3 replies to this topic

[OmarB]

So I read Goldeneye last night.  For some reason it's been sitting there unread for years because I was more interested in his novels rather than the novelizations.

 

The book hits all the events of the movie and very little else.  In fact, the whole thing reads just like the movie.  It's the type of thing any author could have done, they didn't need "the Bond author" for any other reason than he was at the time.  It also made no attempts to establish continuity with his timeline like he did with LTK.  The climax and the last few chapters leading to it read very rushed, as if he cut half the page count.  The deaths of the main villains are all written with no panache, no style.  There's a point where one of the bad guys dies and I had to go back because it pretty much one sentence.

 

I'm a huge Gardner booster and I do not judge him based upon novelizations.  Both LTK and GE were not up to his regular standards, but GE, it read like a summary of the movie more than a novel.  I was really hoping for details on Trevelyan, as well as his friendship with Bond.  Mabe even Bond reminicing about their old times.  They are set up to have been great friends, but details of their friendship and their time together was missing.

 

One change I noticed was Zenia's murder of the navy officer to get the stealth helicopter.  In the book he's an American Admiral, in the movie he's Canadian.

[Dustin]

There is really no big mystery about the Goldeneye novelization: written in 1995, towards the end of John Gardner's tenure and way past the point when writing the Bonds was easy fun for him, one supposes. Today one would be tempted to put the 'reboot' moniker on GOLDENEYE, so the film tie-in could have done with some additional background. Back in the day nobody thought about explaining the differences, let alone making them part of a reboot-hype. Add to that there probably wasn't more than a couple of months time to turn the script into novel-like form and the result isn't all that surprising any more.

[OmarB]

I totally get that.  GE is a novelization that could have benefited from Gardner's knowledge and role as official author.  There is not much to the Bond/Alec friendship, we are just taking it for granted that they are.  The opening episode had him pretty much dead.  We didnt get a scene with Bond remembering a past mission of theirs or their first meeting, a training course together (Gardner had training in all his books, he could have thrown it in easy).  Then he's back as Janus and Bond is mad, but you think his anger would lead to a flashback to the good times of their friendship.

 

Also, something else odd.  Ever notice many of JG's books don't have a physical description off Bond?  He takes for granted that we should know Bond, his history, etc.  Not good series writing.  I hate bringing up Jack Reacher, but in every book we know exactly who he is, his look, history, etc.  Every book can be someone's first Reacher book.  The later Gardner books seemed written for people who have been reading all along.

[glidrose]

I too seem to recall that Gardner padded the first half and skimped on the second half creating a curious lop-sided effect. Also seem to recall that Gardner said he didn't enjoy writing novelisations.