Licence renewed

 Fans bemoaning the changes made to the James Bond character in the new movie can relax with the all new edition of John Gardner's first James Bond novel available now - print and digital

All New edition of a Bond classic.

The Men with the Golden Pens

The recently published Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz (expect a full review soon) is the latest in a long line of novels featuring Ian Fleming's masterspy James Bond. And whilst it is commonplace these days for a long running series to continue after the death of the original author, this wasn't the case back in the early 1960's.

Fleming died in 1964, and although he saw the success of the early Sean Connery movies he missed seeing the global phenomenon that his character became after the release of the third Bond movie, Goldfinger.

After the death of Ian Fleming, Glidrose Productions, later Ian Fleming Publications, began exploring the idea of having new writers create new James Bond novels using the collective pen name of Robert Markham. Geoffrey Jenkins, a friend of Flemings and  a fine thriller writer himself seemed an obvious choice. By 1964, he had four best-sellers to his credit and he already had story ideas that Ian Fleming himself had participated in shaping. However when in  1966, Jenkins submitted his manuscript for PER FINE OUNCE.  Glidrose rejected the book and it is now considered a lost Bond novel. The reasons the work was rejected have never been made clear, nor has the manuscript ever turned up.

In  1968 James Bond did finally return in Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (actually written by Kingsley Amis).  As previously noted the Robert Markham name was intended by  Glidrose,  to be a pen name that would be used by multiple authors to continue Flemings work. However this was not to be and although Colonel Sun was reasonably successful it didn't sell as well as had been hoped and the plans for a new Bond literary series seemed to be dead in the water.

The next Bond novels where actually novelisations of two of the movies - The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, both written by Christopher Wood. The film versions were so different to Fleming's original novels that these books, which follow their respective movie's screenplay, can be considered original novels. Both build on their screenplays and we learn from the books that the Jaws character's real name is Zbigniew Krycsiwiki.

In the 1980's the Bond copyright holders decided to bring Bond back in a new series, and thriller writer John Gardner was selected as the new writer. His first book was 1981's Licence Renewed and in all he wrote 16 Bond novels. Licence Renewed / For Special Services / Icebreaker / Role Of Honour / Nobody Lives For Ever / No Deals, Mr. Bond / Scorpius / Win, Lose Or Die / Licence To Kill / Brokenclaw / The Man From Barbarossa / Death Is Forever / Never Send Flowers / SeaFire / GoldenEye / COLD.

When Gardner tired of the series, American author Raymond Benson took up the golden pen and gave us six new novels, as well as novelisations of the Pierce Brosnan movies, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is not Enough and Die Another Day. The Benson Bond's were: Zero Minus Ten / Tomorrow Never Dies / The Facts Of Death / High Time To Kill / The World Is Not Enough / DoubleShot / Never Dream Of Dying / The Man With The Red Tattoo / Die Another Day.

There wasn't a new Bond novel - ignoring the Young Bond novels and the Moneypenny Diaries - until 2008 when noted author Sabastian Faulks wrote Devil May Care. There was much hype around this novel, which was written as a pastiche of Fleming's style but Faulks declined to write more.

Bestselling crime writer, Jeffrey Deaver next took a stab at 007 with 2011's Carte Blanche, and although the previous Bond had been set in the early 1970's, Deaver took the route used by John Gardner and Raymond Benson and set his adventure in the present day.

William Boyd came next with Solo and this time Bond was back in the 1960's - like the two previous authors, Boyd would only write the one Bond adventure.

All of the Bond novels written since Fleming's death have their strong points, but it wasn't until 2015's Trigger Mortis written by Anthony Horowitz that the novels really captured the true feel of Fleming - perhaps because the author was able to use some unpublished Fleming material in his book. The story took up immediately after the climax of Goldfinger with Pussy Galore featuring in the story, well until she ran off with lesbian racing driver, that is.

The book was so well received that Horowitz was asked back for a second Bond novel, the aforementioned Forever and a Day. Let's hope Horowitz does a third because he seems as near as dammit as one can get to the real Ian Fleming.

Forever and a Day is available now in hardcover, audiobook and eBook.

