Licence to Kill

John Gardner's Bond #9

by John Gardner

James Bond's old friend Felix Leiter and his bride are gunned down by a drug lord at their wedding, and Bond swears revenge--no matter what the Secret Service and his enemies do to stop him

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Action, Mystery Thriller, Spy Thriller, Media Tie In

294 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Before coming an author of fiction in the early 1960s, John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all, Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including Maestro, which was the New York Times book of the year. He was also invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, including Licence Renewed and Icebreaker.

Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy, Conan Doyle’s eponymous villain of the Sherlock Holmes series.

Reviews

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was dreading this quite a lot, the immediately preceding Win, Lose or Die took a turn for the worse and my hopes were not high for a novelization of the arguably weakest Bond film ever. Fortunately, Gardner's writing is quite OK by this point in time - unfortunately, the rest was as could be expected...

Even if Gardner obviously took inspiration from the movie Bond already in previous books (not a great idea in my humble opinion) a number of problems of course present themselves when trying to fit one story line in with the other. The first obstacle is that the horrible thing that now happens to Felix Leiter in 1987 was borrowed from the story of Live and Let Die, taking place in 1952. Hm, so how do you cope with that? Well, if you are Gardner - in the worst possible way! Just read the damned thing if you must know... Another idea would be to ignore the book back story (he did it with Milton Krest, dead by rare fish suffocation in 1957, but here very much alive. Well, for a while, anyway).

If you saw the movie, you of course know the story - which is very out of character for Bond - even Gardner's Bond. The end showdown with the gas trailers/hand-held missiles/light aeroplane gets even sillier in print. Recommended for completists only.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gardner takes a stab at rationalising the more ridiculous elements of the movie, only to make them...even more ridiculous.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This time, it's PERSONAL.

007 vs. Drugfinger. 007 vs. Dr. Drugs. 007 from Drugland with love.

When a drug bust goes bad (very bad), James Bond goes rogue. On land, under the sea and in the air. The bad guys are going to wish they just turned themselves in and surrendered.

[Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ehhhhhhh......

My love of 007 and specifically the film LICENCE TO KILL precludes me from ranking this less than 3 stars, but - sadly - there are several really great lines and moments in the film that are inexplicably not in the novel. I say inexplicably because - sure - I understand why certain fantastical elements of the film wouldn't translate into a novel based in reality, yet there are some that crept into the book. Either way, I'm not certain at which point in the script this book was adapted, but there are some misses. I found myself wondering if Gardner would utilize the version of Felix Leiter we know up until now, and - if so - how it would be done, as this would be complicated since events from the movie LICENCE TO KILL were lifted from Fleming's LIVE AND LET DIE. He did. Fair enough. But the way it was done, like it was just deja vu - was disappointing. Also, how do you explain that Felix Leiter's own daughter - who was in a previous Gardner outing - was not at his wedding? Stuff like that, coupled with areas the book was not as good as the film, made this one less enjoyable than some of the others. But if you haven't seen the film, the book is OK on its own. Just not great. The film - 4 stars. The book - 3 stars.

[Richard Hiron · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Gardner’s ninth James Bond novel, Licence to Kill 👩🏽👩🏻‍🦰🦈🤿🤵‍♂️🚛, is an adaptation of the screenplay for the sixteenth official 007 film from 1989, by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum – his first of two for the film franchise.

The first Bond film to receive a novelisation tie-in since Moonraker (1979), it follows the film closely enough without simply being a retread and, like all good film novelisations, adds:-

🎞️ scenes that were cut from the film;

🎭 further character depth; and

🔀 different ways of achieving the outcomes in the plot.

Some scenes help to set up supporting characters with greater explanation without overdoing it (such as President Hector Lopez and Nick Fallon) 👥; introduce new characters who aren’t in the film (such as further conspirators plotting to overthrow the villain, Franz Sanchez) 👮🏽‍♂️; give some of Sanchez’s henchmen backstories 📋; add greater depth to Pam Bouvier 👩🏻‍🦰; give Q an even greater role than he has in the film 🤖; and interestingly tie the story into the continuity of Ian Fleming’s novels whilst still being an adaptation of the film (particularly through the character of Felix Leiter) 🦈.

I particularly like how Gardner world builds the real-life location of Key West 🏝️ and the fictional setting of Isthmus City 🏙️, making them feel like characters in their own right. He also critiques the film’s approach to heavy arms 💥, just as Ian Fleming himself was occasionally corrected on similar matters.

