Brokenclaw Review

Ice Station 0

Just wrapped up reading Brokenclaw. A very odd book at the end. I just felt that Bond, participating in an ancient Indian rite to choose a leader was very hard odd, not fitting into the Bond cannon very easily. Bond against Indians? I dunno. I also thought Gardner didn't achieve the Fleming "feel" in this book. Very little was mentioned about his clothing and his choice of food which Fleming always threw in. Any other reviewers like to weigh in?

Sir Hillary Bray

It's been ages since I read it, but I remember Brokenclaw as the weakest of Gardner's Bond novels. My memory is vague on the details, but as you say IS0, there was certainly no "Fleming sweep" to this one. The notion of stakes being driven into Bond's calves as part of some ritual just seemed ridiculous and forced, even by the OTT standards of Bond novels. The low point of the Gardner years for me.

Barbel

It's pretty poor, but I'd rate the later Cold even lower.

IanT007

Brockenclaw (and a lot of the later JG novels) seemed too formulaeic (I made that word up) to me. It seemed to be the same basic plot (neo-nazis) with the same "twist" (female ally doublecross).

Not keen on the Gardner ones. I always imagine Bond as a fifty year old with Farah slacks when I read Gardner's novels. But then again, it was the Roger Moore era.

Apocrypha23

Exactly! I always thought of Roger Moore when I was reading Gardner's novels. The plotlines were always just a little TOO outlandish and Bond always seemed to be looking down his nose at everything. In one of them he's criticizing a resaurant for not having an "authentic" British tea (which Fleming's Bond wouldn't have gone for) and in another he arrogantly tells an SAS officer that he's never opened a bottle of beer.
Sorry, didn't mean to redirect this to a Gardiner-bash, but I needed to get that off my chest. Apologies.

Ice Station 0

Interesting, I was picturing Roger Moore as well...yikes!

Sir Miles

Barbel wrote:

It's pretty poor, but I'd rate the later Cold even lower.

I couldn't agree more there, Barbel.

I found the whole American-Indian ritual too far-fetched - Brokenclaw Lee did have the potential to be a good villian though.

Apocrypha23

Gardner's run just kept getting worse I thought. He kept taking liberties with the character I'd come to love. When Benson took over, it was refreshing to see him do some damage control and bring Bond back around a bit.

superado

I read BC the one and only time when it first came out, which I borrowed from the library...so, how long has that been?!? Anyway, as a local, the only thing I remember is the cheesy description of San Francisco's Chinatown at night, with creepy fog and suspicious shadows lurking in doorways, etc. ) I suppose that artistic license was called for to make the passage interesting, because the most dangerous thing you can encounter there afterhours are tourists and drunk college students.

Scribe74

BROKENCLAW is definitely one of the weakest Gardiner entries. As someone previously stated, COLD was pretty horrible, too . . .
That said, both books easily clobber anything penned by Raymond Benson (my apologies to the Benson fans out there)!

Barbel

Scribe74 wrote:

BROKENCLAW is definitely one of the weakest Gardiner entries. As someone previously stated, COLD was pretty horrible, too . . .
That said, both books easily clobber anything penned by Raymond Benson (my apologies to the Benson fans out there)!

Hi, I'm the someone, and a Benson supporter. Gardner's probably a better writer than Benson, who sometimes can appear awkward and stilted while Gardner tends to flow, but his engagement with the characters and material is evident and his knowledge of Fleming unmistakable. Gardner grew more disenchanted as his series progressed, and the books reflect that.

Sir Miles

Barbel wrote:

Gardner grew more disenchanted as his series progressed, and the books reflect that.

Also Gardner really suffered with ill-health during his latter years as Bond scribe - I don't think that helped either.

Willie Garvin

Barbel wrote:

Gardner's probably a better writer than Benson, who sometimes can appear awkward and stilted while Gardner tends to flow, but his engagement with the characters and material is evident and his knowledge of Fleming unmistakable. Gardner grew more disenchanted as his series progressed, and the books reflect that.

Full agreement.I've always contended that John Gardner's best James Bond novels were his Boysie Oakes books,in which he wrote characters of his own creation in plots he'd devised--he didn't have to contend with a variety of editors and representatives of another author's estate dictating what could and couldn't be allowed in each of his stories,along with providing lists of potential titles.

In my opinion,there's a freshness, creativity and vigor in each of the Boysie Oakes novels that's sadly missing from all of Gardner's James Bond continuation books.I believe that John Gardner can be an excellent writer with subjects he really cares about,but he clearly became disillusioned all too quickly with the Bond novels.

Barbel

Willie Garvin wrote:

I've always contended that John Gardner's best James Bond novels were his Boysie Oakes books,in which he wrote characters of his own creation in plots he'd devised--he didn't have to contend with a variety of editors and representatives of another author's estate dictating what could and couldn't be allowed in each of his stories,along with providing lists of potential titles.

In my opinion,there's a freshness, creativity and vigor in each of the Boysie Oakes novels that's sadly missing from all of Gardner's James Bond continuation books.I believe that John Gardner can be an excellent writer with subjects he really cares about,but he clearly became disillusioned all too quickly with the Bond novels.

And total agreement again. In the Boysie books, Gardner's sense of humour is far more to the fore. He is quite confident about taking the Mickey out of Bond- and all the other 60s spies- and isn't above doing the same to himself (Rex Upsdale in Traitor's Exit).
Sir Miles is right, of course; Gardner's health problems (and his wife's sad death) were factors in his latter Bond novels and his ceasing to write them. I read them as they came out, and I can't help thinking that a young reader today coming across them for the first time would note some scenes which reminded him of the later Bond films (eg the airborne fight with Caber at the end of Licence Renewed vis a vis the Bond/Necros battle at the climax of TLD; the burning elevator in For Special Services and the similar scene in AVTAK; etc) and think these scenes were cannibalised for the films in the way that parts of Fleming's LALD turned up in FYEO and LTK.

Silhouette Man

Reading this one at the moment, so this thread is really of great interest to me!

Me Big Chief Brokenclaw. You James Bond. You die!

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