What do you think?
Rate this book
James Bond - Extended Series #19
License Renewed
In License Renewed, the most famous secret agent in the world pits his nerve and cunning against a dangerously deranged opponent � one prepared to sacrifice most of the Western world to prove that only he can make it safe from accidental holocaust. As the seconds tick away on the valued Rolex Oyster Perpetual, the world comes nearer this ironic annihilation; Bond comes nearer a frightful death and ever nearer Miss Lavender Peacock.
223 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1981
114 people are currently reading
2,359 people want to read
About the author
John Gardner
113Ìýbooks167ÌýfollowersBefore 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews
April 20, 2022
I've lost count of how many times I've read Ian Fleming's James Bond stories, but it's rare that I reread Bond novels by other authors. So, revisiting this one was a very pleasant surprise.
Way back in 1981 I travelled to London for a day out & to buy the new James Bond novel by John Gardner. I was 15 years old & having been a Bond fan for the last five years I was very excited to see the return of 007 in print.
So, here I am at the age 0f 57, treading some very old ground. Although John Gardner was the author of some anti-Bond novels in the 1960s, featuring spy Boysie Oakes, this 1981 novel shows a fare amount of respect for Fleming's creation. There are many references to Bond's past, and a strange echo of the future when Gardner mentions a possible accident at a nuclear power station five years before the Chernobyl disaster took place. It's also interesting to note some of the gadgets Gardner put into 007's Saab 900 Turbo later appeared in Bond's BMW in the film Tomorrow Never Dies.
While Gardner's Bond novels certainly deteriorated over the years at least his first was an honourable entry in the series.
Way back in 1981 I travelled to London for a day out & to buy the new James Bond novel by John Gardner. I was 15 years old & having been a Bond fan for the last five years I was very excited to see the return of 007 in print.
So, here I am at the age 0f 57, treading some very old ground. Although John Gardner was the author of some anti-Bond novels in the 1960s, featuring spy Boysie Oakes, this 1981 novel shows a fare amount of respect for Fleming's creation. There are many references to Bond's past, and a strange echo of the future when Gardner mentions a possible accident at a nuclear power station five years before the Chernobyl disaster took place. It's also interesting to note some of the gadgets Gardner put into 007's Saab 900 Turbo later appeared in Bond's BMW in the film Tomorrow Never Dies.
While Gardner's Bond novels certainly deteriorated over the years at least his first was an honourable entry in the series.
August 21, 2010
3.0 to 3.5 stars. I remember reading this when I was around 13 and a big James Bond fan. This was the first original Bond story I ever read and the first by John Gardner (who went on to write 12 or 13 more). A good, solid story the captures the essence of Bond while updating his outlook to be more in line with modern thinking.
July 28, 2012
* The first Gardner Bond book.
* In his Acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, Gardner tells us that all of the "hardware" used by Bond in the book is genuine and available one way or another. He then goes on to tell us that that used by Bond's adversary, Anton Murik, is not. This, I think, sets a broader tone, right at the outset: Gardner's books are going to try to tread a middle ground between Fleming's Bond and Movie Bond. It's a dicey proposition.
* But first, from Gardner himself: "I described to the Gildrose Board how I wanted to put Bond to sleep where Fleming had left him in the sixties, waking him up now in the 80s having made sure he had not aged, but had accumulated modern thinking on the question of Intelligence and Security matters. Most of all I wanted him to have operational know-how: the reality of correct tradecraft and modern gee-whiz technology." Which would seem to leave a gap of about 16 years (from The Man With the Golden Gun [1965] to License Renewed [1981]). It isn't clear from this book (or the quotation above) how Gardner handles the gap, but Wikipedia opines that, "due to the timeframe change," the Gardner series "suggests" that Bond's earlier adventures took place not in the 50s and 60s, but rather in the 60s and 70s. Can it be that Gardner, during the course of 14 novels, never spells this out?
* This, of course, is another thing: 14 novels. More even than Fleming wrote. And starting with a character in his very late thirties, at best. (Indeed, Bond is already noting, in this book, a few gray hairs.) Just how old is he going to get?
* Well, what were the alternatives? "Period" novels from only a decade and a half earlier? Time travel? What else could Gardner do? I'll tell you. He could have created a new Bond; that is, a completely separate series with the character but not the history of Fleming's books. License Renewed could have become License Granted, and away we'd go with a young James Bond and nothing but blue skies ahead.
* But he didn't, so we have what we have, and comparisons between the two, instead of being largely moot, are relevant. And based on this first book, those comparisons do not redound to Gardner's credit.
* Not that it's a bad book; it isn't. It is, however, a shade tentative, which we might expect, and a bit slack, which we wouldn't. Gardner's prose isn't as tight as Fleming's, and neither is Bond. Oh, he's plenty tough, but he's not as hardboiled.
* At the same time, and this brings me back to where I started, Bond here tips toward the superman of the movies. M's line that if there's anyone who can pull off his latest mission, it's Bond, smacks more of the movies than Fleming's books. Bond himself seems to have fewer doubts about his superiority.
* Then there's that "gee-whiz technology" that Gardner mentions. Bond is here kitted out with a great deal of hardware--on his person, in his luggage, and in his specially modified Saab. What Gardner doesn't understand is that, to some extent, technology makes the man. The Bond of all this gimcrackery isn't the old-fashioned Bond of the novels (even if, at the time, he was cutting-edge). Finding him curled up on his comfy Sleepcentre bed, intently listening in to one of Murik's clandestine meetings on his fancy surveillance hardware is, I'm afraid, not the modern equivalent of Bond peering at Russians through a periscope in a dank, rat-infested tunnel beneath the streets of Istanbul. Bond has become the oxymoron of the films: soft, yet somehow infinitely superior to his enemies.
* Still, in terms of the plot, it isn't technology that kills credibility here, it's the plan itself. I won't say more than that it involves the simultaneous assault on several nuclear power plants. I don't need to say more. It's the same as saying that Goldfinger's plan was to rob Fort Knox. It's ridiculous, unworkable, and never believable.
* But I liked the book. Go figure. I didn't like it a lot (for these and other reasons), but I found it enjoyable. Partly, I suppose, for the fun of comparing it to Fleming's work. And partly because of Fleming's genius: after all, he created a character so beloved that this second series by another author makes sense, a character so transcendent that not even the film industry could kill him.
* In his Acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, Gardner tells us that all of the "hardware" used by Bond in the book is genuine and available one way or another. He then goes on to tell us that that used by Bond's adversary, Anton Murik, is not. This, I think, sets a broader tone, right at the outset: Gardner's books are going to try to tread a middle ground between Fleming's Bond and Movie Bond. It's a dicey proposition.
* But first, from Gardner himself: "I described to the Gildrose Board how I wanted to put Bond to sleep where Fleming had left him in the sixties, waking him up now in the 80s having made sure he had not aged, but had accumulated modern thinking on the question of Intelligence and Security matters. Most of all I wanted him to have operational know-how: the reality of correct tradecraft and modern gee-whiz technology." Which would seem to leave a gap of about 16 years (from The Man With the Golden Gun [1965] to License Renewed [1981]). It isn't clear from this book (or the quotation above) how Gardner handles the gap, but Wikipedia opines that, "due to the timeframe change," the Gardner series "suggests" that Bond's earlier adventures took place not in the 50s and 60s, but rather in the 60s and 70s. Can it be that Gardner, during the course of 14 novels, never spells this out?
* This, of course, is another thing: 14 novels. More even than Fleming wrote. And starting with a character in his very late thirties, at best. (Indeed, Bond is already noting, in this book, a few gray hairs.) Just how old is he going to get?
* Well, what were the alternatives? "Period" novels from only a decade and a half earlier? Time travel? What else could Gardner do? I'll tell you. He could have created a new Bond; that is, a completely separate series with the character but not the history of Fleming's books. License Renewed could have become License Granted, and away we'd go with a young James Bond and nothing but blue skies ahead.
* But he didn't, so we have what we have, and comparisons between the two, instead of being largely moot, are relevant. And based on this first book, those comparisons do not redound to Gardner's credit.
* Not that it's a bad book; it isn't. It is, however, a shade tentative, which we might expect, and a bit slack, which we wouldn't. Gardner's prose isn't as tight as Fleming's, and neither is Bond. Oh, he's plenty tough, but he's not as hardboiled.
* At the same time, and this brings me back to where I started, Bond here tips toward the superman of the movies. M's line that if there's anyone who can pull off his latest mission, it's Bond, smacks more of the movies than Fleming's books. Bond himself seems to have fewer doubts about his superiority.
