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Not Fleming NOT Bond


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#61 Jim

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 07:07 AM

I think, in fact, that we're far too kind to the continuation books that we've seen so far, mainly because we wanted Bond books and we got them.


Agreed; although after a couple I for one was not too sure whether I could honestly say I wanted any more, but they just kept coming and I bought them out of loyalty, and a lack of willpower. I'm weak like that.

The passages you cite were very entertaining and, indeed, beyond anything I care to remember from many of the continuations.

Adult author first (and regardless of "thriller" writing pedigree/canker), Bond author/"expert" very much second - seems like a good idea. I look forward to Devil May Care with an expectation of expectations fulfilled.

#62 Sigma7

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 09:52 AM

To me the books that fleming wrote are the ONLY bond books. Gardner changed bond ( lifestyle habits, car etc) and it seemed as if i was reading about another character, i just could not accept an 80's bond ( to be fair, ive only read the first 2 Gardner novels reason being as i have not seen others anywhere) I have not read any of Bensons novels, so i cant comment

I think Higsons YB series is pretty good and i enjoyed his idea of the "makings" of what Bond would finally become.

#63 Trident

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 11:25 AM

I'm sure we could all come up with people who would write a book that's Flemingesque but the fact is Gardner was chosen for the role, he didn't write like Fleming and he did a great job (IMO) keeping James going.


I think this really is the key to Gardner's work on Bond. He had to keep the literary series in business, nothing more, nothing less. His books were supposed to keep a brand name on the market, or rather reload it, that has seen no new entries for more than a decade. He wasn't supposed to pick up where Fleming left, as IFP put it with the announcement of DMC (and neither was Benson supposed to do so). So one thing many of us fans liked about Bond in the first place was disregarded from the beginning of LR till TMWTRT: the literary prose in which Fleming told some of the most outragous, unbelievable, flimsy and fantastic plots literature has seen. Fleming's strong sleve was not only to tell his stories in a detailed, cultured and spot-on language of a good (and at several times even great) writer, he also succeeded in making readers believe his plots. And that is likewise not a small feat. But his successors weren't ever supposed to follow in that wake.

#64 Santa

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 12:28 PM

I'm afraid I think that's rather a flimsy argument: They weren't very good but that's OK because they were never meant to be that good?
From what I've read in this thread the conclusion seems to be that while we're all grateful to Gardner et al for keeping the series going and while the continuation novels we have are all readable, there's no doubt that they could and therefore should have been a lot better. However, it looks like that's being remedied right now with the arrival of our hero, Seb Faulks. Yippee!

#65 plankattack

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 12:44 PM

The test of any fiction is "would you read it again?" and unfortunately for Gardner his Bonds as a whole never lived up to that test, IMHO. But I think we're forgetting something when it comes to the notion of continuation novels in the first place. Spynovel and others have given us examples of writers who could have done a good job, but "could" is the operative word. I'm not entirely sure that writing a continuation of any series is that attractive a proposition for any established writer. Who wants to get involved in someone else's series when one's got one's own ideas to get down on paper? They say that everyone's got one great novel in them - at the same time, I think that there is a limit for any writer before he becomes stale or repetitive.

If you're an established novelist, is continuation really where you want to be, other than the guarentee of the contract? Let's face it, would you want to follow JK Rowling? Yes, Faulks is a writer of great critical repute, but he's only involved because it's the centenary novel. I doubt that he's signed out to bang out five or fourteen.

I'm not defending Gardner's work (I've enjoyed them first time through because they're Bond) but I am defending his selection back then (I remember as a teenager, showing my age here, being excited at the prospect of new Bond stories). Gardner had name-recognition, thanks to Boysie Oakes, and more importantly, he wanted to do it. Gildrose went with Gardner I think, because he'd written in the genre, but from a different angle (Oakes is taking the piss!) rather than an already established thriller writer who already had an accepted "thriller" style. Just to pick a name, say, Desmond Bagley, well, perhaps there was a concern that the end result would be Bond in a Bagley novel, rather than Gardner's willingness to be maleable to his subject.

And continuation novels can be a no-win for a novelist - who's name is it above the title, the writer, or the character?

#66 Trident

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 01:32 PM

I'm afraid I think that's rather a flimsy argument: They weren't very good but that's OK because they were never meant to be that good?