A spy is dead. A legend is born. This is how it all began. The explosive prequel to Casino Royale, from bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.

M laid down his pipe and stared at it tetchily. 'We have no choice. We’re just going to bring forward this other chap you’ve been preparing. But you didn’t tell me his name.' 

'It’s Bond, sir,' the Chief of Staff replied. 'James Bond.' 

The sea keeps its secrets. But not this time.

One body. Three bullets. 007 floats in the waters of Marseille, killed by an unknown hand.

It’s time for a new agent to step up. Time for a new weapon in the war against organised crime.
It’s time for James Bond to earn his licence to kill. This is the story of the birth of a legend, in the brutal underworld of the French Riviera.





 

Countdown to Skyfall - John Gardner's Brokenclaw

After completing the novelization of the film, Licence to Kill, John Gardner returned to his Bond series proper with his tenth book in the series.

The book neatly dovetails with Win, Lose of Die and after expressing frustration over a lack of action after his year-long mission with the Royal Navy , Bond threatens to resign.  M however orders Bond to take a vacation and so  Bond travels to Victoria, British Columbia where he is intrigued by Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand.

This book was something of a disappointment and Gardner risked alienating long time fans of Fleming's books by having Bond become a tea drinker - Fleming had long established that Bond hated tea. It  may only be a small aspect of Bond's character but it annoys readers who know the series well. Gardner himself often listed this as the least favourite of his Bond novels. The writing doesn't seem to hold the usual vigour which often made the Gardner books so entertaining. Maybe the fact that the author was recovering from prostrate cancer while writing the book has something to do with it not being up to the usual standard.

For a Bond novel the narrative is very slowly paced and for much of the book nothing seems to be happening. The climatic battle between Bond and Brokenclaw, with bows and arrows of all things, also falls flat.

John Gardner wasn't quite himself when writing this book and through no fault of his own, it shows in the finished product. If you've never read a Gardner Bond before then this is not the one to start with - it's got some redeeming qualities but these are few and far between. Still the author wasn't quite finished with 007 yet and there was still some good stuff to come.

FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOKS - ICEBREAKER

ICEBREAKER
JOHN GARDNER
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 1983
Coronet original cover price £1.95

I'm a massive Ian Fleming/James Bond fan and most of the continuation novels by other hands have left me cold. Don't get me wrong - I like several of John Gardner's and Raymond Benson's offerings. And I think Kingsley Amis and Sabastian Faulks both delivered worthy Bond novels. But it's seldom that the excitement of the Fleming sweep has been captured just right. Mind you even the worse of the continuation books are better and more Bondian than the pig's ear the film producers have made of the franchise with the dire, cold hearted James Bourne movie Quantum of Desperation.

Fleming's background was in journalism and from this he developed a lean, descriptive style. The original Bond novels owed a lot to the pulps, his villains were OTT and would not have been out of place in a Sax Romer novel.


This was John Gardner's third Bond novel and, although it's got its critics, I thought it was his best of the lot and the Title, for a change, was pure Fleming.

Bond is sent to the freezing landscape of North Norway and teamed with the CIA, KGB and Mossad. Their mission - to eradicate a secret terrorist operation who are causing chaos on a worldwide scale.

For me the novel worked perfectly well and I did feel, on times, that this was Fleming's Bond. Raymond Benson, who himself would pen several Bond novels after Gardner finished, has often said that he considers this to be the weakest of Gardner's early Bond novels but, as much as I respect Mr Benson (hey the guy wrote a few excellent Bond novels himself and also authored the fan's bible, The James Bond Bedside Companion) , I think he's wrong here. I feel this this - Gardner's third - is stronger than the previous two novels Licence Renewed and For Special Services.

It doesn't contain the bloated 007 of Licence Renewed, nor does it have the nonsense of Blofeld's off spring and Felix Leiter's daughter to muddy up the waters as did For Special Services. It reads well as a thriller in its own right and teaming Bond with organisations he's mostly worked against for decades provides much added tension to the plot. And of course you don't get villains any bigger than the Third Reich.

Head over to Patti's site for more forgotten books