62 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='555016' date='12 May 2006 - 15:35']
I have just completed Gardener

[dinovelvet]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='555016' date='12 May 2006 - 12:35']
I have just completed Gardener

[marmaduke]

I will post my review of Brokenclaw as soon as i've read it Dinovelvet.

[Flash1087]

Did anyone else here not like WLOD? I didn't care for it in the slightest. My least favorite Gardner by far.

[marmaduke]

I have just finished reading

[Qwerty]

Did anyone else here not like WLOD? I didn't care for it in the slightest. My least favorite Gardner by far.

Here are several reviews of WLOD collcted on the main page.

[belvedere]

Marmaduke, great thread, and I will post my thoughts (as I recall them - I have read the whole series twice and my favorite three times).

Licence Renewed - seems dated. The main thrust was to bring Bond into the 1980s. Mission accomplished. Dull villains, mildly interesting plot. Enough here to make want to read on.

For Special Services - great novel, one of his best... but I didn't love the inclusion of Blofeld - it felt forced. Same with Cedar Leiter - I wasn't buying the relationship. Great action, better villain.

Icebreaker - for me, the pinnacle of Gardner. I would have loved this as a thread for a movie (although Neo-Nazis now would seem dated). I re-read it in 2003 after visiting Helsinki and still think it is a great book. A true espionage thriller.

Role of Honour - I always enjoyed this. I liked the sequel aspect of it. I hated seeing the ideas in this ripped onto the screen a year later.

Nobody Lives Forever - a favorite of most CBn readers. Not of mine. I never liked this book. Gardner tried too hard and the locales were bland. (I am American and I can't stand boring generic American locations - 007 is a British spy, for God's sakes - what the hell is he doing in such mundane American places? Key West, Hilton Head, Coeur d'Alene, blah blah blah - how about Prague? Budapest? Rome? Buenos Aires? etc, but I digress)

No Deals, Mr. Bond - better, but awful title. Even Gardner hated it. The chase scene in the island in Hong Kong was some of his best writing.

Scorpius - best villain in the series. I have to re-read this after reading the comments about the suicide bombers. Bittersweet ending - was this Gardner's Tracy?

Win, Lose, or Die - my favorite Gardner Bond title and I love this book. It strayed from the formula a bit, but it works. Seemed like a screenplay more than a book.

Brokenclaw - this to me seemed like a book that would have been great if the protagonist was someone other than 007. He seemed like a fish out of water, somewhat. No matter, decent book.

The Man From Barbarossa - I knew we were in trouble when the opening scene was in Hawthorne, NJ (I grew up 15 minutes from there). Terrible book. He tried something different. It failed.

Death Is Forever - much, much, better. In the top 5. Loved the Venice sequence, and I thought the villain was quirky but Fleming-esque in odd ways.

Never Send Flowers - I think James Bond would rather a villain escape and wreak havoc on the world than go to EuroDisney. Ugh. Awful.

SeaFire - interesting, better effort, but I wasn't buying the relationship with Flicka, who suddenly mutated into...

Cold - Freddie. Ice Cold is more like it. Gardner clearly wrote this with a gun to his head. Horrendous.

As for the movie adaptations, both LTK and GE are interesting, but Gardner added very little.

Those are my thoughts, thanks for reviving this as a topic...

[zencat]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='562509' date='4 June 2006 - 00:29']
I have just finished reading

[marmaduke]

Thanks for the compliment belvedere . I found your post interesting reading . It is nice to have a American perspective. Oh, and I am totally with you in your opinion of Never Send Flowers

[belvedere]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

You can tell where Gardner was living when he wrote - the American books were all clustered around when he lived in America; the European books the same. Interesting, huh?

[dinovelvet]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='562509' date='4 June 2006 - 00:29']
I have just finished reading

[marmaduke]

Hi Dinovelvet,i thought that the final chapter of Brokenclaw was very powerful stuff and well written.As for the character of Brokenclaw i would agree with you that he is the best villain created by Gardner by far , dare i say it , even worthy of Mr Fleming himself:D Now for The Man from Barbarossa
hmmmmmm.

Edited by marmaduke, 05 June 2006 - 05:44 PM.

[MarcAngeDraco]

Well said, marmaduke. I've said many times here I think Brokenclaw is very underrated. Because Gardner doesn't speak highly of it and it wasn't well reviewed at the time, it's one of those Bond adventures that has the reputation for being "one of the bad ones." But a fresh assessment of it proves it's actually one of the better ones (despites a few obvious flaws).

Wasn't one of my favs at the time, but maybe I should give it another shot sometime...

[dinovelvet]

Hi Dinovelvet,i thought that the final chapter of Brokenclaw was very powerful stuff and well written.As for the character of Brokenclaw i would agree with you that he is the best villain created by Gardner by far , dare i say it , even worthy of Mr Fleming himself:D Now for The Man from Barbarossa
hmmmmmm.

Yeah I think it helps that Brokenclaw himself is present throughout the book, I've noticed a lot of Gardner villains don't show up until after the halfway point, so they have less time to make any sort of impression. Good luck with Barbarossa though, that's a tough assignment

Zencat - You said that Gardner doesn't speak highly of Brokenclaw? Any exact quotes?

[zencat]

Zencat - You said that Gardner doesn't speak highly of Brokenclaw? Any exact quotes?

I'm going off what Benson said in his Gardner retrospective on 'OO7' #28; "Neither the author or Glidrose have much regard for it...". Hard to find an exact quote from Gardner about the book itself, but he talks a lot about health problems during the writing of the book and that seems to have colored it for him. For example: "...the writing fo the book came during the recovery process, so there was a lot of serious emotional and ill health-related baggage tied into this book."