Oh, absolutely not! They were the best that Gardner (or Benson for that matter) could come up with under the circumstances and limitations that went with writing continuations under Glidrose reign during '79 till '02. Somewhere it has been said that Fleming in his lifetime aimed for writing thrillers with the same approach 'serious' literature asks for. And succeeded for the better part of his series.

After having Amis with CS and a result that, back then, didn't live up to Glidrose' expectations, I'm rather sure that the literate claim of the Bond series was entirely dropped by Glidrose. Instead they were looking for authors able to produce a reasonable output of 'mere' thrillers with no literate ambitions at all. And, on top of that, had to meet several guidelines as to what was possible and what was to be avoided. I firmly believe the selection of Gardner (and later Benson) is evidence of that development.



If you're an established novelist, is continuation really where you want to be, other than the guarentee of the contract? Let's face it, would you want to follow JK Rowling? Yes, Faulks is a writer of great critical repute, but he's only involved because it's the centenary novel. I doubt that he's signed out to bang out five or fourteen.

I'm not defending Gardner's work (I've enjoyed them first time through because they're Bond) but I am defending his selection back then (I remember as a teenager, showing my age here, being excited at the prospect of new Bond stories). Gardner had name-recognition, thanks to Boysie Oakes, and more importantly, he wanted to do it. Gildrose went with Gardner I think, because he'd written in the genre, but from a different angle (Oakes is taking the piss!) rather than an already established thriller writer who already had an accepted "thriller" style. Just to pick a name, say, Desmond Bagley, well, perhaps there was a concern that the end result would be Bond in a Bagley novel, rather than Gardner's willingness to be maleable to his subject.

And continuation novels can be a no-win for a novelist - who's name is it above the title, the writer, or the character?


Good points! I think Gardner himself wasn't aware of some of the difficulties that came with accepting the Glidrose contract when he signed it. And, several books later, found himself stuck with a character that wasn't his own on the wrong (read: cheap) side of a genre he'd rather approach similar to LeCarr

Edited by Trident, 03 August 2007 - 01:33 PM.


#67 spynovelfan

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 02:11 PM

If you're an established novelist, is continuation really where you want to be, other than the guarentee of the contract? Let's face it, would you want to follow JK Rowling? Yes, Faulks is a writer of great critical repute, but he's only involved because it's the centenary novel. I doubt that he's signed out to bang out five or fourteen.

I'm not defending Gardner's work (I've enjoyed them first time through because they're Bond) but I am defending his selection back then (I remember as a teenager, showing my age here, being excited at the prospect of new Bond stories). Gardner had name-recognition, thanks to Boysie Oakes, and more importantly, he wanted to do it. Gildrose went with Gardner I think, because he'd written in the genre, but from a different angle (Oakes is taking the piss!) rather than an already established thriller writer who already had an accepted "thriller" style. Just to pick a name, say, Desmond Bagley, well, perhaps there was a concern that the end result would be Bond in a Bagley novel, rather than Gardner's willingness to be maleable to his subject.


Absolutely. But then I've spent the past few months saying that they wouldn't be able to get someone really big for all the reasons you've stated, and they got Faulks. Sure it's the centenary, but I think the more important thing is it's a one-off. Amis also did a one-off. They could have tried to pursue that route again. Perhaps they did, and failed. Hindsight's a wonderful thing, and perhaps there just wasn't a writer around of major stature wanting to take the gamble between '79 and now, and while Faulks looks like a master-stroke, we know that they also asked Lee Child but he turned them down, and Anthony Horowitz before Higson, so it's partly a matter of who's available.

But even if they hadn't been able to get a better-known author for all the reasons you state or others - Desmond Bagley didn't ever want to write a series character, for example - there were authors they could have grabbed instead of Gardner who would have jumped at the chance, I think - authors who were not at a level in their career that would have turned it down. Peter Townend, who I quoted, would have been far cheaper than Gardner! Surely someone of that stature could have been gettable, would have jumped at the chance. Gardner, and even writers like Bagley and Maclean, were not the only type of thriller writer around. There were loads of really good, suprisingly well-written spy thrillers written in the 60s and 70s that *got it* - they had the same sort of Cold War backgrounds and research Gardner had, but they were also well written, atmospheric, stylish, pacey. For whatever reason, they got lost in the mix (as Gardner would have done had he not been picked for Bond). I literally picked two off my shelf, opened them up, scanned passages and posted here. I could have done it with loads of writers. Specifically, I think Alan Williams, Gavin Black, James Leasor, William Garner, Geoffrey Rose, James Mitchell, Derek Marlowe, John Braine, Peter O'Donnell, George MacDonald Fraser, Geoffrey Jenkins and a few others could all have written Bond novels of a much higher calibre than the ones we've had. A few of these, like O'Donnell and Braine, would probably have not wanted to do it for the reasons gone into - but surely some would. Some of them were not well known then, and most are not known at all now.

