Gardner's Bond

[Cooper]

Having exhausted all of the Fleming novels, I picked up my brother's copy of Icebreaker by John Gardner. It filled the time in the sun this Memorial Day weekend, but that's about it. Not great. I don't know if I was looking to not like it as much as the Fleming books, but it just didn't feel like Bond to me. ..Especially since he is working with a team in this particular story and his mission is full of double and triple crosses.

Has everyone here read more of Gardner's books. What's the opinion?

[BeauButabi]

I havent read any non-Fleming Bond novels, but always heard the Gardner novels are more like the movies rather than the Fleming books. I might try a few of his books out sometime.

[Daltons Chin Dimple]

I have all the Gardner novels. It helps to read them in order I find however it is fair to say that they are an attempt to bridge the gap between the literary 007 and that of the movies. Trouble is they were also written in the 80's when it was all "Bleeding heart" and "New man" so our favourite blunt instrument was more blunt that we would have liked.

[Daltons Chin Dimple]

And now I am sitting here trying to think of my favourite and I can't. The torture scene in Brokenclaw is pretty good. I think I liked Role of Honour as well, but I really can't remember ! I remember I intensely disliked The Man From Barborossa and that one with the Sea Harriers and the aircraft carrier.

[Cooper]

from DCD:
our favourite blunt instrument was more blunt that we would have liked.

Speaking of that term, which M uses in the CR trailer, it is also used in Icebreaker. Seems the CR guys read some Gardner as well.

The book definitely played out more as a movie than the Fleming books. At one point Bond asks his captors, "Is it Martini time?" That had me picturing Roger Moore rather than Sean Connery.

Well... I have Win, Lose or Die and Nobody Lives Forever waiting for me as Summer beach reading. I'll see how those are. My brother also lent Benson's latest, The Man with The Red Tattoo, whch he said was basically a Brosnan movie.

[Kara Milovy]

"Blunt instrument" is a Fleming phrase. I believe it appears in the novels CR and YOLT, but I'm not a Fleming expert.

[Cooper]

Well, there you go. I guess they didn't read Gardner.

[TrekSucksHard]

I read a lot of the Gardner books (From Liscence Renewed to Brokenclaw) back when I was in college years ago and found them to be almost a clone of the two Fleming books I read (From Russia With Love and The Man With The Golden Gun). The books I felt were essentially travelogues that focused on the brands of clothes that Bond like to wear as well as the food and drink he liked with only a small emphasis on plot and action- they were mildly amusing but I wouldn't call them well written or exciting in any sense.