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Joining forces with
American IRS agent Harriet (Harry) Horner, Bond interrogates a young
member of the sect who has been found drugged and catatonic in front
of her parents’ home. It seems that Valentine, revealed to be Scorpius himself, is brainwashing his followers with drugs; he
plans to hire out not only his own brand of terrorism, but an army
of kamikaze followers willing to die for their “beliefs”. |
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John Gardner was
influenced by televangelist Jim Baker's scandal when he wrote this
book.
He planned to use a televangelist figure, but the character grew
into a more private individual. 007 takes an investigatory role in
the first two-thirds of the book, and the result is unusual - almost
like a police procedure mystery. And it's a pleasure!
Yes, I figure that every espionage story has to be some kind of
mystery. I think I wanted to do an investigation of that sort. It
worked.
We go with Bond to
crime scenes, search for clues, use deductive reasoning, and put the
pieces of a puzzle together. It should happen more often in a Bond
novel. The
final third is a bit more predictable, however, as Bond and Harriet
Homer, face Scorpius on his island off the USA. It is really another
DR NO-like scenario at this point - a madman with his own island
fortress which is destroyed from the inside out.
I was also disappointed with the
development of Scorpius himself. We never see why he has such a hold
on people, or witness one of his brainwashing sessions. He becomes
cowardly once he realizes his cause is lost. Nevertheless, SCORPIUS
is exciting and quite a thrilling read. |
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Beginning with NO
DEALS, MR. BOND, Gardner seems to have allowed violence to creep
into the books a bit more than usual. SCORPIUS is very violent -
Harriet Horner meets a particularly grisly death.
I wasn't aware of it, but I can understand it. When we started off
doing the books, I remember the discussion; we thought we'd lose a
lot of the violence. I guess as the years passed, it's found its way
back in. I suppose I was just more aware of violence in general. |
LICENCE TO KILL
(1989)
John Gardner says that he does not consider his novelization of the
1989 film Licence To Kill an official entry in his series.
This book was a completely separate one-time contract. |
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I'm not going to do another*. I was asked to do it. We felt it was
a gesture of goodwill to Cubby. Cubby approached us. Cubby had said
that the title of his next movie was going to be Licence Revoked,
and Glidrose said, "Come on, Cubby, Licence Revoked? That's a little
too close for comfort [to LICENCE RENEWED]" And Cubby said,
"Well, we thought John would like to write the novelization, and
we'd all be one big happy family."
I was about to
move over to the USA anyway. This was a one-off idea, and I thought
it might be fun. It wasn't. I did it, but I wouldn't want to do it
again. I should have known... I started working on it and the
screenplay changed daily. I would get phone calls saying, "John,
scenes 230-235 are out, and new pages are being couriered to you."
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It drove me mad.
I also had to pad out the book a bit. There are huge jumps in the
screenplay, which you can do on screen; but with a book you need to
explain things. So I had to add a lot to explain how Bond got from
here to there, that sort of thing.
I find the LICENCE
TO KILL novelization a pretty good one. It follows the script quite
faithfully, and it moves quickly with the appropriate tension and
suspense. It is still Gardner's Bond that graces the pages of the
story - not Timothy Dalton's characterisation. It could very well
fit in with the rest of the series, save for the fact that it would
be troublesome to bring back Felix Leiter in future books. In the
film, Leiter starts the story with both legs and has one chewed off
by a shark.
However in the
novelization, Gardner has chosen to remain true to Fleming's history
- one of Leiter's legs was eaten by a shark in the novel LIVE AND
LET DIE. And his other leg gets chewed off here!!
I felt that we
should keep it for real. They didn't in the movie. I thought, what
the hell. Let's keep it correct. I suppose Felix Leiter could always
come back in a wheelchair...! |
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*John
Gardner did in fact write another novelization after completing his
thirteenth James Bond novel SEAFIRE in 1995. Based on the screenplay
by Michael France and Jeffrey Caine, GoldenEye was published in
January 1996 by Hodder & Stoughton.
Gardner also wrote one more James Bond novel following the publication
of this article in 007 MAGAZINE #28. COLD was published in hardback in
the UK in May 1996 and a month later in the US where it was re-titled
COLD FALL. This was the first time since 1955, when Ian Fleming's
MOONRAKER became TOO HOT TO HANDLE, that a Bond novel was re-titled
for the US market.
A smaller print run and a binding problem causing the spine to lean,
make COLD one of the rarest of all James Bond first editions.
CONTINUED
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