It complements Timothy Dalton’s second outing as 007, rather than replacing it, providing an interesting insight into a film that was unfinished at the time that this was being written and into some plot points that Gardner perhaps felt he needed to expand upon along the way.

In the end, it’s a nice, easy, relaxing read, and a must-read for fans of Bond films and 1980s films!

[Tomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Löytyi mökin hyllystä, luulin Ian Flemingin kirjoittamaksi ennen kuin päätin lukea. Olikin leffan pohjalta tehty filmatisointi. Aika pitkälti sellainen mitä voisi olettaakin, alussa melkein jopa kiinnostavaa tai ainakin toimivaa Jack Reacher -tyyppistä menoa. Sitten perusbondia, mutta kirjana.

[Neil Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

License to kill is one of the bond films that I know the least so reading the novelisation felt more like a new story at times.

I will however watch the film again soon as the book was a story I enjoyed so will give the film and Dalton another chance.

It also will encourage me to read more novelisations from the newer bond films.

[Ira Livingston · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before the movie S.P.E.C.T.R.E. came out I thought, this was one of the worst films of the Bond cannon. The concept was great that James Bond would throw away everything he's become to begin the single task of simple revenge.

Where could you go wrong? Well, in Licence to Kill, evidently everywhere, even Gardner, doesn't seem to want to aid this fact in the novelization. Sanchez seems a shallow, single minded hoodlum, when compared to the other great masterminds that have populated the Bond stories.

He's a simple Central American drug lord bent on expanding his dealership into the Pacific and Asian markets, and thus the world. Not quite the Blofeld, Goldfinger, Drax, or Dr. No. They were truly evil visionaries within the series.

Another problem I had was that Gardner even destroys his own Bond Cannon, by ignoring the fact that he gave Felix a daughter in For Special Services. So where does that really put this book within the Bond timeline?

And with that gross mistake, one realizes that Gardner's Bond really doesn't compare with Fleming. He's becoming more shallow with each volume, that he is more Super Heroic than the Spy. And it has made me reanalyze the entire series, wishing that he would try to imitate Fleming more.

Don't get me wrong, Gardner does have some great Bond novels, but they seem to get fewer and farther apart. So here is my take on the series so far, which you might notice is different than my previous ranking. If you really want to read Bond, look to Fleming first, followed by Colonel Sun, afterward you could probably leave the rest, and turn to the Connery films followed by Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service followed by Daniel Craig minus the SPECTRE film (which really botched the story cannon, by saying Blofeld was really Bond's step-brother, and erases Tracy Bond (James' only wife) replacing her with Vesper Lynn of Casino Royale. Then return to Roger Moore who becomes more of a gadget enhanced Super spy of Gardner's version.

Regarding this book, I would avoid if possible unless you are truly a diehard, and then be prepared to be disappointed.

As I mentioned before, I'm lowering Gardner's books because the more I read his James Bond the more I really yearn for Fleming to come back from the dead and correct what he's done to the series.

Overall rating of book series:
1 - Casino Royale / On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2 - Goldfinger
3 - From Russia with Love
4 - Live and Let Die / For Special Services / Scorpius
5 - Diamonds are Forever / Dr. No / License Renewed
6 - Moonraker / Icebreaker
7 - Nobody Lives Forever
8 - Thunderball
9 - Colonel Sun
10 - You Only Live Twice / No Deals, Mr. Bond
11 - James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me (Wood)
12 - For Your Eyes Only / Octopussy & The Living Daylights
13 - The Man with the Golden Gun
14 - The Spy Who Loved Me
15 - Win, Lose or Die
16 - James Bond and Moonraker (Wood)
17 - Role of Honor
18 - Licence to Kill

[David Snape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely too basic in terms of the book and all of that, maybe actually seeing the film was the better option

[Dustin Dye · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Licence to Kill novelization follows the movie fairly closely, for better or worse. The movie had an exciting premise--Bond leaving the service to go on a personal vendetta. But it gets bogged down with a "plot" involving the CIA tracking down Franz Sanchez, the same drug trafficker as Bond. Sanchez has some kind of deal in the works with “the Orientals,” and the subplot oddly mixes every Asian stereotype into a story about a Latin drug lord. One of the Orientals, Kwang, is an undercover Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau agent, precipitating an attack by some of the Hong Kong ninjas. The scheme also involves a bizarre religious sect.

