Brokenclaw Review
Ice Station 0
Posts: 44MI6 Agent
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?
Comments
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.
Sorry, didn't mean to redirect this to a Gardiner-bash, but I needed to get that off my chest. Apologies.
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.
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.
Also Gardner really suffered with ill-health during his latter years as Bond scribe - I don't think that helped either.
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.
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.
Me Big Chief Brokenclaw. You James Bond. You die!
Doesn't quite work... -{