Scorpius (1988) by John Gardner - The Most Prescient James Bond Novel?

Silhouette Man

Do we here at AJB consider John Gardner's Scorpius (1988) to be one of his more prescient James Bond novels? After all, it is the novel which features a suicide bomber plotline, years ahead of Al-Queada suicide bombing insurgency attacks in war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001-present. The Father Valentine front also referred to the televangelism scandals of the late 1980s, as did the character of Professor Joe Butcher in the following year's Licence to Kill (1989) James Bond film (of which Gardner also wrote the novelisation, of course).


What to make of this review by 'Blue Pencil' on You Tube?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCFGRlqrbiw

Interesting nonetheless!

See this John Gardner overview here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA3vaqOdnws

chrisno1

It's snowing and I'm bored.
I agree, I don't think the review is serious, it's hard to listen to anyway as the Bond theme plays incessently in the back ground. He isn't very complimentary. It doesn't show any real understanding of how to critically appraise a novel.
The John Gardner homage by the Scottish guy is interesting but it rather skimps on the detail and leaps back and forward chronologically.
The last one - a supposed 'overview' of all the Bond novels up to 2009 - is crap. The guy misses out YOLT and Pearson's TABOJB all together and talks more about the movies than anything (even here he apparently thinks excerts from Risico were used in TLD - you what?). His sum total of critical comment ammounts to things like 'this one's pretty' good' or 'that's awesome' and 'that sucks'. He doesn't even bother to appraise the Gardner or Benson canon.
Dear Lord, I am bored.....

Silhouette Man

Yes, they're not all that great - "Lord Mills was carrying my child". He was 92 - "he died too young" etc. tells you the level that it's aimed at really. Interesting in an offbeat and bizarre way, nonetheless!

Silhouette Man

I've decided to re-jig this thread to widen its scope as a critical review of John Gardner's prescient James Bond novel Scorpius (1988).

AlphaOmegaSin

The Blue Pencil Reviewer is always pissed as a Ferret in his Videos.

Silhouette Man

AlphaOmegaSin wrote:

The Blue Pencil Reviewer is always pissed as a Ferret in his Videos.

Yes, well he seems to be under the influence of some solid or liquid or other. )

I don't think he really knows very much about James Bond at all. He's pretty harsh on John Gardner and one of his best James Bond novels IMHO.

Silhouette Man

I've found out a wealth of insider information on Scorpius, so I'd really like to hear all of your views on this novel. I plan to write a good review article on this one and its prescient nature; also the background to its development - a story never before told anywhere. It should be interesting as the background to very many of the John Gardner Bond continuation novels is not very well known to us. The more's the pity.

Asp9mm

I really liked Scorpius right up until Bond is captured. And captured pretty badly

He should have kept it based within the UK, made the heroin less gormless, and really kept it in the spirit of the speech M gives to Bond when he asks him to eradicate the *******s from the planet. It is such a hard and gripping subject, and it gets softened by the whole wedding and snake-run nonesense. I like Gardners Bond, although Bond does seem inept quite alot, and Gardner does make contradictions on his characterisation of Bond and his behaviour. But he does create great stories that are hard edged only to be softened and appear fluffy at times. Bond bumbles along from point to point and stumbles into the plot most of the time like a pawn being played rather than an investigator instigating the confrontations.

I'm being harsh as Flemings Bond does the same thing but to a lesser degree. Both IF and JG have appalling tradecraft skills. Bensons too, although you only really notice or even care if you have been in the armed forces or similar. I think that's why, surprisingly, Deaver ranks highly as he seems to know 'real' tradecraft and applies it well in his book, even if it removes the character of Bond further from IF's creation.

I need to revisit Gardners Bond while travelling and without a critical view. That's where they are meant to be read, just like Flemings novels. Although you have the beautiful descriptions with Fleming and the detail that needs to be savoured and absorbed. You don't get that with Gardner, but I do get some way into that with the first two thirds of Scorpius. In depth critique aside, it is a good Bond novel.

Silhouette Man

Asp9mm wrote:

I really liked Scorpius right up until Bond is captured. And captured pretty badly

He should have kept it based within the UK, made the heroin less gormless, and really kept it in the spirit of the speech M gives to Bond when he asks him to eradicate the *******s from the planet. It is such a hard and gripping subject, and it gets softened by the whole wedding and snake-run nonesense. I like Gardners Bond, although Bond does seem inept quite alot, and Gardner does make contradictions on his characterisation of Bond and his behaviour. But he does create great stories that are hard edged only to be softened and appear fluffy at times. Bond bumbles along from point to point and stumbles into the plot most of the time like a pawn being played rather than an investigator instigating the confrontations.

I'm being harsh as Flemings Bond does the same thing but to a lesser degree. Both IF and JG have appalling tradecraft skills. Bensons too, although you only really notice or even care if you have been in the armed forces or similar. I think that's why, surprisingly, Deaver ranks highly as he seems to know 'real' tradecraft and applies it well in his book, even if it removes the character of Bond further from IF's creation.

I need to revisit Gardners Bond while travelling and without a critical view. That's where they are meant to be read, just like Flemings novels. Although you have the beautiful descriptions with Fleming and the detail that needs to be savoured and absorbed. You don't get that with Gardner, but I do get some way into that with the first two thirds of Scorpius. In depth critique aside, it is a good Bond novel.

Thank you for your very interesting views on Scorpius by John Gardner, Aspy. Much appreciated and much of what you say I wholeheartedly agree with. Well done.