* Then there's that "gee-whiz technology" that Gardner mentions. Bond is here kitted out with a great deal of hardware--on his person, in his luggage, and in his specially modified Saab. What Gardner doesn't understand is that, to some extent, technology makes the man. The Bond of all this gimcrackery isn't the old-fashioned Bond of the novels (even if, at the time, he was cutting-edge). Finding him curled up on his comfy Sleepcentre bed, intently listening in to one of Murik's clandestine meetings on his fancy surveillance hardware is, I'm afraid, not the modern equivalent of Bond peering at Russians through a periscope in a dank, rat-infested tunnel beneath the streets of Istanbul. Bond has become the oxymoron of the films: soft, yet somehow infinitely superior to his enemies.
* Still, in terms of the plot, it isn't technology that kills credibility here, it's the plan itself. I won't say more than that it involves the simultaneous assault on several nuclear power plants. I don't need to say more. It's the same as saying that Goldfinger's plan was to rob Fort Knox. It's ridiculous, unworkable, and never believable.
* But I liked the book. Go figure. I didn't like it a lot (for these and other reasons), but I found it enjoyable. Partly, I suppose, for the fun of comparing it to Fleming's work. And partly because of Fleming's genius: after all, he created a character so beloved that this second series by another author makes sense, a character so transcendent that not even the film industry could kill him.
June 6, 2024
One of the few books I've re-read. I'm not sure when I read this the first time--probably forty or so years ago. I've read all of the Ian Fleming Bond books, and read a couple of Gardner's. I have a couple of other of this series, and thought I should revisit the few I have read before continuing on. They probably don't have to be read in order, but it was a quick read. Surprising that I really didn't remember much of the plot, but some of the minor details I did remember. Certainly continues the Bond franchise, but a little disappointing compared to the thrillers of today.
August 23, 2020
Wow, this has not aged well. Fleming wrote his last Bond book, Octopussy (actually a set of four short stories) in 1966; and aside from Kingsley Amis' 1968 outlier Colonel Sun, License Renewed was the first book to bring back Bond (and launch Gardner's own 14-book series - four more than Fleming himself wrote). Despite the decade-plus time jump, Bond remains pretty much the same age, and pretty much the same sexist jerk, still inseparable from his brand names and snobbish affectations. And while I cut Fleming some slack here - he did invent the character and largely reinvent the genre - Gardner missed a huge opportunity to update Bond into a more relatable and realistic secret agent.
(Although to be fair, the early 80's were not kind to Bond in general. Hollywood was just coming off the disastrous "Moonraker," with the first half of the decade seeing an increasingly creaky Roger Moore eke out three more increasingly creaky adventures before an under-rated Timothy Dalton stepped in and did to the character what Gardner should have been doing in his books - check out any of the many "Why Timothy Dalton Was the Best Bond" websites.)
Anyway...as to License itself, Gardner gets off on the wrong foot by trying to closely mimic Fleming's format. A short summary of its characters tells you all you need to know:
Anton Murik: a short, villainous millionaire-slash-nuclear physicist-slash-Scottish "laird" who (of course) also raises race horses, giving Bond the opportunity for a really lame bump at Ascot Racecourse and get himself hired as a mercenary.
Lavender Peacock (I know, WTF?): Murik's innocent and very sexy "ward" (a term I haven't heard since TV's "Batman"), who in her first appearance is described as having "firm and impertinent breasts"...as opposed to what? Firm and sarcastic breasts?
Ann Reilly: the new "Q," who is of course immediately given the nickname "Q'ute."
...and so on; I'm sure there's more, but my mind is still stuck on "Lavender Peacock." I got about 100 pages in and still hadn't learned what the actual plot was yet, and so decided to just toss it and consider it a 65¢ lesson learned, (thanks, McKay's Used Books!).
HA - and also just now noticed: that is one busy jacket design!!
QUICK SELF-INDULGENT UPDATE: With coronavirus still here and me still working week on/week off, out of boredom I recently borrowed both Timothy Dalton movies from the library. And yes, while Dalton himself is pretty cool and less weirdly-intense than Brosnan, the movies have not aged particularly well, either in terms of story, action, special effects or overall writing. So yeah, you can give these a pass and skip straight from any "first go-round" Connery (since both Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again absolutely suck) to the first two Brosnan films, and then fast forward again to Casino Royale, Skyfall, and - I hope I hope - No Time To Die, (although another inane title with the word "die" in it isn't a good sign). Hope I've saved somebody some time here...
(Although to be fair, the early 80's were not kind to Bond in general. Hollywood was just coming off the disastrous "Moonraker," with the first half of the decade seeing an increasingly creaky Roger Moore eke out three more increasingly creaky adventures before an under-rated Timothy Dalton stepped in and did to the character what Gardner should have been doing in his books - check out any of the many "Why Timothy Dalton Was the Best Bond" websites.)
Anyway...as to License itself, Gardner gets off on the wrong foot by trying to closely mimic Fleming's format. A short summary of its characters tells you all you need to know:
Anton Murik: a short, villainous millionaire-slash-nuclear physicist-slash-Scottish "laird" who (of course) also raises race horses, giving Bond the opportunity for a really lame bump at Ascot Racecourse and get himself hired as a mercenary.
Lavender Peacock (I know, WTF?): Murik's innocent and very sexy "ward" (a term I haven't heard since TV's "Batman"), who in her first appearance is described as having "firm and impertinent breasts"...as opposed to what? Firm and sarcastic breasts?
Ann Reilly: the new "Q," who is of course immediately given the nickname "Q'ute."
...and so on; I'm sure there's more, but my mind is still stuck on "Lavender Peacock." I got about 100 pages in and still hadn't learned what the actual plot was yet, and so decided to just toss it and consider it a 65¢ lesson learned, (thanks, McKay's Used Books!).
HA - and also just now noticed: that is one busy jacket design!!
QUICK SELF-INDULGENT UPDATE: With coronavirus still here and me still working week on/week off, out of boredom I recently borrowed both Timothy Dalton movies from the library. And yes, while Dalton himself is pretty cool and less weirdly-intense than Brosnan, the movies have not aged particularly well, either in terms of story, action, special effects or overall writing. So yeah, you can give these a pass and skip straight from any "first go-round" Connery (since both Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again absolutely suck) to the first two Brosnan films, and then fast forward again to Casino Royale, Skyfall, and - I hope I hope - No Time To Die, (although another inane title with the word "die" in it isn't a good sign). Hope I've saved somebody some time here...
April 4, 2011
Bond has been invited home for dinner by Q's attractive female assistant, a committed vegetarian. As they're sipping their drinks, he makes amorous advances.
"My chick-pea casserole will dry out!" she protests, pushing him away.
"Well, we wouldn't want that drying out," says Bond.
How come I never think of these great lines until it's too late? No wonder Bond gets all the girls.
"My chick-pea casserole will dry out!" she protests, pushing him away.
"Well, we wouldn't want that drying out," says Bond.
How come I never think of these great lines until it's too late? No wonder Bond gets all the girls.
May 16, 2018
Once upon a time there used to be a bookshop on Charing Cross Road which focused solely on crime fiction.
Going through its doors and seeing its crammed to the ceiling shelves and smelling its slightly musty smell was like entering an Aladdin’s Cave for bibliophiles. There you could find hundreds, if not thousands, of crime novels most people would previously never have heard of.
Cult classics, neglected oddities, private detectives series whose names � and the detectives themselves � had totally passed me by.
One of the corners of this shop was focused entirely on Sherlock Holmes and the � startling at first � fact that there seemed to be dozens of authors who were making their living writing Sherlock Holmes fiction. Many of whom had written far more Holmes fiction than Conan-Doyle did himself.
I mention all this as John Gardner actually did write more James Bond novels than Ian Fleming. Throughout the Eighties he used to turn out pretty much one a year.
When I was young and making my way though the Bond novels for the first time, I did read a few of them � and to be honest I can’t remember much about them.
And so, it set me wondering whether, much like those other Sherlock Holmes books, these other James Bond novels � by the most prolific author to ever write the character � are destined to be sadly forgotten on dusty shelves of specialist bookshops.
I did hope for better, I did hope for a lost gem, but really, the first of the series, is not spectacular. It doesn’t make one totally reappraise the character, not does it feel anything like a lost Fleming classic. The best I can say about it is that it’s fine.
The first thing to address as a fan of the original books is that the timing takes a bit of getting used to. This is undoubtedly the same character Fleming wrote about, only now it’s the 1980s and this World War 2 veteran isn’t at pensionable age, but instead merely has a few grey hairs.
What makes this so odd is that Fleming’s originals aren’t set on a floating timeline. They seem to be fairly contemporaneous with the world around them and Bond gets older and wearier and more haunted by his memories as the books go on.
