Gardners overuse of Plot Devices
AlphaOmegaSin
EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
Reading through the Gardner Novels, you cannot help but Notice that he overuses a lot of his own Plot Devices. Double Agents, Double Crossing and the like. Was he under Restrictions from Gildrose Publications on what he could put into each Book?
1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
Comments
and almost more Alistair MacLean in style, with double agents etc
Rather than Fleming's style.
I want to read all the gardners bonds.
If No Deals Mr Bond reads like a hitchcock, I'm excited.
Least. A different draft of the story idea.
slightly older Connery in it.
The greatest restrictions were those of his limited imagination. I got so sick of all those double-crosses and triple-crosses (devices rarely used by Fleming). Gardner was never really inspired by Bond. At his best, his Bond books are okay hack-work. As Raymond Benson rightly said, Fleming is a meal at Sardi's, while Gardner is a burger at McDonald's.
Benson did indeed say that. And then produced his own books which were no more than dog food.
And then did some serious back peddling on his criticism of Gardner's writing.
You are, of course, right, though. Boysie Oakes got Gardner's creative juices flowing (at least the early books). Bond was pretty much just about paying the rent and living a good life.
That's certainly true. After making it through Benson's first book I didn't have the heart to read the rest. He was wrong to walk back his criticisms of Gardner though. You don't need to be a great or even good writer to know if a book reads badly.
Indeed. The opinion was Benson's first opinion of Gardner's work, his belief, and he should have stuck to it.
I think he only recanted his words once he'd got the job himself either merely to be diplomatic or because he realised just how hard a job he'd taken on for which he had little aptitude.
That's true...he also realised the constraints placed on a Bond author at that time and how difficult it was trying to please the publishers and Glidrose...it was a very tight framework within which he had to work...and that wasn't conducive to creative writing....at all....