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MI6 rounds up reviews from around the USA in 1981
when John Gardner's first James Bond continuation
novel was released
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Retro Reviews: License Renewed
6th July 2011
Park City Daily News (Bowling Green, KY) - April
24th, 1981
It's been more than a decade since agent 007 appeared in print.
Sure, there were a couple of novelizations based on the last
two James Bond movies. But for many years Bond hasn't been
seen in something intended from the start as a book, rather
than a script.
Until now. Following the tradition of 007's
creator, Ian Fleming, another English author has picked the Easter
season to detail
the further adventures of the British spy. Bond is older (he
spends more time exercising to keep in shape) and a bit more
mellow (his specially-made cigarettes are now low-tar and he
has cut down quite a bit on his consumption of alcohol). But
he is still 007 - still fiercely loyal to the crown, tough under
pressure and ultimately relying on his wits and courage
when faced with a powerful adversary with enormous resources.
The new book, "License Renewed," came about
when Glidrose Publications Ltd - owners of the 007 literary copyright
- asked author John
Gardner to being anew the series of Bond books. To author Gardner's
credit, he has not tried to write in Fleming's style, but he
has grasped rather well the key elements of Fleming's work. Gardner's
Bond does not relish killing, but accepts that as part of his
profession. In fact, on more than on occasion, he could have
killed one large brute named Caber who is working for the book's
villain. But he does not until he has no choice.
And speaking of villains, Anton Murik, the sinister Laird of
Murcaldy, is not quite up to the standards of Fleming's Auric
Goldfinger or Ernest Stavro Blofeld. Still, he is a worthy adversary
for 007. Murik doesn't have all sheer evil of those two, but
is quite mad. Murik claims to have perfected a fail-safe nuclear
reactor but can't find the money to build one. His scheme is
to blackmail five governments (the United States, England, France,
West and East Germany) with terrorists at six nuclear reactors.
While describing the plot in a sentence makes it sound far-fetched,
Gardner builds up to it well and makes it seem credible while
reading - a feat Fleming was able to do when writing plots about
nuclear blackmail and germ warfare. The whole idea of Bond facing
the 1980s is interesting in itself. The double-0-section had
been formally abolished because of spy scandals, for example.
Bond, as a result, hasn't been used as much as in the old days.
In all, "License Renewed" is a good first entry
for Gardner. His tale is certainly an interesting one, and he
draws the reader's
interest well. He has taken the things that made an Ian Fleming
Bond novel worth reading and used them in his own style without
trying to copy the earlier work. It's a book a Bond fan or curious
person would want to read.
Record Journal (Meriden, CT) - September 19th, 1981
This year
an English author, John Gardner, was given the difficult task
of bringing James Bond into the eighties and picking up
where the late author Ian Fleming left off. He doesn't quite
pull it off. In "License Renewed" published by Richard Merek
Publishers, Bond is nowhere near as vigorous and undaunted as
in the past. Naturally he's somewhat older, but fans expect miracles
even of their aging heroes.
One credit for author Gardner is that all of the James Bond
gadgets and hardware used in this story are claimed to be genuine,
including modifications of 007's Saab 900 Turbo.
This story deals,
as you might guess, with another deranged world scientist and
his hired terrorist assassin. Bond naturally triumphs in the
end over Franco the terrorist, and the nuclear physicist, the
Laird of Murcaldy, but not without many a tremorous moment. There's
the inevitable hand-to-hand combat with the Laird's champion
free-for-all fighter, Caber, an the ever-present heroine Lavender
Peacock. This name is a slight improvement over one of Fleming's
earlier heroines by the name of Pussy Galore.
The Laird's castle in the Highlands of Scotland is the scene
of most of the action and it undoubtedly will look well on the
screen. In the end, the most diabolical plot of all, the control
of the world's largest nuclear power plants by the demented Laird,
is foiled by 007, the heroine inherits the family estate wrongfully
withheld from her, and James has a delightful invitation to visit
dangling in his future. Good-bye Fleming. Good-bye Gardner. I
think we've heard enough from James Bond in this world.
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The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA) - May 14th, 1981
I realize that this is kind of a goofy thing for a guy to get excited about,
but I'm sitting here, happy as can be, and all because of the book I've got
in my hands. The book is called "License Renewed," and it has just
been published, and I can't quit smiling.
"License Renewed" is a James Bond book. The
original 13 Bond books by the late Ian Fleming were the
most wonderful spy adventures ever written. After Fleming
dies in 1964, though, it seemed that there would never
be another Bond novel. Now, though, Ian Fleming's estate
has commissioned a British author named John Gardner
to bring Bond back, and into the 1980s. It sounds like
a dumb
idea at first - having one author try to write about
another author's hero - and I'm only 50 pages or so into
the book,
so I can't tell you about its objective literary merit.
But all I know is, by the time I got to Chapter Two, in
which James Bond makes his first appearance in the novel,
something strange was happening to me. |
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It was as if John Kennedy never got shot, and
gas was 25 cents a gallon, and the evening was going to begin
with the Huntley-Brinkley
report. In this dreary, 1981 world, here was James Bond, older
now, but flirting again with Miss Moneypenny. It's like discovering
an old and dear friend you had thought was dead, and finding
that he's added a few years
just like you have, but that the things that made you like him
so much have not changed at all. I'm already learning that James
Bond is adapting to 191: He's not drinking as much, he exercises
more, his specially-made cigarettes from Morelands of Grovesnor
Street have a new low-tar tobacco.
