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The Gardner Novels
Which Gardner novels would you recommend? Which ones would you advise to "avoid at all costs?"
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Comments
I tend to enjoy his later entries the most. Win, Lose or Die, Death is Forever and Brokenclaw are great Bond adventures.. But his best is still Licence Renewed so start with that!
The same applies to the Benson & Higson series.
Do not listen to others but find your own footing which makes discussing them your opinion instead the general opinion as voiced by others.
I quite liked Licence Renewed and Role of Honour. For Special Services wasn't bad.
Honestly, though, Fleming wrote Bond and no-one else is really gonna match him.
As has been said John Gardner is no Ian Fleming and he lacks the prose, detail and sense of place you get with the original novels, even so it's interesting to note just how many of his ideas made into the later Bond films in one form or another.
I think this is a pretty fair surmise of the Gardner era.
Win, Lose or Die and Death is Forever of the later ones are worth a perusal but thats about it after No Deals Mr Bond.
Gardner's style is very different to Fleming's (future Bond author Raymond Benson once described Gardner's work as 'fast food' compared to Fleming's 'fine cuisine') and he intentionally sets out to write the books in his own voice rather than following the Kinglsley Amis approach of mimicking Fleming's style. The only Gardner book that could be remotely considered Fleming-esque would be his first book 'Licence Renewed', it has scenes and situations reminiscent of OHMSS and at least in this one he tries hard to keep the character of James Bond close to Fleming's original rather than the poetry quoting, limerick singing aberration of the later books.
The late great John Gardner was a fabulous writer who enjoyed considerable success during the '60s & '70s particularly with his amazing Boysie Oakes series and his heavyweight Herbie Kruger books. In literary circles, he was considered to be in the elite club populated by the likes of Deighton, Forsyth and John Le Care.
He was seduced by IFP to take up the Bond mantle and to reboot the 007 and bring him into the '80s.
Despite the fact that Gardner himself was not a huge Bond fan, in my opinion,he did a pretty good job with his first five ("Licence Renewed'' thru' to "Role OF Honour" ).
They were certainly the equal of what I would describe as Fleming's middling efforts - the likes of "Thunderball", "Diamonds Are Forever" and "The Man With The Golden Gun". Albeit, he never scaled the heights achieved by Fleming with his best as personified by "From Russia With Love'" and "OHMSS".
After his first five , I think Gardner tired of the project and started to feel trapped by his obligations but frankly, if Raymond Benson did describe Gardner's work as "fast food", I think it the literary equivalent of McDonalds criticising a cordon bleu chef.
That said, as DB5 pointed out, the best continuation novel by a country mile is Kingsley Amis' "Colonel Sun". That one really is up there with Flemings finest and I would urge all Bond afficianados to spare no expense getting hold of a copy - you'll love it and it would make a great Daniel Craig movie!
Regards,
Bentley
Youre not wrong there. I am tempted to class Bensons efforts as Pot Noodle compared to Gardner. Mind what room for manoeuvre does that leave me when describing Faulkes horrendous scribblings? Dog food perhaps?
Youre not wrong there. I am tempted to class Bensons efforts as Pot Noodle compared to Gardner. Mind what room for manoeuvre does that leave me when describing Faulkes horrendous scribblings? Dog food perhaps?
[/quote]
Fellow Agent,
How right you are, DMC (with the exception of the first 60 pages) was utter dross!
But then, to cap it all IFP went out and got Deaver to give us the horrendous CB!
Why oh why, can't they simply get Higson, Daniel Silva or the fabulous Barry Eisler and have done with it?
All three of the aforementioned know how to write this stuff and in the case of Higson, he has shown in spades that he completely understands Bond's DNA and can put great flesh on the bones.
Instead we have Boyd working away on next years' effort - I hope he can save our hero from the literary abyss!
Regards,
Bentley
Fellow Agent,
How right you are, DMC (with the exception of the first 60 pages) was utter dross!
But then, to cap it all IFP went out and got Deaver to give us the horrendous CB!
Why oh why, can't they simply get Higson, Daniel Silva or the fabulous Barry Eisler and have done with it?