This floating timeline Bond seems to owe more to the films, and one can’t help thinking if Gardner wanted to go that way then he should have grabbed more from the films. (He did, after all, write a couple of novelisations.) As the films � for all their flaws � are at least trying to be entertaining, and this is just a bit dull.
This is a flat book, one without any panache. It’s perfectly fine for what it is, but that’s all it’s aiming for. And I really suspect that the reason I don’t remember anything of his books from when I was young is that there’s nothing there to really remember.
(ICEBREAKER, I certainly read as a youth; maybe ROLE OF HONOR too)
The villain is boring, the henchman is from large Scotsman central casting, and the Bond girl is so insipid that the only intrigue about her is why the villain kept her around for so long (I’m still not totally sure). The plot does have stakes and a certain amount of jeopardy, but it also moves from A to B to C without much in the way of surprises.
Spoiler alert: James Bond saves the day � which is obvious, but it’s all so rote that you can’t help thinking that he himself would have forgotten all about it by his first martini that evening.
Stepping into another author’s shoes is always going to be a thankless task. You’re generally never going to compare to the original, and I know that John Gardner’s own Boasie Oakes novels are held in high regard so his literary reputation is assured. This though is a by the numbers James Bond adventure that never takes risks and really does deserve to be sat in a dark, forgotten corner of the James Bond canon.
Going through its doors and seeing its crammed to the ceiling shelves and smelling its slightly musty smell was like entering an Aladdin’s Cave for bibliophiles. There you could find hundreds, if not thousands, of crime novels most people would previously never have heard of.
Cult classics, neglected oddities, private detectives series whose names � and the detectives themselves � had totally passed me by.
One of the corners of this shop was focused entirely on Sherlock Holmes and the � startling at first � fact that there seemed to be dozens of authors who were making their living writing Sherlock Holmes fiction. Many of whom had written far more Holmes fiction than Conan-Doyle did himself.
I mention all this as John Gardner actually did write more James Bond novels than Ian Fleming. Throughout the Eighties he used to turn out pretty much one a year.
When I was young and making my way though the Bond novels for the first time, I did read a few of them � and to be honest I can’t remember much about them.
And so, it set me wondering whether, much like those other Sherlock Holmes books, these other James Bond novels � by the most prolific author to ever write the character � are destined to be sadly forgotten on dusty shelves of specialist bookshops.
I did hope for better, I did hope for a lost gem, but really, the first of the series, is not spectacular. It doesn’t make one totally reappraise the character, not does it feel anything like a lost Fleming classic. The best I can say about it is that it’s fine.
The first thing to address as a fan of the original books is that the timing takes a bit of getting used to. This is undoubtedly the same character Fleming wrote about, only now it’s the 1980s and this World War 2 veteran isn’t at pensionable age, but instead merely has a few grey hairs.
What makes this so odd is that Fleming’s originals aren’t set on a floating timeline. They seem to be fairly contemporaneous with the world around them and Bond gets older and wearier and more haunted by his memories as the books go on.
This floating timeline Bond seems to owe more to the films, and one can’t help thinking if Gardner wanted to go that way then he should have grabbed more from the films. (He did, after all, write a couple of novelisations.) As the films � for all their flaws � are at least trying to be entertaining, and this is just a bit dull.
This is a flat book, one without any panache. It’s perfectly fine for what it is, but that’s all it’s aiming for. And I really suspect that the reason I don’t remember anything of his books from when I was young is that there’s nothing there to really remember.
(ICEBREAKER, I certainly read as a youth; maybe ROLE OF HONOR too)
The villain is boring, the henchman is from large Scotsman central casting, and the Bond girl is so insipid that the only intrigue about her is why the villain kept her around for so long (I’m still not totally sure). The plot does have stakes and a certain amount of jeopardy, but it also moves from A to B to C without much in the way of surprises.
Spoiler alert: James Bond saves the day � which is obvious, but it’s all so rote that you can’t help thinking that he himself would have forgotten all about it by his first martini that evening.
Stepping into another author’s shoes is always going to be a thankless task. You’re generally never going to compare to the original, and I know that John Gardner’s own Boasie Oakes novels are held in high regard so his literary reputation is assured. This though is a by the numbers James Bond adventure that never takes risks and really does deserve to be sat in a dark, forgotten corner of the James Bond canon.
July 30, 2020
I have read all 14 of the Ian Fleming Bond novels. Picked up a nice paperback boxed set YEARS ago at Sam's. I have read 4 of the Raymond Benson Bond books to include the Union trilogy (and have a 5th Benson Bond book: The Man with the Red Tattoo on my Kindle). Recently I have read the two Bond novels by Anthony Horowitz. I also collect the Dynamite James Bond graphic novels.
I have been wanting to read the John Gardner version of Bond. I did read Gardner's version of "Goldeneye" (but that was a novelization). Gardner took Bond thru the 80's. He ended up writing 15 new Bond books.
There was a Bond book in 1968: Colonel Sun (Kingsley Amis) but that turned out to be a one shot effort (which I have on my Kindle as well but have not read yet).
My digital library does not carry many John Gardner books. But it turns out that our local Friends of the Library were having a huge book sale and I managed to pick up "License Renewed", "For Special Services, and "Role of Honor" (books 1, 2, & 4) for only $0.50 each. Not beat up copies either. I jumped at this chance to pick up 3 "new" to me Bond thrillers.
While Gardner is not Fleming, he isn't bad. I had no real problem with his Bond as opposed to Benson's Bond (mainly the 90's) or Horowitz's version. Thank goodness we readers are getting an opportunity to continue to read about our favorite spy.
Many readers seem to get hung up about how "old" 007 should be. I treat Bond like the comic world treats Batman, Spider-Man and so on. Time is relative to the writer of the books. Bond should always be somewhere between his mid 30's to late 40's/early 50's in age. Acknowledge past adventures, but just update mentally the timeframe those older stories took place in.
I will probably try to read the Gardner books in order. I am set to #2, but will need to find "Icebreaker" (#3) before I go on to "Role of Honor".
Bottom Line: I liked "License Renewed" and appreciate it for the effort of keeping James Bond alive for us readers.
I have been wanting to read the John Gardner version of Bond. I did read Gardner's version of "Goldeneye" (but that was a novelization). Gardner took Bond thru the 80's. He ended up writing 15 new Bond books.
There was a Bond book in 1968: Colonel Sun (Kingsley Amis) but that turned out to be a one shot effort (which I have on my Kindle as well but have not read yet).
My digital library does not carry many John Gardner books. But it turns out that our local Friends of the Library were having a huge book sale and I managed to pick up "License Renewed", "For Special Services, and "Role of Honor" (books 1, 2, & 4) for only $0.50 each. Not beat up copies either. I jumped at this chance to pick up 3 "new" to me Bond thrillers.
While Gardner is not Fleming, he isn't bad. I had no real problem with his Bond as opposed to Benson's Bond (mainly the 90's) or Horowitz's version. Thank goodness we readers are getting an opportunity to continue to read about our favorite spy.
Many readers seem to get hung up about how "old" 007 should be. I treat Bond like the comic world treats Batman, Spider-Man and so on. Time is relative to the writer of the books. Bond should always be somewhere between his mid 30's to late 40's/early 50's in age. Acknowledge past adventures, but just update mentally the timeframe those older stories took place in.
I will probably try to read the Gardner books in order. I am set to #2, but will need to find "Icebreaker" (#3) before I go on to "Role of Honor".
Bottom Line: I liked "License Renewed" and appreciate it for the effort of keeping James Bond alive for us readers.
June 14, 2016
The James Bond Continuation Novels are, like many of those stories, something of a red-headed stepchild to the franchise. For James Bond purists, there's actually two groups with those who love the books and those who love the movies with a decent-but-not-huge overlap. Neither group has much regard for the James Bond continuation novels which were done by Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, and a series of others thereafter. I, on the other hand, love the James Bond Continuation Novels.
Especially John Gardner.
John Gardner isn't as good an author as Ian Fleming, I don't think it's a particularly controversial to say. He tended to rely on stock villains like Nazi Remnants, the family of deceased enemies, and SMERSH despite moving Bond into the Eighties. His books very much read like original adventures of the genteel Roger Moore Bond, if a little more serious, than Fleming's urbane thug. John Gardner's Bond could also be played by Pierce Bronsen or Lazenby but is far and removed from Dalton, Craig, and Connery.
They're also a lot of fun.
No, seriously, the Gardner books are exactly the kind of book you want to pick up if you want to shut off your mind and enjoy some literary candy. This is exemplified in the first novel of his mammoth sixteen book series which actually means he wrote more James Bond books than Ian Fleming himself. It's a tragedy John Gardner died in 2007 as I very much would have liked to have contacted him to let him know how much I enjoyed his work.
