Gadget Planet

If you were born in the 1950’s this book is for you! All the great shows are here (U. N. C. L. E. , Wild, Wild West, Mission Impossible, etc) The book is nicely illustrated and features the author’s incredible collection of props from many different shows. Much of the author’s prose illustrates his considerable knowledge and love of the subject. I wonder if the former Soviet Union has books like this one? It is my theory that the Soviet Blok collapsed because it simply wasn’t very fun. This book is fun. Buy it, or you will be shot with a sleep dart (while you are sleeping, of course, so you will never know that you have been shot with a sleep dart)
Rating: 5 / 5

Danny Biederman is the actual author–the forward was by Robert W. Wallace. Biederman’s collection of fictional spy artifacts is interesting to both movie buffs and to those involved in real-world espionage. I hadn’t heard of most of the movies in “the Incredible World of Spy Fi,” so I’ll be looking them up on DVD. The spy gadgets and props are almost as important as the actor–the gimmicks are characters, too! Who can forget John Steed’s steel-lined bowler, Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone, the U. N. C. L. E. Special, James Bond’s PPK and tricked-out sports cars, or Jim Phelp’s self-destructing tape recorders? I enjoyed reading this book and it will be a valuable reference in my personal library.
Rating: 5 / 5

This book should be in the library, or, more likely, on the coffee table of every aficionado of espionage. Most of us of a certain generation were weaned, so to speak, on the exploits of the imaginative and edgy TV spy series of the 1960s, so there’s much here to bring one back to one’s formative years. Danny Biederman gives it all his intelligent, informed, and indulgent commentary. There is simply no book like this.
Rating: 5 / 5

Christmas present, birthday present, valentine’s present, no-special-occasion present: this book makes me HAPPY! I can’t imagine anyone not falling in love with it. It brought back floods of ecstatic memories — and of course, I had to read it while drinking a shaken/not/stirred martini! BRAVO! MORE BOOKS from Mr. Biederman’s archives — and WOW, can he write! Wry, witty, charming, impeccably researched — 10 STARS!
Rating: 5 / 5

Danny Biederman’s THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF SPY-FI is not only the perfect coffee table book for those of us who grew up wanting to be James Bond (and maybe still DO want to be James Bond), it’s also a brilliant and deeply enjoyable work of scholarship and pop-culture history. Biederman’s personal collection of props, costumes, and other arcana from the Bond films, TV shows like THE MAN FROM UNCLE, and even spoofs like AUSTIN POWERS, has been justifiably legendary for years; now he’s given us the gift of an intense look at just a fraction of that collection. One word of warning: Don’t just get lost in the incredible photos, because Biederman’s insightful, humorous, and intelligent prose (which accompanies the pics) is every bit as pleasurable as the visuals. My only complaint? I just wished this book was six times longer. Can we hope for a SPY-FI 2 sometime in the future, Mr. Biederman? Sure hope so.
Rating: 5 / 5