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Never Send Flowers, something I noticed


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#1 OmarB

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 03:33 PM

So it's been at least 2 years since my last spin of the Gardner novels but the other day I came across a pretty good cache of the old paperbacks at a used book store for a steal. I started with NSF because the other recent topic about the villain's name kept it fresh in my mind. Now it's been a couple years and on this re-read I'm noticing a few small things. Things that did not occur to me when reading the entire Gardner run all in one go like the last time.

The first thing that comes to mind is that there is not a single physical description of Bond in the novel. Go check, it's not there. So we all know that any book, even those apart of the series should at least try to be welcoming to the new reader. The lack of physical description also goes along with a lot of other things skipped over. Aside from the ever present explanation of who Q'ute is (I think Gardner was so into his clever little Q'ute joke he had to include it not only in ever novel, but on every page in ever novel she's even mentioned.

If I were coming in fresh and this was my first Bond novel. I wouldn't know what he looks like, no clear idea what his specific purpose is within the organization, his specific skills, etc I would have been lost.

Now I know the difficulties of writing an ongoing series and there are certain things you can't go over in every novel (though there is time to mention the various women who have gotten close to him and died). I can think up several series where you can just pick one up and get a pretty good handle on the who, what, where of the story. I

It was a good read, a few of the Gardner misdirects didn't quite have the impact they should have had.

#2 Dustin

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 04:38 PM

I have to confess, in general I'm not too fond of physical descriptions of Bond. Often they come across as contrived, forced elements, neither necessary nor helping the book along. Fleming kept them usually within a reasonable limit, or chose to change perspective, so that he showed a woman's reaction to Bond's looks and didn't just have to throw them in. In the end by now everybody already does have an idea about Bond's darkly handsome looks. Another mention of the scar on the cheek and the black comma of hair would be just that, another mention. Justified only if the title is THE BLACK COMMA, at least as far as I'm concerned. The first thing that put me off about CB was that description of Bond's looks, entirely out of the blue and unnecessary IMO.

#3 OmarB

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 07:28 PM

I agree that the description should serve the story. But one should also write for the guy just picking up a Bond novel for the first time, Things could have been clearer along the way with just a few sentences.