You Only Live Twice (novel) the previous novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". James Bond is drinking and gambling heavily and making mistakes on his assignments when, as a last resort, he is sent to Japan on a semi-diplomatic mission. Whilst there he is challenged by the Head of the Japanese Secret Service to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Bond realises that Shatterhand is Ernst Stavro Blofeld and sets out on a revenge mission to kill him and his wife, Irma Bunt. The novel deals on a personal level with the change in Bond from a depressed man in mourning, to a man of action bent
You Only Live Twice (film) it had pace and spectacle. Christopher Null considered the film one of James Bond's most memorable adventures, but the plot "protracting and quite confusing". Ali Barclay of "BBC Films" panned Dahl's script displaying "a whole new world of villainy and technology." Leo Goldsmith lauded the volcano base as "the most impressive of Ken Adam's sets for the franchise." Danny Peary wrote that "You Only Live Twice" "should have been about twenty minutes shorter" and described it as "not a bad Bond film, but it doesn't compare to its predecessors — the formula had become a little stale." IGN ranked "You