"Colonel Sun" was broadly welcomed by the critics, although a number noted that despite Amis's abilities as a writer, Fleming's own persona was missing from the novel. Roger Baker, writing in "The Times", noted that from one angle "Colonel Sun" is a "neat, not over-inventive thriller, low on sex, high on violence and more than usually improbable"; however, he noted that once the elements of the re-incarnation of Bond and the writing of Kingsley Amis were taken into account, things were different. Baker thought that with Amis writing the story, "one might, justifiably, have expected a joyous rejuvenation or at least a devastating detour from the Fleming pattern. We get neither. It is a pale copy." D. J. Enright, writing in "The Listener", considered that, in literary terms, Fleming's "inheritance has been well and aptly bestowed." He said that ""Colonel Sun" offers apt literary pabulum for Bond's fish-and-chip culture, for his neurotics, alcoholics and suicides. Good dirty fun, once read and soon forgotten".