The premise of License Renewed is as over-the-top as a Bond novel reviving the literary series should be. Anton Murik, a Scottish Earl/fashion design/nuclear physicist (!), is working with international terrorist Franco as part of a grand scheme to take control of eight nuclear power plants in order to blackmail the world for billions. To make this plan even more over-the-top than it already is, Anton isn't planning to use the fortune this generates to live like Croesus but to build his own nuclear power plant to show the scientific establishment he's the smartest physicist there is.
Wow.
That is ridiculous.
But it works!
At least for me.
James Bond, meanwhile, has been out of the assassination game for ten years. This is meant to show the sliding time-scale from when the last novel was printed (actually twelve years with Colonel Sun) while ignoring Bond would now be in his sixties. Much like Spiderman, James Bond is magically in his thirties forever and cheerfully returns to service in the British government.
M wants Bond to investigate Anton Murik due to the less-than-effective master of disguise Franco's frequent visits to his castle in the Scottish highlands. Anton Murik has a beautiful mistress and even more beautiful ward (who resembles a young Lauren Bacall), the latter of whom is named Lavender Peacock but goes by the name Dilly. Gardner handwaves the fact MI5 rather than MI6 should be investigating Murik as a British citizen but this is really the least of the elements I'm worried about.
Bond persuades Anton Murik to believe he's a professional assassin after displaying some strong morals in returning a highly expensive necklace and then our villain helpfully reveals his entire plan to our hero. Bond turns down an opportunity to sleep with Anton's mistress, which confuses me but I suspect is due to Gardner believing it would be inappropriate for Bond to have sex with both mother as well as fosterchild. You know, despite Bond being Bond. There's a big huge Scottish wrestler as Murik's henchmen, a subplot involving bastardry, and other hijinks before Bond saves the day.
The book is gleefully serious about its premise with this being portrayed as the kind of world where this sort of thing is a legitimate threat. I like the unusual locations like a castle, a dungeon, the town of Perignan in France, and the fashion show which is the heart of Murik's evil plan for Lavender. Bond is a bit too gentlemanly and the plot contrivances stack up but it feels like a decent enough literary yarn that I would have enjoyed it had it been a movie.
I love this book for the same reasons I love A View to a Kill (which, notably, took several of its plot elements from License Renewed). It's ridiculous silly fun and enjoyable from start to finish. It was the start of Gardner's own mini-canon and I have to give him credit for telling an enjoyable over-the-top yarn.
10/10
Especially John Gardner.
John Gardner isn't as good an author as Ian Fleming, I don't think it's a particularly controversial to say. He tended to rely on stock villains like Nazi Remnants, the family of deceased enemies, and SMERSH despite moving Bond into the Eighties. His books very much read like original adventures of the genteel Roger Moore Bond, if a little more serious, than Fleming's urbane thug. John Gardner's Bond could also be played by Pierce Bronsen or Lazenby but is far and removed from Dalton, Craig, and Connery.
They're also a lot of fun.
No, seriously, the Gardner books are exactly the kind of book you want to pick up if you want to shut off your mind and enjoy some literary candy. This is exemplified in the first novel of his mammoth sixteen book series which actually means he wrote more James Bond books than Ian Fleming himself. It's a tragedy John Gardner died in 2007 as I very much would have liked to have contacted him to let him know how much I enjoyed his work.
The premise of License Renewed is as over-the-top as a Bond novel reviving the literary series should be. Anton Murik, a Scottish Earl/fashion design/nuclear physicist (!), is working with international terrorist Franco as part of a grand scheme to take control of eight nuclear power plants in order to blackmail the world for billions. To make this plan even more over-the-top than it already is, Anton isn't planning to use the fortune this generates to live like Croesus but to build his own nuclear power plant to show the scientific establishment he's the smartest physicist there is.
Wow.
That is ridiculous.
But it works!
At least for me.
James Bond, meanwhile, has been out of the assassination game for ten years. This is meant to show the sliding time-scale from when the last novel was printed (actually twelve years with Colonel Sun) while ignoring Bond would now be in his sixties. Much like Spiderman, James Bond is magically in his thirties forever and cheerfully returns to service in the British government.
M wants Bond to investigate Anton Murik due to the less-than-effective master of disguise Franco's frequent visits to his castle in the Scottish highlands. Anton Murik has a beautiful mistress and even more beautiful ward (who resembles a young Lauren Bacall), the latter of whom is named Lavender Peacock but goes by the name Dilly. Gardner handwaves the fact MI5 rather than MI6 should be investigating Murik as a British citizen but this is really the least of the elements I'm worried about.
Bond persuades Anton Murik to believe he's a professional assassin after displaying some strong morals in returning a highly expensive necklace and then our villain helpfully reveals his entire plan to our hero. Bond turns down an opportunity to sleep with Anton's mistress, which confuses me but I suspect is due to Gardner believing it would be inappropriate for Bond to have sex with both mother as well as fosterchild. You know, despite Bond being Bond. There's a big huge Scottish wrestler as Murik's henchmen, a subplot involving bastardry, and other hijinks before Bond saves the day.
The book is gleefully serious about its premise with this being portrayed as the kind of world where this sort of thing is a legitimate threat. I like the unusual locations like a castle, a dungeon, the town of Perignan in France, and the fashion show which is the heart of Murik's evil plan for Lavender. Bond is a bit too gentlemanly and the plot contrivances stack up but it feels like a decent enough literary yarn that I would have enjoyed it had it been a movie.
I love this book for the same reasons I love A View to a Kill (which, notably, took several of its plot elements from License Renewed). It's ridiculous silly fun and enjoyable from start to finish. It was the start of Gardner's own mini-canon and I have to give him credit for telling an enjoyable over-the-top yarn.
10/10
February 3, 2014
This book is dreadful.
Gardner takes James Bond and removes everything that makes him fun.
He drives a SAAB. Gone is the Walther PPK. So too is the action, grappling fight scenes or any sense of menace.
The core (the very, very core) of the plot could have worked. Indeed, in some ways, the threatened attack is the same kind that we worry about today: terrorists hijacking and blowing up nuclear power stations.
But this is essentially a very ham-fisted hostage situation. All the billionaire behind the plot really wants is money. Which will be in the form of diamonds. Dropped in the ocean. Somewhere.
Although the writing is reasonable (which normally would warrant me leaving two stars) it's from John Gardner, not some novice learning how to write so he doesn't really get credit for stringing together a sentence. You expect that from a literary name.
Instead you follow insipid scene after scene of non-action. Bond goes to a horse race. He learns how to steal a pearl necklace (Really? A training montage? Is this a Rocky film?). He drives around a bit (but only safely. He's in a SAAB. Ooooh. Racy). He gets let in, even though the villain knows who he is.
The reader dies of boredom.
Don't bother.
Read Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks instead.
Gardner takes James Bond and removes everything that makes him fun.
He drives a SAAB. Gone is the Walther PPK. So too is the action, grappling fight scenes or any sense of menace.
The core (the very, very core) of the plot could have worked. Indeed, in some ways, the threatened attack is the same kind that we worry about today: terrorists hijacking and blowing up nuclear power stations.
But this is essentially a very ham-fisted hostage situation. All the billionaire behind the plot really wants is money. Which will be in the form of diamonds. Dropped in the ocean. Somewhere.
Although the writing is reasonable (which normally would warrant me leaving two stars) it's from John Gardner, not some novice learning how to write so he doesn't really get credit for stringing together a sentence. You expect that from a literary name.
Instead you follow insipid scene after scene of non-action. Bond goes to a horse race. He learns how to steal a pearl necklace (Really? A training montage? Is this a Rocky film?). He drives around a bit (but only safely. He's in a SAAB. Ooooh. Racy). He gets let in, even though the villain knows who he is.
The reader dies of boredom.
Don't bother.
Read Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks instead.
March 30, 2013
Not as good as many of the Bond books, this one was still fun to read. The plot line kept me interested and the fight scenes, although hard to write well, were still good.
Not to spoil the story, but there's a big Scottish henchman named 'Caber' that has a big role in the story and in my mind I kept seeing "Fat Bastard" from the Austin Powers movies. Whenever he spoke it was in FBs voice. I kept thinking to myself, "so this is where they got the idea of that 'Fat Bastard' for the movie!"
Not to spoil the story, but there's a big Scottish henchman named 'Caber' that has a big role in the story and in my mind I kept seeing "Fat Bastard" from the Austin Powers movies. Whenever he spoke it was in FBs voice. I kept thinking to myself, "so this is where they got the idea of that 'Fat Bastard' for the movie!"
