›

Graphically Violent Scenes in the John Gardner Bond Continuation Novels?

DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
edited May 2013 in Literary 007 Posts: 18,281
What are your notable graphically violent scenes from the 16 John Gardner novels, including the novelisations in the total. There are many to choose from as Gardner was a prolific Bond writer - he wrote the most novels of any of the continuation authors and even wrote more novels than Ian Fleming himself, so this is an important topic, I think.

Did John Gardner follow on from the violence of Ian Fleming, or were his novels filled with more graphic violence such as that seen in Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (Kingsley Amis) or equally, did Gardner presage the more graphic in every sense culture of the later Raymond Benson Bond novels.

So, I'm open to hearing your choices.

I will give my choices at a later date. I want to see what MI6 agents come up with first, though.

Comments

  • saunderssaunders Living in a world of avarice and deceit
    edited May 2013 Posts: 987
    Though I'd balk at describing such a violent scene as 'favourite', the most notable graphically violent sequence that springs to mind in the Gardner books is the unpleasant death of the almost equally unpleasant Inspector Heinrich Osten, also known as Der Haken (The Hook), from Nobody Lives Forever. He's a corrupt Austrian police inspector who as a former ardent National Socialist had favoured a butcher's hook as a torture implement. He's found dead by Bond with his feet and hands bound and hanging from a rope with a butcher's hook that had been inserted into his throat, the hooks spike long enough to have penetrated the roof of his mouth and exit straight through his left eye, as Bond notes 'Someone had taken great trouble to see this man had suffered slowly and unmercifully'.
    Bond wonders when he had last witnessed a sight as revolting as this, and I would argue that this may be the singular most graphically violent scene in any of the Bond books, certainly exceeding anything written by Benson who as I've stated elsewhere, has never left me with any particularly memorable violent scenes.
    I believe Gardner did on occasion push the violent boundaries set by Fleming and later exceeded by Amis, though like any decent thriller writer he used them sparingly to maximise the effect rather than excessively just to follow the current trends of the times.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    saunders wrote:
    Though I'd balk at describing such a violent scene as 'favourite', the most notable graphically violent sequence that springs to mind in the Gardner books is the unpleasant death of the almost equally unpleasant Inspector Heinrich Osten, also known as Der Haken (The Hook), from Nobody Lives Forever. He's a corrupt Austrian police inspector who as a former ardent National Socialist had favoured a butcher's hook as a torture implement. He's found dead by Bond with his feet and hands bound and hanging from a rope with a butcher's hook that had been inserted into his throat, the hooks spike long enough to have penetrated the roof of his mouth and exit straight through his left eye, as Bond notes 'Someone had taken great trouble to see this man had suffered slowly and unmercifully'.
    Bond wonders when he had last witnessed a sight as revolting as this, and I would argue that this may be the singular most graphically violent scene in any of the Bond books, certainly exceeding anything written by Benson who as I've stated elsewhere, has never left me with any particularly memorable violent scenes.
    I believe Gardner did on occasion push the violent boundaries set by Fleming and later exceeded by Amis, though like any decent thriller writer he used them sparingly to maximise the effect rather than excessively just to follow the current trends of the times.

    Sorry, I've reworded the question to remove 'favourite'. Yes, that's a good one there. Thank you for that. Gardner could write some very powerful stuff, I find, in terms of violence. Maybe his books were even the most violent of them all?
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Havent read them for years but the scene that really stands out is the torture scene at the end of Brokenclaw. Bond is really badly mutilated in this.

    Also doesnt he shoot or smash to a pulp a dead guys face in The Man From Barbarossa so he can steal his identity?

    I also like when Nannie gets her arms chopped off by the guilotine in Nobody Lives Forever and the end of No Deals Mr Bond where someone gets an old fashioned mace in the face.

    I think you have something here - Gardner really did deliver when it came to graphic violence.

    I really must get hold of them and give them all a re-read (even perhaps NSF Draggers! Though not Seafire which rivals Devil May Care as the worst Bond book of all time) as its been at least 10 years since I've dabbled in any of them - some great memories to be had I'm sure.

    Gardner without doubt head and shoulders above the other continuation authors (well -along with Amis).
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    TheWizardOfIce wrote:
    Havent read them for years but the scene that really stands out is the torture scene at the end of Brokenclaw. Bond is really badly mutilated in this.

    Also doesnt he shoot or smash to a pulp a dead guys face in The Man From Barbarossa so he can steal his identity?

    I also like when Nannie gets her arms chopped off by the guilotine in Nobody Lives Forever and the end of No Deals Mr Bond where someone gets an old fashioned mace in the face.

    I think you have something here - Gardner really did deliver when it came to graphic violence.

    I really must get hold of them and give them all a re-read (even perhaps NSF Draggers! Though not Seafire which rivals Devil May Care as the worst Bond book of all time) as its been at least 10 years since I've dabbled in any of them - some great memories to be had I'm sure.

    Gardner without doubt head and shoulders above the other continuation authors (well -along with Amis).

    Thank you @TheWizardOfIce. I agree with much of what you say there, though I thought that SeaFire was rather good, even if the plot was rather disjointed and not a little convoluted. But then my views on Gardner are my own and no-one else's, so all views (within reason, of course) are valued here on MI6 Community. That's why I love it here. This truly is the best Bond forum around and I'm very proud as such to be a member of that!

    I think we are indeed onto something here - perhaps Gardner even went beyond the increases in graphic violence in Amis' Colonel Sun? Could be.

    I'd love to here more recommendations if at all possible - all replies are most welcome indeed!
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    Posts: 893
    In NDMB, Heather gets her arm and back broken and then shot in the head.

    No way to treat a lady in my book. Gardner must have had girl trouble during that period!
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited June 2013 Posts: 18,281
    007InVT wrote:
    In NDMB, Heather gets her arm and back broken and then shot in the head.

    No way to treat a lady in my book. Gardner must have had girl trouble during that period!

    Heather Dare is also mentioned in John Gardner's Herbie Kruger novel The Nostradamus Traitor (1979)

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    Any more suggestions for the most graphically violent scenes in the John Gardner James Bond continuation novels.
  • 007InVT007InVT Classified
    Posts: 893
    I've got NLF, Icebreaker and Role of Honor on deck, so I'll let you know if anything jumps out at me over the next few weeks.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    007InVT wrote:
    I've got NLF, Icebreaker and Role of Honor on deck, so I'll let you know if anything jumps out at me over the next few weeks.

    Thanks. that'd be great, friend!
  • AgentCalibosAgentCalibos Banned
    Posts: 46
    Hopefully future Bond movies will have that kind of realistic violence again.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    AgentCalibos wrote:
    Hopefully future Bond movies will have that kind of realistic violence again.

    Well, I think that the Craig era has already delivered on this, has it not?
Sign In or Register to comment.