[dinovelvet]

Zencat - You said that Gardner doesn't speak highly of Brokenclaw? Any exact quotes?

I'm going off what Benson said in his Gardner retrospective on 'OO7' #28; "Neither the author or Glidrose have much regard for it...". Hard to find an exact quote from Gardner about the book itself, but he talks a lot about health problems during the writing of the book and that seems to have colored it for him. For example: "...the writing fo the book came during the recovery process, so there was a lot of serious emotional and ill health-related baggage tied into this book."

That's interesting. I guess it might explain the particularly excruciating pain Bond goes through in the final chapter. But didn't Gardner say his favorite book was The Man from Barbarossa? Obviously he can't be trusted then Anyway I'm about to read Cold (Fall), I'll report back on the final dip of the rollercoaster in a few days.

[marmaduke]

I have just finished Gardener

[dinovelvet]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='568240' date='22 June 2006 - 00:58']
I have just finished Gardener

[marmaduke]

I have just completed reading Death is Forever.For me it was a case of
what might have been .I thought that the first four or so chapters showed great
promise.The Paris and Berlin locations are well described and a sense of local is well established (which is sadly a rare occur ace in the Gardner series) . I always enjoy a good train journey in a Bond novel and this one has an excellent one.The writing throughout has an 'edge' to it that is often missing in Gardner Bond novels.However what again IMO lets the whole thing down is a overall reliance on dialogue. 'What's wrong with dialogue?' i hear you ask. Well nothing, unless it focuses endlessly on the true motive of numerous characters which are thus discussed (pardon the pun) to death.It got to the point where i couldn't have cared less if 'so and so' was really who 'he' or 'she' claimed to be.My impression was that Gardner was trying to replicate John Le Carre and the truth is if i had wanted that genre i would have read .....well John Le Carre.
In final assessment however i must say that this section of the 'Gardner Roller Coaster' was much better than i had expected.It contained some good scene setting and some well written action sequences incorporating as i stated earlier that 'edge' to it all.That said , one can't fully repress a feeling of 'if only...' The 'Ride' is nearing it's end and Seafire now beckons.

Edited by marmaduke, 08 July 2006 - 08:37 PM.

[dinovelvet]

Hey marmaduke, looks like you enjoyed DIF a bit more than me; I'd rank it as the 3rd worst Gardner book (ahead of No Deals and Barbarossa). I thought this one was just a bit dull all the way through with no particular characters or events standing out, way too many double crosses and long briefings as usual. I agree the train sequence was pretty good but I'd pretty much forgotten about it by the time we got to the murky end. I thought Seafire was a lot better, you'll probably enjoy it too as there was a bit more action in it, and the use of location is quite good.
Anyway, I just read Gardner's Goldeneye novelization, which was pretty good as far as these things go. The most interesting things in it were how Gardner filled in the gaps of what the movie didn't tell us, e.g. how Alec Trevelyan got into the weapons facility ahead of Bond, why exactly there is a random dog sled team sitting outside the Severnaya facility waiting there for Natalya, and how Bond and Natalya escape from St.Petersburg after the train blows up, as well as other minor 'connecting' scenes here and there.
From reading his LTK and GE books, Gardner seems a lot more 'loose' in his adaptations of the films, I'm reading Benson's TWINE right now and he seems to stick more rigidly to the script/film (although he too throws in some interesting 'connecting' scenes).

[marmaduke]

Hi Dinovelvet.I guess that DIF has one great advantage if one reads Gardner in chronological order in that it follows the dire TMFB !Dinovelvet , did you ever get around to reading the Christopher Wood adaptions? If so i would be interested in reading your views on them(If you have already posted them please direct me in the right direction).

[dinovelvet]

Hi Dinovelvet.I guess that DIF has one great advantage if one reads Gardner in chronological order in that it follows the dire TMFB !Dinovelvet , did you ever get around to reading the Christopher Wood adaptions? If so i would be interested in reading your views on them(If you have already posted them please direct me in the right direction).

Yeah I read both of the Wood books, I posted some comments about Moonraker in the General Literature Discussion forum (its on page 2 somewhere). I liked them both and they're worth reading. TSWLM is a completely different experience from the film and feels more like a novel made into a movie rather than the other way round. Anyway now I'm onto Benson's movie novelizations...

[marmaduke]

Hi Dinovelvet.I checked out your post re Moonraker and found it interesting and i agree with your comments.I actually read both of the Wood adaptions prior to starting on Gardner. Like you, i enjoyed Wood's prose (a lot more than Gardner's to be honest.)

[marmaduke]

I have just completed reading

Edited by marmaduke, 20 July 2006 - 10:46 AM.

[Bon-san]

[quote name='marmaduke' post='575814' date='20 July 2006 - 06:44']
But the worst bit of Bond dialogue was during an exchange with Dodd:

[marmaduke]

Hi Bon-san,
yes i agree with you.I feel that even if this unlikely fact were true, Fleming's Bond would never have owned up to it for fear of making himself appear,errr .... well a snob.I have to admit that the more i read about Gardner's Bond, the more i develop a dislike for him.

Edited by marmaduke, 21 July 2006 - 07:50 AM.

[marmaduke]

I have just completed reading

[zencat]

[quote name='Bon-san' post='575952' date='20 July 2006 - 12:13']
[quote name='marmaduke' post='575814' date='20 July 2006 - 06:44']
But the worst bit of Bond dialogue was during an exchange with Dodd:

[marmaduke]

Having completed

Edited by marmaduke, 27 July 2006 - 08:30 AM.

[dinovelvet]

Having completed