June 24, 2013
When I saw this on the shelf, I was pleased that someone had taken up Ian Fleming's mantle and continued the Bond adventures. I guess I've been out of it for a while, since the book was published in 1981. Gardner writes well and offers and a quick, engaging action story. Unfortunately, it has not stood up well to the test of time. The cold war is over, the futuristic gadgets look stone-age, and men and women have re-defined how they interact.
June 15, 2022
Was soll ich machen, ich mag das Zeug einfach. Das liegt sicherlich auch daran, dass meine Rezeptoren für irrwitzig-unplausible Handlungen des Antagonisten automatisch abgestellt werden, sobald ich mich einem 007-Produkt widme.
May 6, 2016
James Bond returns after ten years away in this light, but entertaining read,
. I say License Renewed because I got the American printing, replete with freeways and all the expected mis-spellings, the original British version was called, correctly, Licence Renewed. Bond is called in to assist MI5 and Special Branch with an investigation into a known terrorist who's entered Great Britain. M puts Bond in, undercover, independent of them both, and before you know it tracing a terrorist has led Bond into a mad-scientist scheme that puts the world's nuclear power stations at risk of total meltdown.
The Americanisation of my copy seems somewhat apt though as the character of the novel is also somewhat out of kilter with its past. The Bond of is much more modern, more confident, more reliant on gadgets � "gee-whizzes" as Gardner would have them (he claims in his introduction to have gone to some lengths to ensure the accuracy of all of Bonds gadgets) � and consequently much less fallible and much less believable (he is also a less cruel Bond which may suit some readers better). In fact, it seems like Gardner may have spent too much time studying the Bond movie canon and not enough on the novel. That said, I guess it's not all bad. Roger Moore (my least favourite Bond actor) was at the height of his Bond run at the time and Gardner's Bond looks positively Daniel Craig next to Moore in For Your Eyes Only which came out the same year.
The ten year gap is also odd. Rather than just ignoring it completely, Gardner deliberately explains this away as the British government's attempts to diminish the role of MI6 � M has only managed to keep Bond on in his old role by changing the name of the Double-O division to the Special Services division, leaving Bond as the only remaining 00 agent with a license to kill, but also leaving much less work than Bond really needs to fill his time. However, with this book coming out in 1981, and having been published in 1968, that actually leaves a gap of 13 years. Gardner appears to be trying to place his book slap into the 80s, and ends up trying to drag the previous books from the 60s into the 70s. I don't understand why he bothered, and I don't understand why having bothered he didn't make the dates actually match up.
It's fun though, I raced through it pretty quickly and I definitely enjoyed myself while reading it. But, like , he isn't , nor is this Fleming's Bond. In fact, Amis was a lot closer. Gardner did manage to write 14 Bond novels though, so hopefully he improves. I'm sure I'll find out.
The Americanisation of my copy seems somewhat apt though as the character of the novel is also somewhat out of kilter with its past. The Bond of is much more modern, more confident, more reliant on gadgets � "gee-whizzes" as Gardner would have them (he claims in his introduction to have gone to some lengths to ensure the accuracy of all of Bonds gadgets) � and consequently much less fallible and much less believable (he is also a less cruel Bond which may suit some readers better). In fact, it seems like Gardner may have spent too much time studying the Bond movie canon and not enough on the novel. That said, I guess it's not all bad. Roger Moore (my least favourite Bond actor) was at the height of his Bond run at the time and Gardner's Bond looks positively Daniel Craig next to Moore in For Your Eyes Only which came out the same year.
The ten year gap is also odd. Rather than just ignoring it completely, Gardner deliberately explains this away as the British government's attempts to diminish the role of MI6 � M has only managed to keep Bond on in his old role by changing the name of the Double-O division to the Special Services division, leaving Bond as the only remaining 00 agent with a license to kill, but also leaving much less work than Bond really needs to fill his time. However, with this book coming out in 1981, and having been published in 1968, that actually leaves a gap of 13 years. Gardner appears to be trying to place his book slap into the 80s, and ends up trying to drag the previous books from the 60s into the 70s. I don't understand why he bothered, and I don't understand why having bothered he didn't make the dates actually match up.
It's fun though, I raced through it pretty quickly and I definitely enjoyed myself while reading it. But, like , he isn't , nor is this Fleming's Bond. In fact, Amis was a lot closer. Gardner did manage to write 14 Bond novels though, so hopefully he improves. I'm sure I'll find out.
January 19, 2016
Not too bad a James Bond book. It's not really explained how Bond can still be doing this job at his age (by my calculations, he has to be in his 60s). At least this story is readable, as opposed to the boring and confusing COLONEL SUN (Kingsley Amis's attempt to restart the Bond series). A few criticisms. Bond makes too many cutesy quips, more like the movie James Bond than Ian Fleming's James Bond. The villain, Murik, is a bit too similar to villains we've seen before. He cheats at horse racing like MOONRAKER's Hugo Drax and GOLDFINGER's Auric Goldfinger cheated at cards, he's a genius in nuclear science like Drax was, actually he's a total goofball like Drax, and he's obsessed with having a lordly title like Blofeld was in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.
January 18, 2010
My mom liked the thriller/mystery genre so there were a lot of these books hanging around the house. As a rule, I didn't read them but there was a point where I must have been hard up for anything to read and found myself enjoying this book.
I knew James Bond entirely from the movies at that point in my life (early teens), and, as the book stuck more closely to that Bond that Fleming's, it was OK. It was an interesting experience when I met Fleming's Bond a couple of decades later.
I knew James Bond entirely from the movies at that point in my life (early teens), and, as the book stuck more closely to that Bond that Fleming's, it was OK. It was an interesting experience when I met Fleming's Bond a couple of decades later.
February 13, 2020
"Licence Renewed" brings James Bond into the 1980's; his first appearance since "Colonel Sun" and, previously, the Ian Fleming stories. I think in my head - "If I had always wanted to write a James Bond novel, what would that look like?"... thinking that a first attempt from a writer would be an absolutely stellar effort. "Licence Renewed" certainly brings Bond forward - with greying at the temples, familiar-feeling relationships with M, Moneypenny, Tanner, etc. - yet we are met with a variety of changes as well - there's no OO-program (yet M still calls him 007), Q Branch is represented by female armourer Q'ute, he drives a Saab instead of his Bentley, there's no Walther (a Browning) and he's cut back again on smoking.
Having now read every Bond novel (including all of Gardner's) I can put this into better perspective at second reading. Gardner's stories have their ups and downs - I feel like they are later plagued with a forced attempt to Americanize them (though I am not sure he's to blame)� he does an effective job of referencing the Bond we know, and he makes them read much like a movie would. We were obviously a dozen Bond pictures in at the point Gardner's books became a thing.
I like parts of "Licence Renewed." The first half is actually pretty good - setting up the villain and his motivations, the horse race, how Bond infiltrates the enemy camp, the sidekick villain. I'm just not sure we're all that invested in the female lead - her story feels weak. The back half of the story is riddled with holes - why in the absolute earth would the villain literally tell Bond so much, unless this was a spoof of the Bond movies?
I was much more critical of this the 2nd go-around. I think it's because I hold it up against other Bond novels and even other Gardner Bond novels: Icebreaker, Nobody Lives Forever and Win Lose or Die are likely my favorites of his. I'd give "Licence Renewed" 3 1/2 stars.
Having now read every Bond novel (including all of Gardner's) I can put this into better perspective at second reading. Gardner's stories have their ups and downs - I feel like they are later plagued with a forced attempt to Americanize them (though I am not sure he's to blame)� he does an effective job of referencing the Bond we know, and he makes them read much like a movie would. We were obviously a dozen Bond pictures in at the point Gardner's books became a thing.
I like parts of "Licence Renewed." The first half is actually pretty good - setting up the villain and his motivations, the horse race, how Bond infiltrates the enemy camp, the sidekick villain. I'm just not sure we're all that invested in the female lead - her story feels weak. The back half of the story is riddled with holes - why in the absolute earth would the villain literally tell Bond so much, unless this was a spoof of the Bond movies?
I was much more critical of this the 2nd go-around. I think it's because I hold it up against other Bond novels and even other Gardner Bond novels: Icebreaker, Nobody Lives Forever and Win Lose or Die are likely my favorites of his. I'd give "Licence Renewed" 3 1/2 stars.