I can't really fault Gardner with the story this time around since he had nothing to do with it. He was writing on spec. I can fault him for his utter lack of style. The book reads like he is trying to get this out of the way as quickly as possible.

Of course the most glaringly stupid of Gardner's decisions was his attempt to create continuity with his novelization and the Bond book series, specifically by having Felix Leiter getting fed to a shark AGAIN! (This plot point occurred in the Fleming novel Live and Let Die, but not its movie version.) Gardner goes out of his way to highlight what an unlikely coincidence this is. He should have pretended the scene in Live and Let Die had never happened and proceeded as the script was written. No one really expects continuity in the Bond universe as no one really thinks each actor who portrays Bond is actually playing the same character. The introduction of each new actor is sort of a soft reboot, and each actor's films can be seen as its own little series. The fans accept this as long as the backstory and certain characteristics remain constant. The same can basically be said for each author's Bond series. Gardner seems to have no freedom in the direction of the novels, and he especially has few Fs to give in this novelization.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts as a joyous celebration - the wedding of his old friend Felix Leiter - becomes a nightmare which takes James Bond on a path of revenge against the evil billionaire drug lord Franz Sanchez. 007 is prepared to ignore Secret Service orders and even sacrifice his licence to kill to avenge his enemies. This novelisation (the first of two by the then-current James Bond writer, John Gardner, who also had fourteen original 007 novels to his name) sticks fairly close to the film screenplay (by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum) but pads out certain elements and gives us a little more backstory to characters like Pam, the CIA pilot and Heller, the ex-CIA security chief. One amusing aspect is that to make this fit into the official timeline, it made explaining Felix’s injuries (the sequence where he’s attacked by the shark came from “Live & Let Die”) more difficult than it should have been - “how could the same thing happen to a man?” asks Bond a few times and even the chapter is called “Lightning Sometimes Strikes Twice”. Gardner’s Bond is more amusing than Timothy Dalton made him (though all of the films one-liners make an appearance) but not quite as tough, interestingly and he seems to recoil in horror at a few things. I enjoyed it, it had a good pace, and it was good fun - even if it cut short the fuel tanker sequence, which was so gloriously mounted in the film. If you’re a Bond fan in general, or of this particular film (much under-rated, in my opinion), then you’ll enjoy this novelisation. Recommended.

[Cosmic Dwellings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a "sequel", as stated, to John Gardner's first Bond continuation novel "Licence Renewed", for it is the novelisation of the 1989 movie of the same name. However, it's an exciting and well-paced representation of the movie and certainly one of my Gardner favourites. And, if like me, you enjoyed this change of pace for the celluloid Bond franchise back in the day, you'll certainly like reading it too!

[David]

It's a film novelization. Gardner carefully restores some of the Fleming continuity --the film being drawn from elements of Live and Let Die and "The Hildebrand Rarity," with other components stirred in. But, on the whole, it is what it is: another bit of revenue attached to the film.

[Cheris Hodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much better than the movie.

[Kevin Orrman-Rossiter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the estate of Ian Fleming should have left James Bond alone. This "novel based on the screen-play" demonstrated adequately that Ian Fleming, and only he, had the measure of James Bond.

[Richard Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

NB: This review originally appeared on The Reel Bits as part of my 007 Case Files column. A full and annotated version can be found there. Minor spoilers ahead, but my assumption is you had at least seen the film.

LICENCE TO KILL was the sixteenth James Bond film in the Eon Productions series, but the first not to use one of the titles from Fleming’s books. The departures didn’t end there. Timothy Dalton’s second (and last) outing as 007 was part of a trend towards a grittier spy thriller, which was a perfect match for the increasingly violent John Gardner novels of the official book series.

Based on the script by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum, if you’ve seen the film, then the plot is almost identical. Bond is suspended from MI6 when he sets out in pursuit of Franz Sanchez (portrayed by Robert Davi on screen), the drug lord responsible for an attack on Felix Leiter’s wedding. With the bride dead and Leiter severely wounded, Bond teams up with Pam Bouvier (played in the film by Carey Lowell), a pilot and DEA informant, to get his man.

Gardner’s ninth Bond novel is something of an anomaly, being both a novelisation of the film and a continuation of his existing work. As such, it immediately runs into a few problems. In Fleming’s original Live and Let Die, Leiter loses several limbs when he is lowered into a waters filled with live sharks. The film universe didn’t use this plot point until director John Glen’s LICENCE TO KILL.

