14 replies to this topic

[Athena007]

From CBn's Main Page...

Looking Back: Brokenclaw John Gardner's ninth James Bond 007 novel

[zencat]

Hurray! Brokenclaw. One of my favorites.

When we did the BCW in San Francisco -- which was all about AVTAK locations -- I found time to sneak out and give myself of tour of Chinatown Brokenclaw locations.

[Tarl_Cabot]

Hate to say but because I hate him wouldn't Steven Seagal have been perfect for Brokenclaw?

[k13oharts]

Hate to say but because I hate him wouldn't Steven Seagal have been perfect for Brokenclaw?

You're not alone in this.
Steven Seagal would be great as Brokenclaw.

Looking back at Brokenclaw, I'd say he's quite a unique villain.

[Qwerty]

I was surprised while putting this article together at the amount of fans who found it 'OK' or good. So far the most universally disliked Gardner book (as far as I can see) on CBn is Scorpius.

[zencat]

So far the most universally disliked Gardner book (as far as I can see) on CBn is Scorpius.

Huh. Interesting observation, Qwerty. Of course, we have The Man From Barbarossa coming up next. I expect it will give Scorpius a run for its money.

[Qwerty]

Quite - I was collected negative reviews one after another for the Scorpius article Zen. And you always thought you were the only Brokenclaw fan on here.

I must certainly agree with you per The Man From Barbarossa. It definitely my least fave.

[Gri007]

It's been a longtime since i read Brokenclaw. I can always remember picturing it as a good Bond movie.

[Qwerty]

I'd like to see what they could do with an adaptation.

[pgram]

Brokenclaw was a really bad book. It has been some time since I read it, but I remember that it did not delivered the feeling of Bond.

Brokenclaw is supposed to be half Chinese, half indian, isn't it so? Then, why cast Steven Seagall who is half ape half wardrobe?

I kept thinking Scottie Pippen would be perfect. He is african american, not chinese, but he has american indian blood, could be menacing, and is tall and strong, as the book suggests...

[OmarB]

Brokenclaw is a captivating villain. Bond get put through some serious stuff and gets the tar beat out of him a lot, and I love that. I don't know, but for me I kinda love seeing Bond go through some stuff. Like the launch in MR, that was brutal, could you imagine the heat?

[Jim]

I don't know what to say about this book. Like some of the other Gardner novels, it's just sort of "Meh". I found the plot confusing, and had to go back and look at earlier chapters to re-acquaint myself with who all of these new characters were supposed to be that were assisting 007 in San Francisco.

Brokenclaw, as a villain, is set up to be a potentially great adversary, but somehow, someway, the plotting just seems to fail him. I honestly could not tell you what his motives were for any of the things he was doing, and a villain without any motivation makes for a very forgettable character.

Brokenclaw does have, though, hands-down the best torture scene in any of the Bond novels: the stripping of Bond and the smearing of animal fat on his genitals in order to feed his manhood to the wolves. I don't recall Fleming ever coming up with anything that brutally, brilliantly cold. Also really enjoyed the last 40 pages, where Bond thinks outside the box and realizes where Brokenclaw has retreated to. The o-kee-pa (the mano-a-mano showdown between Bond and Brokenclaw Lee) is some of the best, most brilliantly conceived interactions Bond has had with a villain in either book or movie form, but the fact that it stands out so much from the rest of the book says a lot about how mundane the rest of the novel is.

I'd like to see EON try and adapt the wolf pack torture scene; much more graphic and interesting than Daniel Craig having his balls bruised in Casino Royale.

Agree with a lot of that - a couple of vivid standout moments as memorable as the Gardners got, but a sod of a lot of padding, hotel rooms and over-contrivance around them, which tend to smother the impact. Really not fond of this one; feels very laboured.

[OmarB]

I'm not gonna disagree with your opinion on Brokenclaw, I happened to like it though I have many of the same concerns you do.

As for your not likening Scorpious. I will tell you this. My first reading of the book was one go, straight through, it really hooked me. On subsequent readings though I did find that there were certain lulls in the story. Like the whole chapter before the attack on the hospital. I think with Gardner is he thought in "set-up" and "action" sequences. Things tended to be one or the other.

[Righty007]

Reading this one now.

[AMC Hornet]

I admit that I was initially disappointed with Brokenclaw, but that was only because I was coming down off the high that was Win, Lose or Die and expected Mr. Gardner's next novel to exceed that level of entertainment.

As I live in close proximity to Blackfoot country I didn't find the villain all that exotic, and the O-Kee-Pa ceremony was too reminiscent of a similar scene in A Man Called Horse.

However, after reading The Man From Barbarossa (how many briefings did Bond have in that one?) I went back and reread BC and enjoyed it much more. I appreciated that Europeans might find Lee Fu-Chu as exotic as I found Dr. No or Scaramanga to be, from my NA perspective.

I now consider Scorpius, WLoD and BC to be JG's best three in a row, rivalled only to the triple-threat that was Licence Renewed, Icebreaker & Nobody Lives Forever.

If EON had begun adapting JG's books in the 90s I could have seen Sonny Landham ('Billy' in Predator) as Brokenclaw Lee.

BTW, Bond went out for champagne and returned to find Chi-Chi kidnapped. After rescuing her and getting bandaged up, they return to Chi-Chi's flat for dinner, and she's pissed off because they have no wine.

WTF?

Edited by AMC Hornet, 18 July 2011 - 06:40 PM.