All three of the aforementioned know how to write this stuff and in the case of Higson, he has shown in spades that he completely understands Bond's DNA and can put great flesh on the bones.
Instead we have Boyd working away on next years' effort - I hope he can save our hero from the literary abyss!
Regards,
Bentley
[/quote]
Yes, I also read Faulke's DMC and Deaver's CB. I didn't even think I should mention those two "works" in a discussion of James Bond novels. After Saunders' recommendation I went to the library intending to get Gardner's "Licence Renewed." Unfortunately they didn't have that book, although they had several other Gardner titles. So after looking at the book jackets of several I walked down a few rows and checked out Benson's "Zero Minus Ten." So far I think it's pretty good.
I'm reading License Renewed and off the bat it's great. It has the 'Fleming Sweep'.
Icebreaker is poor.
Just how many Bond books have you read to make that statement? Devil May Care and Icebreaker?
By best, I mean best that I've read. And I happen to like Icebreaker. But to answer your question, I have read all the Fleming books, Colonel Sun, Licence Renewed, For Special Services, Icebreaker, Role Of Honour, No Deals Mr Bond, Death Is Forever, Seafire, High Time To Kill, Never Dream Of Dying, The Man With The Red Tattoo, Devil May Care & Carte Blanche. So that's more than 2, DMC and Icebreaker included.
My current ranking can also be found here:
http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/145/which-bond-novel-are-you-reading-currently/p16#Item_467
Saying Icebreaker is the best Bond book would be laughable but just about excusable if we were just discussing the best Gardner.
If you're throwing all of Flemings work into the mix and still standing by that statement then you lay yourself wide open for people to label you a moron.
Even Dragonopol would probably agree and he thinks Never Send Flowers is the greatest work of prose in the English language.
We used to have a member here, well, on the old forums actually, who thought that Die Another Day was one of the best Bond films, if not his #1. The member I am talking about was Chandler Bong (MI6 veterans might remember him). Now I didn't agree with his opinions, whether he truly felt that about DAD, or he was just on one elaborate wind up, I don't know, but I wouldn't have called him names, we're adults and I respected his opinion.
It's the same with the books. Even with Icebreaker, Fleming will probably have the top 5, maybe 6 places on my list. But I won't know until I've finished my ranking.
I respect people's right to have an opinion but if that opinion is 'DAD is the best Bond film' I'm not going to respect that.
Strange how if you say you're a racist or a Nazi all of a sudden you are not entitled to your opinion and are vilified by the whole of society. Well if you ask me DAD being the best film and Icebreaker the best book fall into the same ballpark of being unarguably wrong.
Ah, but I didn't say that Icebreaker was the best book, I said it was one of the best (my personal opinion), there is a significant difference. But I can see that we're not going to agree, so with nothing more to add, i'm going to leave this here.
Sorry old chap I was just awake and misread what you said. I feel a complete fool for castigatibg you so but never let it be said the Wizard doesn't apologise when he's wrong.
Although saying Icebreaker is the best Gardner is still utter bollocks!
Actually, I've seen Icebreaker pretty high up on other people's lists; a respected reviewer on AJB rates it 9/10...
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/34464/bond-continuation-novel-reviews/page/2/
Respected by whom precisely? I'm guessing he doesnt work for the TLS?
How many Fleming novels would even get a 9/10? Not DAF, GF or TMWTGG for sure and they are all better than Icebreaker. This guy is saying that FRWL is only 10% better than Icebreaker (and that's assuming he gives FRWL a 10. With critical faculties like that he probably awards it a 3)?
Mental.
Don't get me wrong Icebreaker is not the worst Bond book ever written. There is some good stuff - I like all the Helsinki stuff and the cold setting (the torture is very good to be fair) but most of it is just Bond sat around in a hotel with a dull team of predictably doublecrossing agents and the whole 4th Reich thing is pretty cliched. Overall its very average.
If you give this 9/10 what room for manoeuvre do leave yourself when reviewing Fleming? You're practically bound to give them all 10/10!
'Respected reviewer'? Dear oh dear - and I have reread your post about 6 times just to make sure I'm reading it right. Don't want to make the same mistake twice.