March 20, 2018
Moving on to the "Gardner Bond" series after finishing the last of the original Fleming books. I found nice hard copy first editions of several books in this series at a book fair for practically nothing, so I'm loving that. Gardner was charged with the task of bringing Bond into the 80's. This novel is very different from Fleming's books, which despite their dated feeling and pervasive sexism and racism, are all pretty great. Gardner seems to approach the story as a template for a film adaptation, and directly evoke many of the Bond films that we know and love. When reading Fleming's books it was easier to enjoy the stories without thinking about the films.
Here, we have deranged nuclear physicist Anton Murik aligning himself with a group of terrorists to blackmail the world's top governments into funding his project to prove that the world's power plants are unsafe, and that he has the key to how nuclear power can be safely harnessed. It's either pay up, or it's the China Syndrome at six key points around the globe. He's the alleged Laird of Murcaldy, and is set up in a fortress castle in Scotland, accompanied by his mistress, the severe Mary Jane Mashkin, and his ward, the luscious but somewhat dim Lavender Peacock, who may or may not the true heiress to Murik's fortune. Hard not to picture Roger Moore, Christopher Walken and Tanya Roberts. In fact, several scenes and details show up in the View to a Kill movie that was released 4 years later.
This one is heavy on the vehicles, gizmos and weaponry that are so prevalent in the films, and we get the inevitable battle with Bond and the villain's gargantuan henchman, and cookie cutter movie scenes. Gardner does manage to get a lot of detail into the setting descriptions and plot points, which was a hallmark of Fleming's writing. Overall it's adequate and has its moments, but just doesn't have the panache of Fleming's original stories. We'll see if #2 is an improvement.
Here, we have deranged nuclear physicist Anton Murik aligning himself with a group of terrorists to blackmail the world's top governments into funding his project to prove that the world's power plants are unsafe, and that he has the key to how nuclear power can be safely harnessed. It's either pay up, or it's the China Syndrome at six key points around the globe. He's the alleged Laird of Murcaldy, and is set up in a fortress castle in Scotland, accompanied by his mistress, the severe Mary Jane Mashkin, and his ward, the luscious but somewhat dim Lavender Peacock, who may or may not the true heiress to Murik's fortune. Hard not to picture Roger Moore, Christopher Walken and Tanya Roberts. In fact, several scenes and details show up in the View to a Kill movie that was released 4 years later.
This one is heavy on the vehicles, gizmos and weaponry that are so prevalent in the films, and we get the inevitable battle with Bond and the villain's gargantuan henchman, and cookie cutter movie scenes. Gardner does manage to get a lot of detail into the setting descriptions and plot points, which was a hallmark of Fleming's writing. Overall it's adequate and has its moments, but just doesn't have the panache of Fleming's original stories. We'll see if #2 is an improvement.
February 1, 2019
John Gardner picks up the pen for James Bond, and does an adequate job. The second half of the book is better than the first, and fits with Fleming's fiction well. Something about the beginning, the new era or agencies, just doesn't work for me.
I think it starts with Bond's introduction to the case as a hired assassin, which doesn't fit my perspective of the spy. I see his "license to kill" as an option, one which he often takes to save England. Considering the plots he finds himself trapped in, this is often the only choice.
This beginning (and squabbling agencies) are left behind as M directs Bond to figure out what is going on and report back. From that point, the novel feels like a Bond book to me. In total, not worse that the worst Ian Fleming Bond book, but far from the best of them. I plan to read more.
I think it starts with Bond's introduction to the case as a hired assassin, which doesn't fit my perspective of the spy. I see his "license to kill" as an option, one which he often takes to save England. Considering the plots he finds himself trapped in, this is often the only choice.
This beginning (and squabbling agencies) are left behind as M directs Bond to figure out what is going on and report back. From that point, the novel feels like a Bond book to me. In total, not worse that the worst Ian Fleming Bond book, but far from the best of them. I plan to read more.
December 18, 2020
Dr Anton Murik is forced to resign from an atomic energy commission and MI5 believes he has connections with international terrorists. M agrees to recall Bond from beaurocratic duties to assist, since MI5 cannot apprehend a terrorist outside the UK.
Murik has a scheme to hold governments to ransom and only James Bond can stop him.
Gardner's update to the Bond catalogue is now quite quaint in itself, but the novel feels like Bond and the plot is gripping.
Murik has a scheme to hold governments to ransom and only James Bond can stop him.
Gardner's update to the Bond catalogue is now quite quaint in itself, but the novel feels like Bond and the plot is gripping.
October 23, 2024
In my opinion, James Bond works a lot better on the big screen than in the pages of a book and it's not very often that happens!! Whilst it moved along at a reasonable pace, I found that Gardner focused too much detail on the wrong things, I'm all for world building, but it was a little much for me, I was honestly expecting better.
July 13, 2024
The first Gardner -Bond book. It’s actually a quick moving opening and I was 40% of the book done in quick time. We got the Bond tropes- action, breakfast foods, young woman. What was more like book Bond over movie Bond, is that he befriends the young girl rather than use and lose her.
The story was easy to follow and it flowed.
The story was easy to follow and it flowed.
July 4, 2023
A great story with an interesting villain and his ideas of world domination. Gardner has done a great job in the continuity of the 007 novels.
April 9, 2022
The literary James Bond is a completely different beast when compared to the 007 movies. Though this was not Fleming’s Bond, John Gardner’s License Renewed was an amazing read. Gardner’s approach to Bond is more comical and humorous than Fleming’s classic version, but License Renewed humanized Bond as a real three-dimensional character and narrated a grim but awesome tale in a classic fashion.
Bond in this book is humanized and fleshed out in many scenes that include him arguing with his housekeeper to convince her to allow him to buy a refrigerator, Bond’s anger at the rising fuel prices, Bond’s morning routines, and his relationship with food, Bond’s reading material for his work, his car and country house, et cetera. Note that this book was written and set in the early �80s, and it felt like a better experience than the classic Bond movies in Roger Moore and Sean Connery’s versions. He’s a smart, well-mannered killer who uses his resourceful improvising skills to get out of and solve dangerous problems at many scenes, but yet he’s flawed, humane, and filled with contradictions in his personality. The literary Bond is definitely far more interesting and likable than the cinematic versions to me.
I had an old mass-market paperback of this book, an old edition from the early 80s which I’d obtained at a library sale a few years before the pandemic season, but now I feel that I should have read it sooner. The first half is a slow burn that sets up the characters and gradually increases the stakes involved, but the second half is a wild, fast-paced ride that’s too fun and pays off on everything that was set up earlier in a very satisfying way. Bond gets many near death experiences and does not overpower his way out like a cinematic superhero. He relies a lot on his cunning and smarts to survive and adapt his way out of problems. Yet the entire book still has the Fleming-esque feel of fatalism and Bond’s cynically optimistic spirit is a refreshingly heroic change from most of the modern day action heroes. Bond’s a gentleman thug who can kill a man with a smile, with a mix of sarcastic cynicism, narcissism, and ego, and yet he’s optimistic, resourceful, and hopeful even in the worst of situations which are inspiring in a character.
One thing that might shock the movie fans is that Bond hooks up with Q, who’s been replaced by a female character in this book. Bond’s professional and friendly rivalry with Tanner was hilarious at times and was an experience never shown in the movies. The plot focuses on a Scottish millionaire who’s a nuclear physicist working with an elusive terrorist in a grand plan to hold the world hostage for a heavy ramson. Yes, it is comical and wild, just like what Bond fans are used to, but the crazed villain’s reasons behind his actions were interesting and still relevant in today’s world that’s plagued by radioactive wastes and problems with nuclear power plants. The villain’s chief henchman, Caber, was comically interesting but not very special. The deception and the intricate plotting in the story were fun. Bond had real struggles to unravel the plot, survive, and save the day in a very 007 fashion.
The level of details in this thriller is extremely intriguing and is absent in most modern day thrillers. I know that it’s an old fashioned style of writing that won’t work well for current day readers, but it was fun for me and I’d like to read more books with this level of detail about many basic things. With car chases, fistfights, shootouts it had action, but the book wasn’t action heavy. Bond’s investigative skills, his experience going undercover and infiltrating the villain’s circle of trust, and the actual spycraft were amazing. I know that this book is escapist adventurous spy fantasy, but it’s better written than most of the mainstream 21st century actiony spy thrillers. Though there’s a femme fatale working at the villain’s side and the heroine being a damsel in distress, License Renewed had empowered female characters who are surprisingly independent considering the mindsets of the era when it was written.
Though most of the book happens in the villain’s castle, there is a bit of globetrotting adventure in the final acts and it’s as wild as the movies. The torture scene where Bond undergoes drugged up sessions of enhanced interrogation by the villain is grim and outright sadistic, but it only makes Bond more awesome and powerful as a hero. The descriptions of food in this book are exquisite enough to place the 007 books in the culinary thriller genre, and I wish this style of getting into the details of food returns in modern day thrillers. It’s definitely not realistic but has a far deeper level of details than most modern day thrillers. Fans of the Bond movies will find this a good place to start the 007 books, and License Renewed acts as a good starting point for John Gardner’s James Bond.