This means that the novelisation takes place in an alternate reality, largely regarded as occurring sometime prior to earning a Captain’s rank in Win, Lose or Die. Pulling in elements from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Fleming’s short story The Hildebrand Rarity — such as the villainous Krest and his stingrays — it also means poor Felix is canonically attacked for a second time by sharks. We’ve heard of being once bitten twice shy, but talk about disagreeing with things that can’t stop eating him.

There’s other oddities too. In Gardner’s books, the Q Branch was headed up by Ann Reilly (reductively title Q’ute by the chauvinistic service). Yet a subplot in which Q turns up to provide aid as Bond’s ‘uncle’ is clearly based on Desmond Llewelyn’s portrayal of the ‘Major Boothroyd’ character. Gardner does a reasonable job of balancing the worlds, even if some of the quips are lighter in tone that his other novels.

Originally marketed as Licence Revoked, a combination of a title change and budgetary issues partially account for the film’s disappointing returns. Yet Gardner doesn’t have to worry about budgets or building sets, allowing him to blow up planes and bodies with impunity. Yes, the infamous supervillain torture device of a decompression chamber is in the book as well, and Gardner seems to delight in the sticky details of the literally mind-blowing scene.

Of course, Gardner’s presence doesn’t improve everything. It might be 1989, and Bouvier is one of the more consciously progressive female counterparts to Bond, but we’re still a long way from gender equity. Gardner never seemed to have got past his loving description of nipples, something he has in common with Christopher Wood (who coincidentally wrote the last novelisation in the series, James Bond and Moonraker). You wouldn’t know it from the film, or even the shooting script, but Gardner ensures we are aware that Talisa Soto as Lupe Lamora had “nipples erect as though the terror and violence aroused her.” At other times, Gardner just gets bogged down in his own prose. One woman is a “sight for eyes infected by the most severe conjunctivitis.” Most of us would have just said ‘sore eyes.’

There was another important adaptation of LICENCE TO KILL, a 44-page comic book version from writer and artist Mike Grell (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters). Unlike the book’s cover, you won’t find anybody looking like Dalton in Grell’s line art, as the actor declined to have his image licenced out. Grell would go on to do several James Bond comics, including Permission to Die. Like Gardner’s novel, it follows the plot fairly closely, but takes its own liberties given the the abbreviated length.

It would take another six novels and seven years before the novelisations would return with Gardner’s version of Goldeneye, while Raymond Benson would adapt the rest of the Pierce Brosnan scripts. It’s a tradition that’s sadly gone by the wayside in the Daniel Craig era. Still, if No Time to Die proved anything, it’s that no matter who plays Felix Leiter, he’s doomed.

James Bond will return…in Brokenclaw.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahead of the release of No Time to Die in November 2020, I've been re-reading all of Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels, and re-watching all 24 Bond films. I've waded through the John Gardner continuation novels before and will pick up a few of them again in the course of this exercise. But not all of them. This is because in my view the Gardner Bonds are, with the exception of his debut "Licence Renewed", predictable and repetitive to the point of being tiresome (and I'm fully aware the Bond films are formulaic by their nature, but they are so much more entertaining).

In re-reading the originals, I've been pleasantly surprised at just how well Ian Fleming wrote and plotted the original novels. Gardner is not close to being in the same league. I can't, for example, imagine Ian Fleming ever writing that 007's body "felt like it had gone three rounds with Frank Bruno". Really? Where Fleming delighted in immersing his readers in the finer things, places and sensations in life with vivid scene setting and literary flair, Gardner's prose is very ordinary. It is joyless and at times even contemptuous, as if he disdains his audience for deigning to read a James Bond novel at all.

For me, Licence to Kill is one of the best James Bond movies: ahead of its time in terms of realism (just look at the Daniel Craig era 20 years later) and with a protagonist very much in the mould of the hard-edged 007 of the original Ian Fleming novels. Where James Bond's creator envisioned him as a "blunt instrument", John Gardner in "Licence to Kill" treats him as a bland instrument, an empty suit moving reluctantly from scene to scene.

And so to this book. Comparisons with the movie are in this case unavoidable, given that it is a straight novelisation. I appreciate that Gardner's creative licence (to kill...) may have been restrained as a result of it being a movie tie-in. On one view that should have meant that this was simply an exercise in padding out what is in my opinion a slick, engaging motion picture screenplay. Mr Gardner, however, somehow contrives to remove most of the entertainment and suspense, to the extent - inexplicably - of downgrading some of the film's best lines with mediocre rewrites. His worst offence is trying to tie the literary Bond's "universe" into the movie Bond's "universe". This (spoiler alert!) turns the major plot device of the movie - the villain arranging for a shark to maim 007's ally and friend Felix Leiter - into an absolute nonsense in the book. As Bond fans will know, Leiter being attacked by a shark was an event penned by Fleming originally in the book "Live and Let Die". Instead of just accepting that "Book Bond" and "Movie Bond" have gone down very different paths (even the different Movie Bonds themselves are not seriously taken to be continuous in all aspects!), Gardner contorts everything by trying to tie it all together. It does not work, and results in us having to accept that the shark in this novel maimed Felix Leiter's already-previously-maimed-by-a-shark body: "Bond was struggling for control. It was almost impossible that this kind of thing could happen to a man a second time". I'll say! Bond then tries to explain away the absurd by remarking, "...lightning isn't supposed to strike twice. My guess is that they didn't know about his arm and leg. The shark, or sharks, chewed up the artificial limbs and just sliced the flesh off the stumps."

Gardner also seems to spite the movie scriptwriters for the sake of it, criticising character names, Bond's use of a Walther PPK, and going to excessive lengths to prove how, from a technical standpoint, the movie's plot line involving Stinger missiles could not possibly have involved actual Stinger missiles. At least where Fleming involves the readers in technical descriptions, it's in Bond's "voice" and doesn't feel patronising.

This a frustrating novel. It's getting three stars purely because the film is so good. As another reviewer has noted, perhaps best marking this one as for die-hard James Bond fans or "completists" only. Luckily, I humbly regard myself as both!

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews and bookish posts visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

License to Kill by James Gardner is a novelization of the 1989 James Bond movie, starring Timothy Dalton as agent 007. Mr. Gardner has been writing the Bond novels during the movie’s production.Disobeying M’s orders, James Bond relinquishes his license to kill to take revenge. His best friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter has been killed by Sanchez, a drug baron.

Pam Bouvier, a CIA pilot who also happens to be a beautiful woman, as is tradition in Bond movies, flies him to Franz Sanchez’s South American headquarters disguised a disgruntled hit-man. Sanchez hires Bond, but you don’t get to run a drug empire by being stupid and Bond finds himself fighting for his life… again.

The movie itself had several “Bond firsts”, besides being the first Bond movie not to be titled after an Ian Fleming work and shot completely outside of England. The production also marked the end of an era for screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Maurice Binder whose title designs are now legendary, and the last one produced by Albert R. Broccoli – all who passed away.

The story line features some elements from Ian Fleming’s works, despite not using the title. Prominently there are elements from Live and Let Die, as well as The Hildebrand Rarity, as short story published in For Your Eyes Only.

As a book, License to Kill by James Gardner is not bad at all. I’m not sure when the overlap between the script/production and the novel happened, but some of the better action pieces are missing. The novel attempts to be loyal to the movie and expand on scenes which might have stayed on the cutting room floor.

This book is marketed as part of the John Gardner’s Bond series, but it isn’t. This is a novelization of the movie, and it does a fine job at it without all the elements Gardner put in his previous books. That’s not to say Gardner didn’t put in some hints that we don’t know the whole picture, but the novel is still loyal to the motion picture and not the literary Bond universe.

Gardner, who’s an excellent wordsmith, made the novel more violent than the movie. Sometimes letting your mind do the thinking instead of being shown has much more impact.

I thought the book was a very good companion to the movie, which is what it was intended to be. John Gardner focuses on realistic action scenes, vehicles and weapons instead of weaving it into the literary universe he created.

[Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favourite films and yet for some reason despite buying it when the film came out in 1989 I've never read this novelization before.

It benefited from being written by a good writer and having a really good plot and characters. Probably one of the better novelization as a result - it almost fits into Gardner's own series written in parallel at the same time. Though not quite. For me this is more Fleming and thus better.

Interesting to note where it's different to the film, which I know really well. I'm guessing it was based on an earlier draft and thus some of the lines are obviously different as they'll be adapted during the shoot and final edit.

One of the things that we most interesting was that in the book Leiter has two colleagues, one white and one black who is a 'sideman' with no lines. In the film there is just one character - who has all the lines - and is black. At first I thought that Gardner wanted that character to be white (it is sexist in places in its description of women, but not necessarily racist), but realised that he was probably working from the script and whilst filming they realised they didn't need two characters when one would do. There's a couple of other moments. After the scenes on the wavekrest Bond goes to a friend's house to keep low and then acquires the boat he takes to the barrelhead bar. A nice bit of back story. Was this Gardner's (works in a novel) or cut from the film? Guess we'll never know, unless we ask Michael G Wilson.

But the action scenes work very well in novel form, three extra back story is welcome and the boys in the film that don't work still don't work (the unbelievable kiss after the fight at the barrelhead with its 'who don't you wait until you're asked' foreshadowing #metoo).

Still as it's so close to Fleming, one of the best Gardner bond books.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novelization of the movie. The movie left so little impression on me that I can only recognize two scenes in the book, so it was like reading something new. And something good.

James Bond goes to his good friend Felix Leiter's wedding. Gardner does a good job in reconciling the movie with the cannon book series, and part of this is that if Felix shows up, Felix gets messed up. It happens again at the hands of a Central American drug lord and Bond goes on a vendetta against him. Which results in Bond being exited from the Secret Service yet again. Bond does a lot of swimming, some sneaking around, kills some dudes, does a bunch of wholesale destruction, and gets elbow deep in maggots. He also steals $5 million dollars. He uses that money to go gambling in the drug lord's casino and get his attention so that he will hire Bond as a freelance hitman. Not everything goes as planned.

Bond is rougher in this book than he has been lately. He roughs up a couple of hot chicks, and is all in on killing Mr. Drug Lord. A rather high number of his coworkers get offed, and he is involved in some truly ridiculous aerobatics. Since it's based on an action movie it's all action action action, one scene after another. James Bond gets blowed up, beat up, loved up, and disguises himself as a fish. Also, the pun meter pegs out on the high end.

I usually don't expect much from novels made from movies, but this one made for a pretty good Bond book.

[John A. Hopkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The film is an ‘original’ story, although it borrows from the original “Live and Let Die” to provide an early horror scene involving Leiter, and for the smuggling apparatus. I rather like the film, and as such the book, with a caveat outlined below. In fact, I like both Dalton outings, but that’s another discussion.
We start in Florida – Bond is best man for Felix Leiter, long term friend and colleague. Leiter, now with the DEA is chasing Franz Sanchez, the world’s leading drug lord, and Bond assists in catching the man. However, he quickly escapes and takes revenge on Leiter. Bond refuses to leave the US, and his licence to kill is revoked by a furious M. On his own, Bond plots revenge. Pam Bouvier is an interesting change to the usual Bond girl – a capable agent in her own right who saves Bond early and is a more than useful partner vs. arm candy.
One issue I have is that the film used a bit of the original “Live and Let Die” book, and this is largely duplicated here. Mr. Gardner does his best to work around it, but I don’t think that bit of the story works. There is also a character from a Fleming short story who appears to have been resurrected! Overall, it’s a bit of a bendy timeline.
However, the story itself is fine, and as I say, I like the film more than some. A quick holiday read.

[Clay D. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nederlandse vertaling van de novelization van de film. Voor het eerst gedeeltelijk gelezen toen de film uitkwam in 1989. Maar het zat niet lekker dus mee gestopt.
Nu volledig uitgelezen en, tja, vrij bizarre uitwerking.
Allereerst is de vertaling oer Hollands wat geen aanwinst is. Op geen enkel moment geloof je dat die woorden uit de mond van Bond komen. Daarnaast voegt de schrijver soms hele passages die niet in de film zitten toe, of rekt hij scenes door deze langer te laten duren dan nodig. Op geen enkel moment zijn de toevoegingen nuttig. Bovendien slaagt de auteur erin alle nuances die in de film zitten, volledig te missen in de verwoordingen hoe hij de scenes beschrijft, grotendeels zijn ze eerder een steriele analyse van wat er op het scherm gebeurt. Veel van de one liners "Switch the bloody machine off!" "Bless your heart" worden zelfs niet vermeld.
Ook hoe Sanchez wordt neergezet is belabberd en heeft geen enkele gravitas. De "Launder it " oneliner wordt hier vertaald als "Laat het schoonmaken" ivp iets te gebruiken als "Witwassen". Bovendien wordt de scene gerekt met extra dialoog wat de punchline van de scene teniet doet.
Staat dus ver van goede literatuur, maar blijft interessant om te zien hoe sterk je soms de bal kan mis slaan.