But what does that matter? James Bond is alive!
And in a way it's appropriate that he should be coming back at
precisely this
time. When Ian Fleming dies in '64, the world was just beginning
to go into its mass nervous breakdown, which made society so
schizoid for so many years. In the late '60s and '70s, there
was really no place for a mn like Bond.
Somehow, though, 1981 appears to be the year
in which heroes are welcome again. People seem to be a little
less cynical, perhaps
even less selfish, that they have been for a while. Who better
to step into this new world than James Bond himself, the last
great hero from the pre-craziness era? Already in the book I
have learned that the famous "Double O" section of the British
Secret Service - the section whose spys have a license to kill
- has officially been abolished, the victim of more "rational"
political times. But Bond's boss, the legendary M, is quick to
tell Bond that as far as he's concerned, the restrictions do
not apply to 007.
It's impossible to know what Ian Fleming would have though of
his hero continuing into the '80s, but surely he would have approved
if he'd known how hungry we were going to be for Bond. I've got
work to do tonight, but I know it's not going to get done. There
are these problems being raised in "License Renewed" that, prior
to a few hours ago, seemed to me to be just abstract phrases
from the headlines. International terrorists, nuclear blackmail.
But they're abstract no longer - James Bond is on the case. The
work can wait. I have a book to read.
The New York Times (New York City, NY) - June 14th, 1981
He was just rubbing ''a small amount of Guerlain's Imperial Cologne into his
skin before putting on a pair of lightweight worsted navy slacks and a white
Sea Island cotton shirt'' when the red phone rang. Yes. James Bond is back.
John Gardner, the British author of some score of books
with titles like ''The Liquidator,'' has won from Ian Fleming's
literary board of directors the license to renew the adventures
of that pubescent daydream of omnipotence, J.F.K.'s favorite
spy, 007. In re-creating Bond's world of urbane intrigue,
Mr. Gardner gives us a minuscule mad physicist, the bogus
Laird of Murcaldy, and ''girls'' with names like Lavender
Peacock; he takes us to festivals in exotic places such
as Royal Ascot, the Games at Loch Carron, the Feast of
St. John in Perpignan, France and, of course, there is
Dom Perignon 1955 and fegato alla veneziana.
But, alas, the times have tightened. Fuel costs have forced
Bond to trade his Mark II Continental Bentley for a Saab
900 Turbo, albeit customized with gunport. Bond has cut
back his alcohol intake too, and he's down from 60 Balkan
cigarettes a day to a dole of some lowtar brand.
In fact,
in ''License Renewed,'' the whole world seems scantier
and blander, as if Bond could not shake off the malaise
of those intervening years when the Government abolished
his license to kill and stuck him in a desk job. He has
less wit, less wardrobe and less sex drive. Miss Moneypenny
even has difficulty arousing him. |
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Above Left: British
1st edition Coronet paperback. Above Right: British
5th edition Coronet paperback.
Above Left: American
1st edition Richard Marek hardback. Above
Right: American 1st edition Berkley paperback.
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Of course, Bond does thwart the Laird's diabolical Operation
Meltdown and saves the world's nuclear power stations from international
terrorists, and in the process he continually confronts the madman's
minions. But where's the extravagant superflux needed to float
the cartoon characters of a Bond thriller? Where are Dr. No's
giant squids, Largo's sharks and Col. Rosa Klebb of SMERSH? Where's
Pussy Galore? With his mechanized swashbuckling and elegant machismo,
Bond was so suited to his time, so right in that age of astronauts
and Thunderbirds, perhaps he should have decided you only live
once. The new head of Q branch, a leggy girl engineer, warns
him, ''Fantasies should change with the times.'' For Bond to
be worrying about gas mileage is like shipping the Scarlet Pimpernel
to Plymouth Colony.
TIME Magazine (New York City, NY) - July 6th, 1981
The dark hair is minutely necked with gray these days. Martinis
and Balkan Sobranies are pretty much out; Perrier and filter
tips are in. The Mark II Continental Bentley has been replaced
by a more fuel-efficient supercar, a Saab 900 Turbo. Otherwise,
since the last adventure appeared in print 16 years ago, he seems
unchanged. The icy eyes and reflexes remain as quick as a cobra's;
the jawline is taut, and the ability to attract supple and delectable
females remains as potent as before. And while the Service has
undergone reforms and shakeups as sanguinary as any that have
afflicted the CIA, James Bond still covertly retains the Double0
prefix, the license to kill in the line of duty.
As literature's most celebrated spy (more than 91 million copies
in 36 languages), Her Majesty's superagent continues to do what
he knows best: intrigue and seduction. Bond redivivus has been
entrusted to John Gardner, a British writer who knows his way
around military hardware, neo-villainy and a plot whose absurdity
even Ian Fleming might admire. Bond's adversary this time is
Anton Murik, nuclear physicist, megamillionaire and major loon.
Convinced that all nuclear power plants are hazardous, Murik
wants to replace them with a design of his own. If the world
complies, fine. If not, he will cause a worldwide China Syndrome.
In classic style, Gardner piles picaresque on bizarre: Neanderthal
henchmen, a medieval castle equipped with radar, cars that repel
attackers with clouds of tear gas. Some of Bond's more ingenious
widgets have been prepared by a newcomer to the Service's Q Branch:
Ann Reilly, referred to by her colleagues as Q'ute. Bond fans
can be assured of two things: 007 will be back, only slightly
more gray-flecked. And so will Ann Reilly, only Q'uter.
