13 replies to this topic

[Jriv71]

Had some time on my hands Monday and Tuesday and read NLF. (Plus, the text in my copy is REALLY BIG.) Anyway, I must say I really enjoyed this one.

Plot: Kill Bond.

It's much deeper than that but, for once, no plans to destroy the world, or to infiltrate a nuclear power plant (which would of course destroy the world,) or to destroy England's economy (which would, well, you know.) Hey, nothing wrong with the 'Bond Formula' here, but I loved the revenge aspect in Gardner's fifth novel. Ironically it was Fleming's fifth which had a similar tone to it (FRWL.)

This was just exciting from the word Go. Loved the HEAD HUNT.

Small complaint: Tamil Rahani didn't do it for me. I mean, he was OK but, I still don't care that he's the 'new' head of SPECTRE. We (I) don't need SPECTRE anymore. ( I won't exactly be waiting with baited breath to see if they return later in the series.) That being said, it was good that Gardner let a bad guy survive one novel, to have this vendetta against Bond, in the next. I just wasn't intimidated by a guy who appears in one novel (ROH), where it's not clear until the end who he really is, then in the next, he's Mr. Burns.

It wasn't without its holes, but overall, I really enjoyed Nobody Lives Forever.

[zencat]

NLF is a great Gardner book. One of the best. I love the women, and I love how Gardner paints the Key West location. I also really like how Bond does in the bad guy.

[Jriv71]

Since I'm re-reading them all, one thing that is starting to re-annoy me is "Q'ute". Always bothered me. I can't begin to tell you, being a huge fan of Monty Python, how utterly thrilled I am with John Cleese, but I would've accepted Saddam as Q, as long as we didn't have "Q'ute" in the films, as Q's successor.

I want to put my fist through the page, every time I see that name in print. Look, I know that Gardner had to take some creative liberties, to make the series his own but, well, I think he was just trying to be too, well, um, too q'lever. (See how annoying that was.)

[kevrichardson]

Very good Garnder Bond /SPECTRE novel . Plus always love Bond in a Bentley . Tamil Rahani was a good villian . Why other feel different is beyond me .

[Jriv71]

It's just that, we didn't see him much in ROH, then by the time we found out who he really was, it was the end of the book.
Then, in NLF, he was dying; that's not menacing at all. I guess he orchestrated the Head Hunt, which was great, but he wasn't around enough for me to hate him, like Blofeld. Gardner should've extended him for one or two more. BUT NOT IN SPECTRE...LET IT GO, JOHN!!!

[ChandlerBing]

Forget SPECTRE, bring on SPINCTRE!

[Stuart]

Yep. Love NLF. Bought it in hardback in '86 when I was 14. Read it in about eight hours. Of course I didn't retain nearly all of it, but I loved it just the same.

Re-read it last month, and it is still great. Rahani is weak as a villain, but everything else is spot-on, IMO.

[Righty007]

I read this book for the first time a couple months ago and I thought it sucked. It was very confusing. The best Gardner book I have read is FSS.

[scaramanga]

NLF is quite a good read, but the only thing that annoyed me was the amount of times Gardner said that Der Haken was otherwise known as Inspector Heinrich Osten. He must have referred to it umpteen times, which was quite frustrating. However, it was nice to see a bit more of Miss Moneypenny in a story for once.

[Jriv71]

The Moneypenny thing was nice because, in 300 pages, it's tough to establish a character that you really care about, unless it's a recurring character. For instance, in the chapter when Bond "rescues" the doctor from the "Klinik", when Bond hears the voice of the Doctor's captor, Gardner says something along the lines of, he couldn't believe whose voice it was when he heard it. Then you find out that it was Quinn. You know Quinn, the guy we'd never heard of until 50-100 pages earlier. Bond may have been shocked, but I wasn't. Now if the bad guy were M or Q or Tanner...well, he couldn't do that. But the point is, it was good that he brought in a character that we cared about.

[Kronsteen]

Orignal stories can turn out very well, but this didn't. The first 5-6 chapters was very interesting and it caught my attention! But the rest was lame. They just kept going around in Europe.
The end in Key West (was it?) was also quite boring. No real tempo...

Tamil Rahani has always been very cool though!

[Cesari]

Quite a good book.
Original plot.
Can't bear Qute too.
But at the end why Bond doesn't escape? He escape, put a bomb in Rahani seat an then go back to his jail. You find it normal?

[Jriv71]

I guess he tried to disable as many people as possible, in order to get out.

[dennisbolt]

It was what got me into Bond in 1986/7 as a 13 year old-one of his best along with all the early Gardners. Late Gardner got like late Moore-to sticky.