For more long-form book reviews, check out -
Bond in this book is humanized and fleshed out in many scenes that include him arguing with his housekeeper to convince her to allow him to buy a refrigerator, Bond’s anger at the rising fuel prices, Bond’s morning routines, and his relationship with food, Bond’s reading material for his work, his car and country house, et cetera. Note that this book was written and set in the early �80s, and it felt like a better experience than the classic Bond movies in Roger Moore and Sean Connery’s versions. He’s a smart, well-mannered killer who uses his resourceful improvising skills to get out of and solve dangerous problems at many scenes, but yet he’s flawed, humane, and filled with contradictions in his personality. The literary Bond is definitely far more interesting and likable than the cinematic versions to me.
I had an old mass-market paperback of this book, an old edition from the early 80s which I’d obtained at a library sale a few years before the pandemic season, but now I feel that I should have read it sooner. The first half is a slow burn that sets up the characters and gradually increases the stakes involved, but the second half is a wild, fast-paced ride that’s too fun and pays off on everything that was set up earlier in a very satisfying way. Bond gets many near death experiences and does not overpower his way out like a cinematic superhero. He relies a lot on his cunning and smarts to survive and adapt his way out of problems. Yet the entire book still has the Fleming-esque feel of fatalism and Bond’s cynically optimistic spirit is a refreshingly heroic change from most of the modern day action heroes. Bond’s a gentleman thug who can kill a man with a smile, with a mix of sarcastic cynicism, narcissism, and ego, and yet he’s optimistic, resourceful, and hopeful even in the worst of situations which are inspiring in a character.
One thing that might shock the movie fans is that Bond hooks up with Q, who’s been replaced by a female character in this book. Bond’s professional and friendly rivalry with Tanner was hilarious at times and was an experience never shown in the movies. The plot focuses on a Scottish millionaire who’s a nuclear physicist working with an elusive terrorist in a grand plan to hold the world hostage for a heavy ramson. Yes, it is comical and wild, just like what Bond fans are used to, but the crazed villain’s reasons behind his actions were interesting and still relevant in today’s world that’s plagued by radioactive wastes and problems with nuclear power plants. The villain’s chief henchman, Caber, was comically interesting but not very special. The deception and the intricate plotting in the story were fun. Bond had real struggles to unravel the plot, survive, and save the day in a very 007 fashion.
The level of details in this thriller is extremely intriguing and is absent in most modern day thrillers. I know that it’s an old fashioned style of writing that won’t work well for current day readers, but it was fun for me and I’d like to read more books with this level of detail about many basic things. With car chases, fistfights, shootouts it had action, but the book wasn’t action heavy. Bond’s investigative skills, his experience going undercover and infiltrating the villain’s circle of trust, and the actual spycraft were amazing. I know that this book is escapist adventurous spy fantasy, but it’s better written than most of the mainstream 21st century actiony spy thrillers. Though there’s a femme fatale working at the villain’s side and the heroine being a damsel in distress, License Renewed had empowered female characters who are surprisingly independent considering the mindsets of the era when it was written.
Though most of the book happens in the villain’s castle, there is a bit of globetrotting adventure in the final acts and it’s as wild as the movies. The torture scene where Bond undergoes drugged up sessions of enhanced interrogation by the villain is grim and outright sadistic, but it only makes Bond more awesome and powerful as a hero. The descriptions of food in this book are exquisite enough to place the 007 books in the culinary thriller genre, and I wish this style of getting into the details of food returns in modern day thrillers. It’s definitely not realistic but has a far deeper level of details than most modern day thrillers. Fans of the Bond movies will find this a good place to start the 007 books, and License Renewed acts as a good starting point for John Gardner’s James Bond.
For more long-form book reviews, check out -
October 19, 2023
Somehow both old school and also fresh. Good take, read like a movie.
July 16, 2017
Not bad, but not especially good either. An attempt to redefine Bonds doesn't go very far as he still is finicky about what he eats, drinks and drives. He also gets to bed a couple of chicks and he gets to kill the mad scientist. Some things never change. Recommended only to Bond cultists.
May 15, 2022
Re-reading. John Gardner took up the mantle of writing Bond in the 80s and 90s and successfully managed to maintain a lot that Ian Fleming had established. The central players all feel familiar, as does the tone, style and plotting. However, it does lack that special something that made Fleming's books stand out. This first book feels plodding in places, and does have some serious mis-steps - the introduction of the female Q, Q'ute, giving Bond a Saab to drive, and some awful Scottish caricatures. 3.5/5.
September 15, 2019
This sentence seems to set the premise of this Bond adventure - 'Not a healthy mix � an international terrorist and a renowned nuclear physicist.' After ingratiating himself into Anton's inner circle and being shown what the mad scientist has in mind, Bond thinks to himself Was his brilliance so unhinged that he was prepared to expose governments or organisations he hated by sending suicide terrorists into nuclear reactor sites to manufacture disaster that might affect the entire world? Would his madness carry him that far? Meltdown � of course.
((Excerpts taken from scribd.com, the site on which I read this story.))
It's the 80s and attitudes of the powers that be now dictate which departments gets the lion's share of funding. In 007's department there have been sweeping changes but M is still a maverick in his own right. - M grunted that Whitehall had taken on the wrong man while he was still in charge.As far as I'm concerned, 007, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you; and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter � a blunt instrument � and by heaven it's going to have one. They can issue their pieces of bumf and abolish the Double-O section. We can simply change its name. It will now be the Special Section, and you are it. Understand, 007?'
M.I.5, and its executive arm, the Special Branch, constituted what was known officially as the British Security Service � responsible for counter-espionage and anti-terrorist activities on British sovereign territory.
Did the Commander know anything else about Code Foxtrot � Franco? Again Bond nodded. 'Of course. International terrorist. Wanted in most European countries and some in the Middle East. There is a request for him to be held in the United States; though, as far as we know, he has not operated from, or in, that country. His full name is Franco Oliveiro Quesocriado; born Madrid 1948 of mixed parentage � Spanish father and an English mother. I believe her name was something quite ordinary, like Jones, Smith or Evans �'
'Leonard actually,' said D.A.C. Ross quietly. 'Mary Leonard.'
In fact his mind was focused on one thing only � Dr Anton Murik, Laird of Murcaldy, and his association with the terrorist, Franco. The careful, if quickly planned, run-up to the assignment was over. James Bond was on his own, and would only call up help if the situation demanded it. As he approached the race course, Bond felt slightly elated, though a small twist in his guts told him the scent of danger, maybe even disaster, was in the air.
Anton Murik and his castle, with people like Caber and the butler creeping around, would be enough to make anyone wary. There was something eery about this large Gothic structure with its interior which stank of wealth, taste and gadgetry, all set far out in the middle of a beautiful nowhere.
Bond sat in front of the console, the facts fighting each other in his mind, as though trying to drag him into despair. He recognised the symptoms: as when, caught in the sea a man decides he can swim no farther; or feels the onset of fatigue in snow, making him lie down exhausted, to be encompassed by that strange euphoria that comes before death by freezing.
((Excerpts taken from scribd.com, the site on which I read this story.))
It's the 80s and attitudes of the powers that be now dictate which departments gets the lion's share of funding. In 007's department there have been sweeping changes but M is still a maverick in his own right. - M grunted that Whitehall had taken on the wrong man while he was still in charge.As far as I'm concerned, 007, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you; and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a trouble-shooter � a blunt instrument � and by heaven it's going to have one. They can issue their pieces of bumf and abolish the Double-O section. We can simply change its name. It will now be the Special Section, and you are it. Understand, 007?'
M.I.5, and its executive arm, the Special Branch, constituted what was known officially as the British Security Service � responsible for counter-espionage and anti-terrorist activities on British sovereign territory.
Did the Commander know anything else about Code Foxtrot � Franco? Again Bond nodded. 'Of course. International terrorist. Wanted in most European countries and some in the Middle East. There is a request for him to be held in the United States; though, as far as we know, he has not operated from, or in, that country. His full name is Franco Oliveiro Quesocriado; born Madrid 1948 of mixed parentage � Spanish father and an English mother. I believe her name was something quite ordinary, like Jones, Smith or Evans �'
'Leonard actually,' said D.A.C. Ross quietly. 'Mary Leonard.'