I just can't believe Gardner was the best available option. I think he was an unimaginative option, and I think he was used a little - they wanted to capitalise from the continuing success of the films, and didn't really care that much how good the books were. Sorry to say that, because I have enormous respect for John Gardner. But I think even he regrets taking the job - he didn't even like Bond! But there were some other writers around who would gladly have had their every word compared to Fleming's for the job security, prestige and even limited amount of money the gig offered, and would have leapt in and given us sexy, sweaty, exciting spy thrillers. Fleming's books appealed to the adolescent in adult males, but I think Gardner's books are largely for adolescents full stop. Can you imagine his Bond as a '[censored]-crazy', chain-smoking bastard? But that's surely what we'd all have liked to have seen: Bond was in loads of other books of the time, but not called Bond and not read by many hard-core Bond fans. But the only way I'll convince you really is if you pick up a James Mayo or Gavin Black book and give them a read yourself. :cooltongue:

#68 plankattack

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Posted 03 August 2007 - 02:32 PM

I just can't believe Gardner was the best available option. I think he was an unimaginative option, and I think he was used a little - they just wanted to make some money, and didn't really care that much how good the books were. Sorry to say that, because I have enormous respect for John Gardner. But I think even he regrets taking the job - he didn't even like Bond! But there were some other writers around who would gladly have had their every word compared to Fleming's for the job security, prestige and even limited amount of money the gig offered, and would have leapt in and given us sexy, sweaty, exciting spy thrillers. Fleming's books appealed to the adolescent in adult males, but I think Gardner's books are largely for adolescents full stop. Can you imagine his Bond as a '[censored]-crazy', chain-smoking bastard? But that's surely what we'd all have liked to have seen: Bond was in loads of other books of the time, but not called Bond and not read by Bond fans. But the only way I'll convince you really is if you pick up a James Mayo or Gavin Black book and give them a read yourself. :cooltongue:



You're right - Gardner was not the most imaginative choice - but he was, from their perspective, a "safe" choice. They definitely wanted someone who was known, relatively speaking, as you say, and that did cull some names from your list. It had been over a decade since Colonel Sun and I think the publishers' primary concern was bringing Bond back rather than the quality of that return. Which is why in a way, like others, I'm more critical of Benson, because he had demonstrated, unlike Gardner, that he was a "Bond" person.

As you say other people could well have done a better job. But it would have been a difficult task for anyone. Expectations, the sense of comeback, the shadow cast by the film series, not an enviable task! Spy, your line about the adolescent in the adult can also be applied to the film series of the time - we'll never know but how many people picked up Gardner's Bonds because they missed Bond in print, or because they'd come to the character via the films? Of course, none of this makes much of Gardner any easier to read, and I don't mean to make excuses for his work; I do though, feel that his,(or whoever was chosen) had a task that was difficult, to say the least.

#69 the other fellow

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Posted 14 August 2007 - 01:41 PM

Great topic hi-jinx.

Not Fleming, NOT Bond. I think i have to agree.

But then again, i know people who will not watch a Bond film unless Sean Connery is in it. I love all the Bond films(just to varying degrees) but for some reason i don't have the same attitude towards the books.

Over a 30 year period I've probably read Fleming's Bond novels(in order) at least 5 times and always finish with Amis.
I never got hold of the Wood adaptions at the time they came out as i thought they would be too similar to the films and it wasn't until a few years later that i heard how good they were supposed to be, but by that time you couldn't find the bloody things! :angry:
However i only got into about 6 Gardner novels and it just felt like i wasn't reading about the same character anymore.
I can't really comment on the Benson novels as i haven't read them. I've got a couple of Benson's Bond's in the bookcase (which i really purchased on the strength of his brilliant Bedside Companion)but haven't really had a strong desire to read them.
As for YB, i don't think a whole series is really necessary. Perhaps a single book, like Pearson's Authorized Biography would have been sufficient.

