy cheese, all the fun gadgets and run-ins with adversaries. Also racism, which I’m sure we all expected from a book from 1967 that takes place in Calcutta.
May 21, 2019
Very enjoyable. A few dated uses of language regarding certain people groups. Two words: Gentle Persuasion.
September 28, 2016
It is difficult to imagine that Elrick watched the UNCLE TV series before writing this book, for he gets nearly all the details wrong and his lame and limping plot is very unUNCLE-like. That would not matter if this was a great story with wonderful writing, but there isn't much story and what is there is rendered in pedestrian prose. Big Little Books were intrinsically cool in the thirties and forties, still fairly cool in the earliest fifties, but in the sixties the mere fact that this is labeled a BLB does not rate an extra star.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews