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When did Gardner jump the shark?

echoecho 007 in New York
in Literary 007 Posts: 6,761
For me, it was when he started choosing boring locations, especially American locations that did not feel exotic at all. Didn't he go to South Carolina in one? For the love of god, why? He was a writer; he could have chosen the most far-flung and exciting locations possible without regard to budget.

Comments

  • AnotherZorinStoogeAnotherZorinStooge Bramhall (Irish)
    edited June 7 Posts: 459
    Which is the one where Bond was fighting a nazi called Tarn and plucking a grusse called Flicka?

    I read it many times as a younger and now bitterly reproach myself doing so.

    It was awful.
  • Reflsin2bourbonsReflsin2bourbons
    edited June 7 Posts: 407
    Well firstly, I don't think the locations were the limiting factor in making the novels bad. Rather, I think the issue was that Bond became less Bond, the plots became more ridiculous and tropes/crutches like the double agent become more and more pronounced.

    Secondly, I think writers do have write about locations that they know and have seen and all the rest. Pre-google maps/earth this would have had to be through tour books but for a character like Bond who is so particular about what he does and consumes, a tour book might not have been enough for things like how the restaurants are or the quality of hotels and the rest. A lot of authors don't even see Google Earth as enough! Gardner, living in the US for a long period, must have just travelled short distances considering the turnaround time on his novels.

    Thirdly, Bond still goes to pretty interesting/new locales in the back half of the Gardener catalogue; San Francisco and Victoria BC (Brokenclaw), Russia (Barbarossa), Puerto Rico (Seafire), as well as the standard European locales like Venice, Berlin, Paris and Zurich.
    AnotherZorinStooge wrote: »
    Which is the one where Bond was fighting a nazi called Tarn and plucking a grusse called Flicka?

    I read it many times as a younger and now bitterly reproach myself doing so.

    It was awful.

    That's Seafire. Probably sits near the bottom of all continuation novels
  • moneyofpropre2moneyofpropre2 France
    Posts: 886
    I think the vanilla icecream complot (added to Leiter's daughter) in the second novel was already a big jump, no ?...
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    edited June 7 Posts: 6,761
    Reflsin2bourbons wrote: »
    Well firstly, I don't think the locations were the limiting factor in making the novels bad. Rather, I think the issue was that Bond became less Bond, the plots became more ridiculous and tropes/crutches like the double agent become more and more pronounced.

    Secondly, I think writers do have write about locations that they know and have seen and all the rest. Pre-google maps/earth this would have had to be through tour books but for a character like Bond who is so particular about what he does and consumes, a tour book might not have been enough for things like how the restaurants are or the quality of hotels and the rest. A lot of authors don't even see Google Earth as enough! Gardner, living in the US for a long period, must have just travelled short distances considering the turnaround time on his novels.

    Thirdly, Bond still goes to pretty interesting/new locales in the back half of the Gardener catalogue; San Francisco and Victoria BC (Brokenclaw), Russia (Barbarossa), Puerto Rico (Seafire), as well as the standard European locales like Venice, Berlin, Paris and Zurich.

    It's interesting because as an teenage reader I'd literally take any of those European destinations over anywhere in the Americas. Bond works best for me when he's in Europe, preferably with Cold War echoes.
    moneyofpropre2 wrote: »
    I think the vanilla icecream complot (added to Leiter's daughter) in the second novel was already a big jump, no ?...

    This is a good point. I haven't read Boysie Oakes or seen the Jill St. John movie but they were essentially hiring a Bond parody writer, no? So it's kind of unsurprising that, after the careful/Glidrose-overseen Licence Renewed, Gardner would pull the series in his own stylistic direction, that is, toward parody. I don't mind For Special Services because it's kind of a bonkers DAF-ish plot. It has an energy that the latter half of his novels lacked for me.
  • AnotherZorinStoogeAnotherZorinStooge Bramhall (Irish)
    Posts: 459
    The poisoned ice-cream plot is intriguing.

    Wonder if Bibi Dahl ever got a scoop
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