So, all in all, i don't really care much for the continuations.
A movie every couple of years and a book once a year, like Robert Seller's Battle for Bond (nearly finished it, highly recommended :cooltongue: ) will do me fine.
James Bond is already in the public's consciousness. He doesn't need to be rammed down their throats.

However, it would have been far more interesting(imo) to have had a continuing series of books based on one of Fleming's secondary characters. Felix Leiter for e.g

#70 Blonde Bond

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Posted 22 August 2007 - 08:56 PM

Yes, I enjoy other authors's take on the character.
When I was reading my last few novels by Fleming, I was already looking forward to the continuing adventures of double-oh-seven , and I was really interested to see what the next author and new decade(well the 80's and Gardner, since I skipped Colonel Moon) would bring to the table.

I wasn't disappointed with the update. It had something new, but it also had those 'flemingian' moments.

Edited by Blonde Bond, 22 August 2007 - 08:58 PM.


#71 Santa

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Posted 22 August 2007 - 09:10 PM

I skipped Colonel Moon

Funny, I haven't been able to get hold of that one...:cooltongue:

#72 Blonde Bond

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Posted 22 August 2007 - 09:21 PM

Well, that was ONE and ONLY reason why I skipped that book.

So, I've been forgiven?

Edited by Blonde Bond, 22 August 2007 - 09:21 PM.


#73 doctorshatterhand

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Posted 14 September 2007 - 03:20 AM

I've read the Fleming books over and over: never get sick of them. And it's their distinct literary style that make them so readible. Alas virtually none of the continuation authors captured this too well: I've read some Gardner and one Benson - boring and by and large forgettable, despite some good ideas and great Flemingesque titles.
Amis's Colonel Sun is pretty much the exception - because it was set in the 60s, and because Amis took some trouble to if not emulate at least pay homage too Fleming's style. It is a little more graphic than Fleming though which is minus, and Colonel Sun is not a particulary memorable villain (no grotesquery!)
The other non-Fleming I can recommend is Christopher Wood's Spy Who Loved Me tie in: again like Amis it's written very much in the Fleming-style. It cuts out all the 'fun' stuff from the film (which is why I love the film - I like the films fun and light and just this side of tongue in cheek, but I like the books all noir and barely restrained melodrama!)and transforms the novelization into a Fleming pastiche novel which you could imagine was then turned into a film, which is barely like the bok it's based on as is the case with most of the films based directly on the Fleming books! Also, like Fleming, Wood gives meticulous background details on the upbringing and pychosis of his villains: Stomberg - firstname Sigmund: very Fleming! - and Jaws. Again like Amis the violence is bit more graphic than Fleming, at least I found it so. And there's lots of Fleming's 'nostalgia' bits with references to past characters and events (Here Bond is reminded of Rosa Klebb, as an example).
So can't wait for Devil May Care - Fleming-style, 60s setting, continuing on from Man With Golden Gun (which is a little sad as it knocks Colonel Sun out of the way). The icing on the cake will be if Faulkes can come up with a 'good' villain: virtually no one in literature, apart from probably Dickens, came up with so many grotesque and fascinating villains. The film villains very rarely match the impact of the literary villains (hello Wiseman Dr No with no bald head and praying mantis pincers!). So I'm looking forward to another great villain, one to join the rogues gallery that includes Goldfinger, Dr No, Blofeld, Mr Big and Drax.

#74 glidrose

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 12:43 AM

But even if they hadn't been able to get a better-known author for all the reasons you state or others - Desmond Bagley didn't ever want to write a series character


Not true! Security consultant Max Stafford featured in Flyaway and Windfall.

Bagley had some unkind words about Bond in his novel The Freedom Trap: "The cult of James Bond has given rise to a lot of nonsense. There are no double-o numbers and there is no 'licence to kill'."

