8 replies to this topic

[Grubozaboyschikov]

I just read NSF, and a crazy thought occurred to me. Why the hell did Gardner go to all these pains describing the felonies of Laura March

[zencat]

I really think at this point in his Bond writing career Gardner just made it up as he went along. The entire brother things goes nowhere. It's weird.

But I do like NSF. Seems to be Gardner's attempt to do a Bond gothic horror story. Of course he kind of slips away from this idea as the book goes along (heck, we end up at Disneyland). Still, I like it.

[Tim007]

BTW I'd really like to know where the hell this castle on the Rhine shall be located. I know the region and hey, there's nothing And the description of the motorway drive from Bonn to Remagen (I think) - my god, James Bond seems to be too stupid to read a road map The way he takes is just not comprehensible if you know the region

[James Boldman]

I really enjoyed this Gardner novel although I did think that the castle bit and Laura March's brothers history was strange and perhaps not for a Bond novel.

[Jim]

Originally posted by zencat
I really think at this point in his Bond writing career Gardner just made it up as he went along. The entire brother things goes nowhere. It's weird.

Either Gardner is playing with our perceptions of what a novel should be (i.e. vaguely coherent) or, indeed, as with a couple of others, he had absolutely no blimmin' idea how to finish this. Book doesn't look as if it's had a thorough editing (or any, actually).

Bit of a mess, and when Bond starts extolling the virtues of EuroDisney - yikes. Just as Win, Lose or Die was "John's been watching Top Gun" and Brokenclaw was "John's been watching Dances with Wolves", this is "John's been watching The Silence of the Lambs" - alternatively, because it drops off considerably "John's been dropping acid".

Thank the Lord John never appeared to watch Pink Flamingoes.

[marktmurphy]

Or indeed: 'John's been watching the Eiger Sanction' otherwise we might have ended up with an interminable mountain-climbing-to-get-a-macguffin story.

Oh, that's right. Ray must not have wanted to lend John his video.

[Jim]

Raymond and John fought it out over that copy of Cliffhanger. Raymond won.

But were we winners too? Moot point, I guess.

[Genrewriter]

I like the way Gardner tried to have Bond on a different type of case but the book is quite uneven. As a California native, I did get a great deal of amusement from Bond at Euro-Disney.

[Jriv71]

I thought it sucked. Well, maybe I'm just easily distracted by bad dialogue. Really, really brutal dialogue. The story was fine (I guess), but I can't get past his dialogue anymore. (I'm currently re-reading them chronologically, for the first time in years.)

I wanted to punch myself in the face when Bond starts with that 'child-in-all-of-us' **** about Disney. When the f*%# was he ever at Disney? I guess this is really Gardner showing his age, and he really should've stopped writing Bond by this point. Again, the story was OK, but there was too much that I just couldn't stomach. Bond is too sappy (now, every girl seems to be the one) and I don't feel like I'm reading a James Bond story until M enters a scene. Really.

That's it. Nothing to add.

(I gotta open a Fleming book this weekend.)