12 replies to this topic

[Qwerty]

There was recently a thread about this for the Ian Fleming novels, so I figured why not for the 16 Gardner novels.

Of the two halves...

• Licence Renewed
• For Special Services
• Icebreaker
• Role Of Honour
• Nobody Lives Forever
• No Deals, Mr. Bond
• Scorpius
• Licence To Kill

• Win, Lose Or Die
• Brokenclaw
• The Man From Barbarossa
• Death Is Forever
• Never Send Flowers
• SeaFire
• GoldenEye
• Cold Fall

...which do you prefer and why? Do certain books influence your decision one way or another?

[codenamel]

I am a great admirer of John Gardner and have been reading his books for 35 years. As to the first or second half of his Bond canon, I come down firmly on the side of the first half, for those first seven novels, discounting the LICENCE TO KILL novelization, were his Commander James Bond novels. The second half of the canon were his Captain James Boldman novels and they are distinctly different. In the first half of the canon, there are strong threads that establish continuety with the novels of Ian Fleming. The character of Bond in the early novels is the same man created by Fleming, brought forward in time about 15 years. His enemies are SPECTRE and the heirs of SMERSH with an occasional megalomaniac like Anton Murik and Vladimir Scorpius in the Hugo Drax and Doctor No tradition thrown in the mix. His rank is commander and his houeskeeper is May and he is a member of the British Secret Service, not that MicroGlobe One, or whatever it was called, nonsense. And there is no Freda Von Glusse to hang onto his gun arm. The later novels are not all bad, and in fact some of them are quite good, but they are not James Bond adventures. Captain Boldman has some things on common with Commander Bond, but he is a largely generic, rather forgettable secret agent who is clearly not Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. The reading public certainly recognized this change in the character, as book sales fell off dramatically in the second half of the canon. Gardner probably made things much more difficult for his successor, who was faced with the near impossible task of raising the literary Bond from the dead. To his credit, Mr. Benson almost succeeded.

[ComplimentsOfSharky]

I like that way of putting it codename. To me though, it seemed like it was always a series about James Boldman. I think he went way too far off the Fleming track into his own wild tangant - almost from book one.

As for the question, I have read books from both halves though not all from either. I suppose I will go with the first half - my two favorites of Gardner being Licence Renewed and Icebreaker. Still, not a huge fan of his though.

[Qwerty]

I choose the first set as well. It has some of my favorites such as Licence Renewed, For Special Services and Nobody Lives Forever. Set two on the other hand has my least favorite James Bond novel by any author - The Man From Barbarossa.

[Grubozaboyschikov]

I wouldn't divide them that way, because personally I prefer Gardner up to The Man From Barbarossa, with the exception of Scorpius and Brokenclaw. These two, along with the rest, seem weak to me.

[Qwerty]

I wouldn't divide them that way, because personally I prefer Gardner up to The Man From Barbarossa, with the exception of Scorpius and Brokenclaw. These two, along with the rest, seem weak to me.

Oh, certainly. I only divided this way to make it halfway on each side. The middle of Gardner's run was hits and misses for me.

[Snake]

Is GoldenEye and LIcense to Kill anything like the films? Plus I've only read Scorpius. It was good, but not as much action or thrills as it could.

[zencat]

I am a great admirer of John Gardner and have been reading his books for 35 years. As to the first or second half of his Bond canon, I come down firmly on the side of the first half, for those first seven novels, discounting the LICENCE TO KILL novelization, were his Commander James Bond novels. The second half of the canon were his Captain James Boldman novels and they are distinctly different. In the first half of the canon, there are strong threads that establish continuety with the novels of Ian Fleming. The character of Bond in the early novels is the same man created by Fleming, brought forward in time about 15 years. His enemies are SPECTRE and the heirs of SMERSH with an occasional megalomaniac like Anton Murik and Vladimir Scorpius in the Hugo Drax and Doctor No tradition thrown in the mix. His rank is commander and his houeskeeper is May and he is a member of the British Secret Service, not that MicroGlobe One, or whatever it was called, nonsense. And there is no Freda Von Glusse to hang onto his gun arm. The later novels are not all bad, and in fact some of them are quite good, but they are not James Bond adventures. Captain Boldman has some things on common with Commander Bond, but he is a largely generic, rather forgettable secret agent who is clearly not Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. The reading public certainly recognized this change in the character, as book sales fell off dramatically in the second half of the canon. Gardner probably made things much more difficult for his successor, who was faced with the near impossible task of raising the literary Bond from the dead. To his credit, Mr. Benson almost succeeded.

VERY interesting analysis of the Gardner canon, codenamel. I like the Commander Bond vs. Captain Boldman. Never really thought of it that way but, yes, that makes sense.

(If you'd ever like to expand on this for our main page, let me know. I really like this Bond vs. Boldman approach.)

Welcome to CBn.

[Kronsteen]

It's a rather tough decision, but in the end I choose his second half.

While the first half has some great books, the second half is more enjoyable.

First half contains Licence Renewed and For Special Services - two great novels, while Icebreaker, Nobody Lives Forever and Scorpius is merely good. Nothing that memorable. And not to forget, the horrible Licence To Kill. A really poorly written novelization.

The second half is instead much more fun. Great stories like Win, Lose or Die, Death Is Forever, The Man From Barbarossa and Never Send Flowers. Especially the last mentioned is my all time favourite Gardner novel. The second half isn't perfect of course, let me just remind you of GoldenEye and Brokenclaw. To weak and hihgly uninteresting novels...

[IndyB007]

...my least favorite James Bond novel by any author - The Man From Barbarossa.

I read in an interview on John Gardner's website that The Man From Barbarossa is his favorite of the 007 books he wrote... John Gardner's Bond Page (it's in the second to last paragraph)

[Genrewriter]

It's close for me but I prefer the first half to the second. With the exception of Scorpius the books are pretty terrific whereas with the second half only Death is Fortever and Brokenclaw really work for me.

[Qwerty]

...my least favorite James Bond novel by any author - The Man From Barbarossa.

I read in an interview on John Gardner's website that The Man From Barbarossa is his favorite of the 007 books he wrote... John Gardner's Bond Page (it's in the second to last paragraph)

Yeah, I've seen that before. I guess I fit in with alot of the others who just don't like it. There is an excellent article in the The Man From Barbarossa section on CBn of a different viewpoint on it if interested.

[Harmsway]

The first half, definitely. His best work is in there (namely Nobody Lives Forever, which is the second best continuation novel, following Colonel Sun). His work really does miss the characterization of James Bond though, who's rather bland in all his novels.