#75 Dustin

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 04:08 AM

Good point about Stafford. But IIRC the two books are somewhat different in that the one is first person while the other's third, so they don't immediately suggest a series character; more of an - unexpected? - comeback for Stafford. And Bagley didn't repeat the exercise. So it's a series of two, at best. And Bagley for a time was fond of picking up characters from previous books (the traitor of RUNNING BLIND is a character in FREEDOM TRAP). Bagley apparently liked to work in a larger universe but the series as such wasn't what he aimed for.

What I assume he didn't like about it was probably the iconic quality that could at times interfere with a good story. Bond is a good example, often the first things people tend to notice are the parts instead of the sum.

#76 Miles Miservy

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 01:34 PM

I'm inclined to agree with hi-jinx about that. Each OO7 author has their defining moments. I did enjoy Gardner's books when they 1st came out, as I did Benson's. Neither author ever made the claim to write as Ian Fleming and their writing styles are completely different. Having read all of them (ok... MOST of them) I'm reluctant to re-read any other than Fleming's originals. Although my favorite Garder book was & will always be SCORPIUS, I'd always been disappointed that he put OO7 behind the wheel of a Saab. That seemed ridiculously out of charcter for him. Ray Renson was ok but I didn't think it was neccesary to pick apart M's personal life the way he did in (I want to say) NEVER DREAM OF DYING.

And I hope J.Deaver never puts OO7 pen to paper ever again. He just tried too hard.

#77 AMC Hornet

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Posted 24 April 2012 - 05:45 PM

Interesting how this thread vanished before the publication of DMC, and now surfaces after CB and in the wake of the William Boyd announcement.

All the lambasting of Messrs Faulks and Deaver took place elsewhere, obviously, but are all those who predicted that DMC would be a masterpiece now reserving their judgement until they've actually read WB's work?

Re: the existing continuation novels:

Upon reading the announcement of John Gardner being chosen to pen new novels, I sought out his Liquidator series (I'd seen the one and only movie some time earlier, so I knew what I was in for) and enjoyed them immensely. I felt that Glidrose had made the right choice - after reading Licence Renewed I felt my confidence had been vindicated.

I thought For Special Services had a little too much of everything, and I'm surprised how many people on these boards rate it highest. Still, to each their own.

Initially, I thought Icebreaker was too twisty-turny, but it has become one of my favorites. More reminiscent of Alistair Maclean than Fleming, but in a good way.

After that I came to realize that it would be unfair to expect Mr. Gardner to write like Fleming. We were in a different decade, where the emphasis in spy writing had shifted from eloquent prose to technical descriptions. I think Mr. Gardner deserves credit for remembering to include the taste of fine food and the feel of driving fast cars, while the likes of Clancy and Ludlum gave us nowt but sophisticated plots that took weeks to sift through. If Mr. Gardner included his own brand of double- and triple- and quadruple crosses, well why not? Times had changed - had Fleming lived and kept writing, he too might have found it necessary to (gasp) change with the times, or be left behind.

Nobody Lives For Ever, Scorpius, Brokenclaw and especially Win, Lose or Die worked for me on every level. True, they didn't read like Fleming, but I had already come to realize that I had no right to expect them to.

It was only from TMFB on that I sensed that Mr. Gardner was losing his enthusiasm for the job. It seemed like he was trying to write spy stories that involved James Bond, rather than writing James Bond thrillers. When Raymond Benson was chosen to replace him I thought, why not? Sure he'd never written a novel before, but then, before Casino Royale, neither had Fleming.

I thought Mr. Benson did a bang-up job with Zero Minus Ten. He set out to write the best 007 continuation he could, and I for one feel he succeeded. He too remembered to descibe the texture of food and drink, and the feel of torture and physical exertion while building up the requisite barely-believable plot and narrative. Like FSS, however, I found The Facts of Death contained too much of everything, while High Time to Kill - like IB - was a successful foray outside the usual formula. It was only after HHTK that I started to feel like I was reading high-quality fanfics - too much reliance on old characters and cliches (coughDoubleshotcough).

I adopted a 'wait and see' attitude with Devil May Care, which was just as well; if I'd anticipated it with as much optimism as others in this thread had, I would have been even more disappointed than I was. Putting 'writing as Ian Fleming' on the cover was enough right there to put me on my guard - I knew right away that neither Mr. Faulks nor anyone should be expected to live up to that promise.