[David Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this because it's a James Bond book, promising an evening of adventure, by John Gardner, who I confess I imagined to be the same John Gardner who wrote "October Light", a great American novel. Alas, just this minute, Google revealed that "October Light" is by John Champlin Gardner, and the James Bond books by John Edmund Gardner. A similar confusion caused Kenneth Millar to change pseudonyms from John Ross MacDonald to Ross MacDonald, thus avoiding confusion with John D. MacDonald.

Anyway, this book is a competent print rendering of among the weaker Bond films. I suppose Gardner's other Bond books are better, being freed from the screenplay. Ian Fleming's Bond is deeper and weirder than the superficial movie character on view here.

[Kost As · Rating 3 out of 5]

Οκ...

Εδώ ο κ. Gardner, αν δεν κάνω λάθος, μάς διασκεύασε σε μορφή βιβλίου την κινηματογραφική πλοκή της ομότιτλης ταινίας. Το αποτέλεσμα είναι μάλλον απογοητευτικό... Δε θα μπω σε λεπτομέρειες, καθώς μπορεί να φανερώσω σπόιλερς χωρίς να το καταλάβω, αλλά η αλήθεια είναι ότι δυσκολεύομαι να αποφασίσω να ξεκινήσω το επόμενο βιβλίο της σειράς. Παρόλα αυτά, του έδωσα 3 αστεράκια, γιατί πάντα ο Bond είναι Bond - αν ο ήρωας του βιβλίου είχε άλλο όνομα, πχ Μάθιου ΜακΚόναχιου ξέρω γω, θα είχε πέσει στα 2 αστεράκια, εξηγούμαι για να μην παρεξηγούμαι που μας έλεγαν και στο στρατό - και επίσης το βιβλίο διαθέτει ρυθμό και δράση, κάτι το οποίο το καθιστά αρκετά ευανάγνωστο!

Καρίμ Αμπντάλλα, πάμε γι' άλλα!

[Blake Plummer · Rating 2 out of 5]

40th and final book this year. Great movie, fine book. Where the other Bond novelizations so far were interesting reads because they were clearly early drafts of the screenplay, this was just the movie with a few little extra things here and there. So instead of “Ah interesting! That’s different!” reactions, deeper characterization thanks to internal monologues and backstories, and different third acts, I struggled to get through this because it’s the movie beat for beat but worse. Everyone here is written worse than in the screenplay. Couldn’t stop rolling my eyes. And Bond is too cheeky in this! And that won’t stand. What a shame

[Jeff Mayo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Gardner's attempt at the novelization of the movie of the same name. He'd hit some high and low points in the series at this point, but none of the 8 previous James Bond novels by Gardner had been optioned for a movie. He would later do a novelization for GoldenEye, but so far has not had any of his 14 original Bond novels made into a movie. As Bond films go, this one was about average. Gardner did a good job of turning an average 2 hour and 13 minute movie into 300 pages. He tries to clean up a few timeline inconsistencies along the way, and mostly succeeds, if that continuity even matters, now that the Daniel Craig movies have been retro'd into the timeline.

[Tony Drummond · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have not seen the film this is probably a 3-4 star book. However, as most people will have seen the movie, this is no more than 3 stars.

There are a few additional scenes but on the whole this sticks to both the plot and narrative of the film. The problem is that although we get more action scenes than the average Gardner Bond novel, we know how Bond gets out of the various tightspots he finds himself in and this loses any sense of tension or suspense.

There are also quite a few Americanisms which jar coming from the mouths of Bond and Q.

[Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

An uneven and somewhat clunky effort from Gardner who obviously was a bit hog-tied trying to adapt the screenplay. The story gets bogged down with flashes of misguided humor and stagnant one-liners that work in the cheesy films, but feel out of place here. Gardner is much better when left to his own devices, imho.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alas, I just really don't like Gardner's Bond novels. Including those based on someone else's screenplay, evidently. Plenty of action, certainly, but some of the action is quite silly, in a Hollywood sort of way. I feel kinda bad for Timothy Dalton.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A faithful adaptation, though in the streaming age, it's hard to imagine much utility in these novelizations that stay so close to the original material. I think the average Bond fan is better off reading the Fleming novels if only because the film adaptations were so liberal with those texts.