It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I doubt I'll ever make it!
Thank you. Hopefully I'll manage it.
As you may know(!) it is one of my favourite James Bond continuation novels. I like the experimental nature of the novel - Bond more in the role of a policeman investigating high-profile assassinations around the world with the eventual target being identified Princess Diana and her two sons on a trip to the newly opened Euro Disney resort in Paris. I picked the username @Dragonpol as a reference to David Dragonpol, the villain of the piece, a serial killer ex-actor who is a master of disguise. Dragonpol one of my favourite villains from the Bond continuation novels and as a small tribute to his creator, the late great thriller writer John Gardner (1926-2007). I chose Dragonpol as my username as it's a Bond reference that is rather subtle and doesn't immediately scream "James Bond" unless you are familiar with the later Gardner Bond continuation novels. So without Mr Gardner penning Never Send Flowers over 30 years ago there would have been no David Dragonpol and hence no @Dragonpol here and I'm sure you'll agree that would have been a pity. ;)
Yes, she was great and also features in SeaFire (1994) and Cold (1996).
I have been meaning to go back and look, but is the buffoon of an MI5 Chief in NSF the same character who briefs Bond about Franco and Murik in the beginning of License Renewed?
One thing I think that Gardner could have dropped from NSF was the backstory on Laura March's creepo serial killer brother, David. He could have simply been mental and committed to a hospital and it would have satisfied the reason for her and Dragonpol's breakup. I felt that Laura being so closely associated with two different serial killers to be a stretch and it also made it seem ridiculous that MI5 could be so incompetent with their vetting and background checks. Unless Gardner was trying to discredit them lol.
An interesting bit of trivia - Gardner stated in an interview that Peter Janson-Smith (I believe) suggested "Never Send Flowers" for the title. You probably know who it was, Dragon.
I agree, it is a great title.
Yes, that's correct, and Gardner also mentions that he wasn't all that keen on it if I remember correctly. I think only about four of the titles they went with in the end were actually Gardner's own. I suppose that is the power of the committee approach taken to Bond continuation novels. Everybody wants their fleck of DNA to be on the finished product, as it were.
I've long said that a good alternative title for Never Send Flowers would have been Slay It With Flowers, after the chapter title in Fleming's You Only Live Twice. In many ways Never Send Flowers is Gardner's version of a You Only Live Twice type of Bond story.