Mr. Deaver was spared the hype of writing as Ian Fleming, and yet readers were still disappointed. Ian Fleming's day ended a long time ago - nobody writes that way anymore, which I think is too bad. I don't lament Mr. Deaver not tackling another Bond project, however, nor do I expect - or even want - his successor in the reboot timeline to have to necessarily pick up where he left off. I trust the next author will do better.

As for Mr. Boyd, he has the benefit of the criticism leveled at Faulks to learn from. I expect that he too will do a better job, but I won't hold my own expectations up as a yardstick while I actually read his work.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't compare each author's work to Fleming's originals, I compare them to John Gardner's, as I regard him (after Kingsley Amis) to be the best of the continuation authors.

Mine isn't a case of lowering expectations, but merely of acknowledging that times have changed and being open to what comes next. The inevitable comparisons and ranking will come after the reading.

Edited by AMC Hornet, 24 April 2012 - 05:55 PM.


#78 Miles Miservy

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 01:11 PM

I skipped Colonel Moon

Funny, I haven't been able to get hold of that one...Posted Image


COLONEL SUN, actually.
...and don't worry. It's utterly forgettable.

#79 AMC Hornet

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Posted 25 April 2012 - 05:23 PM

...and don't worry. It's utterly forgettable.


You wot?

#80 glidrose

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Posted 04 June 2012 - 11:09 PM

Don't go near GOLGOTHA, for instance. Very much like a Forbes book, but it drags and drags and you feel like you have a noose around your neck reading it.

Strangely, many best-selling thrillers feel like this, and many thriller readers feel it.


I have read several novels by well-known thriller-writers published by big houses that had not been edited properly, and did need complete rewriting. Gardner's Golgotha, in my view, is an interesting idea that could have been a huge best-seller, but it's a complete mess of a book.


Funny you feel that way. I enjoyed it more than any of his Bond novels. I believe it's what his Bond novels could have been but weren't. I re-read it against last year and breezed through it in two days. I should also add that I think it's better constructed than any of his Bond novels.

#81 The Shark

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Posted 05 June 2012 - 02:31 AM


Don't go near GOLGOTHA, for instance. Very much like a Forbes book, but it drags and drags and you feel like you have a noose around your neck reading it.

Strangely, many best-selling thrillers feel like this, and many thriller readers feel it.


I have read several novels by well-known thriller-writers published by big houses that had not been edited properly, and did need complete rewriting. Gardner's Golgotha, in my view, is an interesting idea that could have been a huge best-seller, but it's a complete mess of a book.


Funny you feel that way. I enjoyed it more than any of his Bond novels. I believe it's what his Bond novels could have been but weren't. I re-read it against last year and breezed through it in two days. I should also add that I think it's better constructed than any of his Bond novels.


Unfortunately spynovelfan/Jeremy Duns can't reply. He's been banned from Cb.n.

#82 Miles Miservy

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Posted 05 June 2012 - 12:54 PM

I`ve only read Fleming and Gardner.
Fleming was a genius, but Gardner should be punished.


I'm a man of mixed emotions when it comes to John Gardner's interpretation of OO7. Given that I had read them all at the time of their 1st publications and the timeliness of his whole Reagan / Thatcher / Gorbachev angle, made them up-to-the-minute and suspenseful, Gardner's villains were creatively cool, to say the least. (Vlad Scorpius & Brokenclaw Lee were 2 of my favorites.)

Of course there are certain elements that separates Gardner's Bond from Fleming's Bond. For one, I had issues with OO7 seducing & bedding Cedar Leiter, the daughter of his closest ally and best friend; an act no English gentleman would EVER do. Secondly, of all the exotic sports cars in all of Europe to chose from for his personal vehicle, WHY would Bond want to get behind the wheel of a SAAB 900 Turbo? THAT ALWAYS bothered me.

#83 Dustin

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Posted 05 June 2012 - 01:46 PM


Don't go near GOLGOTHA, for instance. Very much like a Forbes book, but it drags and drags and you feel like you have a noose around your neck reading it.

Strangely, many best-selling thrillers feel like this, and many thriller readers feel it.


I have read several novels by well-known thriller-writers published by big houses that had not been edited properly, and did need complete rewriting. Gardner's Golgotha, in my view, is an interesting idea that could have been a huge best-seller, but it's a complete mess of a book.


