14 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

How old were you when you first read John Gardner's Icebreaker--the current book in the ?

I was lucky once again to be able to continue reading the Gardner Bond novels in order, as I had read Licence Renewed and For Special Services before this one. I'm guessing it was in the summer after Die Another Day was released.

One of Gardner's best.

[Qwerty]

Bump.

[Kalel577]

I think I was 19 when I first read it back in '88.

[Yellow Pinky]

I read all of the previous Gardner's in order of publication starting in '90 and then read them each as they came out in paperback thereafter. That would make me about 28 when I read Icebreaker then.

Unfortunately I grew more dissatisfied with each successive book I read, especially the last four or five of them.

Edited by Yellow Pinky, 20 February 2007 - 07:16 PM.

[Roebuck]

Sixteen.
My first 'proper' girlfriend loaned me her copy.

[spynovelfan]

I was given it by my older cousin for my birthday - think I must have been 11? I couldn't figure out all the stuff about Ian Fleming's James Bond in John Gardner's whatever, and didn't get past the first chapter. But I was quite fascinated by it, somehow.

[ACE]

September 1984. Similar to how I discovered Licence Renewed and For Special Services, a shop near my school had rows of them as you entered. It was the skeletal death head paperback cover of the 1984 Coronet edition.

I had actually thought the next Bond novel was Role Of Honour, having seen something about the Bentley in the newspaper. I went to Foyles and saw the hardcover of ROH and was perturbed to see in the inner pages that three Bond novels had been listed. Three? How had I missed that? Anyway, took it home, devoured it and, as usual, in the jouissance of a new Bond novel, thought it was the best one.

Wouldn't that snow-plough sequence make a great action scene in a movie?

I always loved those blurbs where they listed the set pieces you could expect from the book as well as the girls and the villains and the gadgets. Ah, innocent times.

Great title, I thought. I believe it was Gardner's favourite one to write at the time and, structurally, it was a move from the slightly more formal first two.

[Qwerty]

Wouldn't that snow-plough sequence make a great action scene in a movie?

Definitely. Even though I am glad they've taken a little break from the snow in the Bond films, I imagine this particular scene could be turned into quite the action sequence if done correctly.

If they ever decide to use more material from the Gardner novels is another question though.

[Qwerty]

Bumping this up.

[DLibrasnow]

It was my first Gardner Bond novel in 1983 so I would have been 12.

[zencat]

1983.

What a summer! I'm 18, OCTOPUSSY is in theaters and my Bond interest is kicking into an

[Jim]

I drop out.

Seems to me that, in doing that, you dropped in. Splendid story.

Me? I was ten. Didn't understand a damned word of it but it was all terribly exotic.

[ACE]

Great stuff Zen.
Dammit I wanna know what happens next....(yeah, I already read the next post!). Interesting how one's memories of Bond are woven inexplicably into our hearts and our brains.

[zencat]

Did we do these threads for LR and FSS? This is fun.

[Qwerty]

Did we do these threads for LR and FSS? This is fun.

Yep -

Licence Renewed - Here

...and I see that you found the For Special Services one. I've been creating a new one with each new book in the club.