Funny you feel that way. I enjoyed it more than any of his Bond novels. I believe it's what his Bond novels could have been but weren't. I re-read it against last year and breezed through it in two days. I should also add that I think it's better constructed than any of his Bond novels.



Interesting that both Amis and Gardner tried their hand at books showing their home country under Soviet occupation. Unfortunately I've as yet neither had the chance to read RUSSIAN HIDE-AND-SEEK nor GOLGOTHA. You seem to rate the latter higher than Gardner's Bond work so I'll probably set my sights in that. The only book from that sub-genre I can recommend is Deighton's SS-GB.

#84 glidrose

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Posted 05 June 2012 - 10:20 PM

Unfortunately spynovelfan/Jeremy Duns can't reply. He's been banned from Cb.n.


I know. I suppose in retrospect I should have mentioned that SNF would be unable to reply or carry on the discussion.

Going back to Golgotha, I don't mean to suggest the novel is perfect. The writing feels slapdash, the plot is full of holes - logic was never Gardner's strong point - and a number of other problems aside, but it is tighter and faster than his Bond novels.

Interesting that both Amis and Gardner tried their hand at books showing their home country under Soviet occupation. Unfortunately I've as yet neither had the chance to read RUSSIAN HIDE-AND-SEEK nor GOLGOTHA. You seem to rate the latter higher than Gardner's Bond work so I'll probably set my sights in that. The only book from that sub-genre I can recommend is Deighton's SS-GB.


Excellent point. I've read all three. The Amis book is a mess. Now there's a book that needed an editor. The Deighton I did not like. I don't know why but his WWII fiction leaves me cold.

Depending on where in the world you live, Golgotha also goes by the title THE LAST TRUMP.

One curious final point about GOLGOTHA. I may be wrong, but I think this is the only truly "right wing" novel Gardner wrote. The book posits that nuclear weapons - even if it means firing a few at the Soviet Union now and then - ensure world peace.

#85 Dustin

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Posted 06 June 2012 - 05:10 PM

I've just found a paperback copy of GOLGOTHA, also very reasonably priced. Now finding the time to read it...

From what I remember of the times the end of the 70s to early 80s used to be a politically troubled period throughout Western Europe. Terrorism had established itself firmly in the headlines and there was a general feeling of unrest and impending doom. Both GOLGOTHA and RUSSIAN HIDE-AND-SEEK fall into that period and the importance of the NATO Double-Track Decision must have played some role in the political views of the contemporary writing minds. Amis and Gardner are just two names I am aware of who tackled the topic of Britain under Russian occupation. There may have been others that escaped me.

However, the politically correct thinking of the era insisted on a strong nuclear presence in Europe and didn't even shy away from devising means and tactics that allegedly would make a nuclear war locally containable and 'winnable'. How often the world as a whole had only avoided a global nuclear holocaust by sheer luck and coincidence was not then common knowledge. Actually, I have serious doubts if we've learned anything at all from the facts, regardless of the information now accessible.

Deighton may also have picked up first vibrations of that mindset when he published SS-GB, though of course from a different angle. When I read the book for the first time (thirty years ago) I was a bit underwhelmed by its plot, always keeping on the fringe of events, with only a foggy idea of what really is going on and how the whole affair fits into the premise. Later on it grew on me and though I haven't read it recently I still like the careful detail, the eye on a Britain that copes with occupation and nazism. And succeeds only too well. That's a quality I rarely find in alternative history fiction, a sense that things could actually have turned out entirely different not because (just) one thing went wrong but a million of different little things that all together gave affairs a drastically diverging course.

#86 OmarB

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Posted 06 June 2012 - 06:53 PM

You know, as much as we may or may not find failings in Deaver's Bond and by extension Project X I still think it could be cool. He set up an interesting story and an ongoing mystery with the parents. i would love to see the contemporary Bond continue. Though with the new writer being commissioned already I don't think it will happen. But why not two different Bond timelines at once? It's not as if anybody is gonna mistake either books for Ian so have at them.

#87 DR76

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Posted 20 June 2012 - 05:05 PM

Am I the only one on this forum that just does not enjoy the various attempts by other authors to recreate the Bond character? I have to say, I think YOUNG BOND is one of the worst. I have only read one mind you, but the style of writing is so different and the character unlike Bond in habit and too much like post CR Bond in character. I only enjoy the Fleming books, though I enjoy the movies which is strange because Fleming is not responsible for the screenplays.



Apparently not. But if I must be brutally honest. I'm not that impressed by Ian Fleming as a writer. To me, his Bond novels might be a bit more colorful in terms of setting and more cartoonish in terms of characterizations. But as far as plots go, I found him rather mediocre.

John Gardner, to me, was somewhat better when it came to story narrative. But he was not as colorful as Fleming when it came to setting.

#88 glidrose

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Posted 30 June 2012 - 03:58 PM

Interesting that both Amis and Gardner tried their hand at books showing their home country under Soviet occupation. Unfortunately I've as yet neither had the chance to read RUSSIAN HIDE-AND-SEEK nor GOLGOTHA. You seem to rate the latter higher than Gardner's Bond work so I'll probably set my sights in that. The only book from that sub-genre I can recommend is Deighton's SS-GB.


Here's another relevant title: ALL OUR TOMORROWS by Ted Allbeury.

A lazy, divided, decadent and very weak Britain is forced into a "Treaty of Neutrality and Cooperation" with Russia, effectively making the U.K. an occupied country. The tale revolves around actions of the British Resistance, headed by ex-SAS Col. Harry Andrews, and the Soviet underground, led by a mysterious, charismatic Russian. Allbeury effectively portrays the grim, Orwellian life under the Russian boot: consumer-goods shortages, artistic and media repression and--after the Resistance becomes effective--brutal reprisals. If the author has an anti-French bias (the French President betrays the English) his pro-Americanism may surprise: the winning Resistance aims to establish a U.S.-style system.

Allbeury also wrote a book called PAY ANY PRICE (a.k.a. DUE PROCESS) featuring a British spy named James Boyd.

Edited by glidrose, 30 June 2012 - 04:08 PM.


#89 Trevelyan 006

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 05:39 AM

To be quite honest, after reading the supremely influential and inspiring works Fleming wrote, I don't dare to dabble with anything else (considering literary Bond anyways).

I KNOW I wouldn't enjoy reading any non-Fleming novel nearly as much.
Fleming's painstaking eye for detail is the concrete foundation of his mastery and for me, that means that any other non-Fleming writer just simply takes a backseat.

#90 Dustin

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Posted 05 July 2012 - 09:12 AM

Here's another relevant title: ALL OUR TOMORROWS by Ted Allbeury.

A lazy, divided, decadent and very weak Britain is forced into a "Treaty of Neutrality and Cooperation" with Russia, effectively making the U.K. an occupied country. The tale revolves around actions of the British Resistance, headed by ex-SAS Col. Harry Andrews, and the Soviet underground, led by a mysterious, charismatic Russian. Allbeury effectively portrays the grim, Orwellian life under the Russian boot: consumer-goods shortages, artistic and media repression and--after the Resistance becomes effective--brutal reprisals. If the author has an anti-French bias (the French President betrays the English) his pro-Americanism may surprise: the winning Resistance aims to establish a U.S.-style system.

Allbeury also wrote a book called PAY ANY PRICE (a.k.a. DUE PROCESS) featuring a British spy named James Boyd.


Allbeury, another master whose name is nearly forgotten today. In his time presented readers with some of the very best works in the genre. I remember some critics put him even above leCarré. And after reading THE LONELY MARGINS one can see why. Besides being a gripping drama about one agent falling into the hands of the enemy it's a most interesting account of SOE business, tactics and procedures and gives perhaps an idea of the world Fleming lived in during WWII (though, if we want to stretch the point, Fleming's/Godfrey's/M's/Tanner's role isn't at all a pleasant one in this). I suspect SKYFALL may share the one or other important element with THE LONELY MARGINS.

It's also an interesting counterpoint to CASINO ROYALE and James Bond in general, and serves as an explanation as to why Fleming could get at times angry about all those accusations of sadism and pørnography. If you compare both books they obviously share a tragic ending. But where Fleming's fairy tale for adults basically leaves the naive belief of good vs. bad intact, Allbeury's tale ends with a shocking and disillusioned view on reality. That's something Fleming never aimed for.

Now, ALL OUR TOMORROWS. Have to check that one out.

Edited by Dustin, 05 July 2012 - 09:52 AM.