In fact his mind was focused on one thing only � Dr Anton Murik, Laird of Murcaldy, and his association with the terrorist, Franco. The careful, if quickly planned, run-up to the assignment was over. James Bond was on his own, and would only call up help if the situation demanded it. As he approached the race course, Bond felt slightly elated, though a small twist in his guts told him the scent of danger, maybe even disaster, was in the air.
Anton Murik and his castle, with people like Caber and the butler creeping around, would be enough to make anyone wary. There was something eery about this large Gothic structure with its interior which stank of wealth, taste and gadgetry, all set far out in the middle of a beautiful nowhere.
Bond sat in front of the console, the facts fighting each other in his mind, as though trying to drag him into despair. He recognised the symptoms: as when, caught in the sea a man decides he can swim no farther; or feels the onset of fatigue in snow, making him lie down exhausted, to be encompassed by that strange euphoria that comes before death by freezing.
February 7, 2020
This review originally appeared on as part of my .
�James Bond changed down into third gear, drifted the Saab 900 Turbo into a tight left-hand turn, clinging to the grass verge, then put on a fraction more power to bring the car out of the bend.� Following a brief cold open, this is how John Gardner reintroduces 007 for the tastes of the 1980s.
Gardner’s approach in the 1981 release is of the back-to-basics variety, attempting to steer Bond away from the gadget-heavy reputation he’d earned through almost two decades of books and films. The plot is simplicity itself. The �00� section has been effectively retired, with a number of “political restraints placed on the Secret Service.� Bond is kept on staff for the kind of black ops missions he excels at (or a “blunt instrument� as M reminds us). He is sent to investigate Dr. Anton Murik, a nuclear physicist with suspected ties to terrorism.
Yet for many commentators at the time, including author Kingsley Amis, Gardner’s approach was simply too “tame.� For perspective, this was the first “proper� standalone Bond novel since Amis� 1968 book, the non-canonical and ’s novelisations notwithstanding. Perhaps Gardner’s straightforward narrative jarred at the point where cinematic expectation met Fleming fidelity. Or was it that the idea of Bond was bigger than any one approach?
From the start, Gardner intentionally takes a bare bones approach. In his brief acknowledgements section/foreword, Gardner states: “I would like to point out to any unbelievers that all the ‘hardware� used by Mr. Bond in this story is genuine.� Or at least genuine for the early 80s. (Does that included the vaguely referenced “sophisticated� J-200 Detectorscope, Mr. Gardner?) This at least reflects the original intent of Fleming’s novels: was less prose than reportage, although even Fleming got more dramatic as the years went by.
Bond himself has morphed to fit the model of an 80's gentleman. Cutting back on the smokes (with a new special low-tar blend from Morland of Grosvenor Street, of course) and liquor (nary a martini to be seen), this is a Bond who is seen to be doing exercise. Lest we forget that it was in that his hedonistic lifestyle saw him wind up in a health spa. (Gardner chronicled his own battles with alcoholism in his debut, Spin the Bottle). Gardner peppers his Bond with little character ticks: he’s a “staunch monarchist�, loves M like a father but still isn’t averse to a bit of flippant casual homophobia/transphobia.
Which is where I feel that many of Gardner’s critics have got it wrong. Labelled both “crassâ€� and “tameâ€� in the same breath, Gardner’s updated Bond doesn’t treat him (as Judi Dench’s M would later put it in theÌýGoldeneyeÌýfilm) as just a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War." This is a Bond who has incrementally evolved over the years, or at least mellowed a bit. Contemporaneous reviews in The Globe and Mail and the Library Journal both unfavourably compared Bond girl Lavender Peacock with Pussy Galore in a kind of pre-Twitter fan entitlement outrage.
That said, Gardner’s adversaries and lovers for Bond are also lifted directly from the Fleming mould. Murik is a classic evil genius, one who finds it more logical to send multiple nuclear power plants into meltdown than simply promote his own ‘cleaner� methods. He even comes with a racially stereotyped henchman: Caber, a wrestler type with a Scottish brogue who doesn’t take too kindly to Bond beating him. If criticism can be labelled at Lavender Peacock, it’s that she’s more of a damsel in distress than would be expected for 1981.
What LICENCE RENEWED offers more than anything is a collection of solid set pieces. Gardner was already an established thriller writer with the Boysie Oakes series, and his tight action writing is fluid and highly readable. There’s at least two memorable pieces here. The first is a car chase that’s an absolute page-turner, culminating in Bond’s capture. The big finale is a gripper aboard a plane, the kind of high-stakes moment we’ve seen in a score of films by now but is used here for the same reason any formula gets trotted out: it works.
The no-frills approach coupled with the heightened sense of violence foreshadows the shift the films would make in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989) starring Timothy Dalton. Before that, A View to a Kill (1985) would see Roger Moore’s character visit a racetrack like the sequence at Ascot Racecourse at the start of this book, although it’s unknown if Gardner was an influence on screenwriters Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum. More broadly, the nuclear plot skirts the edges of an environmental concern that followed the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, and pre-empted the ones in Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) by several years. Indeed, the working title of the book was simply Meltdown.
LICENCE RENEWEDÌýmay not have the punch some were expecting for a Bond book, but it’s a solid restatement of 007’s core traits â€� and certainly an improvement on the last handful of Fleming books. You may not think so from this singular outing, but Gardner would still go on to write a total of 16 books, including novelisations for Licence to Kill and Goldeneye, over a span of 25 years. If you’ve exhausted all the Fleming books and are yearning for the 80s, this is a good place to start.
�James Bond changed down into third gear, drifted the Saab 900 Turbo into a tight left-hand turn, clinging to the grass verge, then put on a fraction more power to bring the car out of the bend.� Following a brief cold open, this is how John Gardner reintroduces 007 for the tastes of the 1980s.
Gardner’s approach in the 1981 release is of the back-to-basics variety, attempting to steer Bond away from the gadget-heavy reputation he’d earned through almost two decades of books and films. The plot is simplicity itself. The �00� section has been effectively retired, with a number of “political restraints placed on the Secret Service.� Bond is kept on staff for the kind of black ops missions he excels at (or a “blunt instrument� as M reminds us). He is sent to investigate Dr. Anton Murik, a nuclear physicist with suspected ties to terrorism.
Yet for many commentators at the time, including author Kingsley Amis, Gardner’s approach was simply too “tame.� For perspective, this was the first “proper� standalone Bond novel since Amis� 1968 book, the non-canonical and ’s novelisations notwithstanding. Perhaps Gardner’s straightforward narrative jarred at the point where cinematic expectation met Fleming fidelity. Or was it that the idea of Bond was bigger than any one approach?
From the start, Gardner intentionally takes a bare bones approach. In his brief acknowledgements section/foreword, Gardner states: “I would like to point out to any unbelievers that all the ‘hardware� used by Mr. Bond in this story is genuine.� Or at least genuine for the early 80s. (Does that included the vaguely referenced “sophisticated� J-200 Detectorscope, Mr. Gardner?) This at least reflects the original intent of Fleming’s novels: was less prose than reportage, although even Fleming got more dramatic as the years went by.
Bond himself has morphed to fit the model of an 80's gentleman. Cutting back on the smokes (with a new special low-tar blend from Morland of Grosvenor Street, of course) and liquor (nary a martini to be seen), this is a Bond who is seen to be doing exercise. Lest we forget that it was in that his hedonistic lifestyle saw him wind up in a health spa. (Gardner chronicled his own battles with alcoholism in his debut, Spin the Bottle). Gardner peppers his Bond with little character ticks: he’s a “staunch monarchist�, loves M like a father but still isn’t averse to a bit of flippant casual homophobia/transphobia.
Which is where I feel that many of Gardner’s critics have got it wrong. Labelled both “crassâ€� and “tameâ€� in the same breath, Gardner’s updated Bond doesn’t treat him (as Judi Dench’s M would later put it in theÌýGoldeneyeÌýfilm) as just a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War." This is a Bond who has incrementally evolved over the years, or at least mellowed a bit. Contemporaneous reviews in The Globe and Mail and the Library Journal both unfavourably compared Bond girl Lavender Peacock with Pussy Galore in a kind of pre-Twitter fan entitlement outrage.
That said, Gardner’s adversaries and lovers for Bond are also lifted directly from the Fleming mould. Murik is a classic evil genius, one who finds it more logical to send multiple nuclear power plants into meltdown than simply promote his own ‘cleaner� methods. He even comes with a racially stereotyped henchman: Caber, a wrestler type with a Scottish brogue who doesn’t take too kindly to Bond beating him. If criticism can be labelled at Lavender Peacock, it’s that she’s more of a damsel in distress than would be expected for 1981.
What LICENCE RENEWED offers more than anything is a collection of solid set pieces. Gardner was already an established thriller writer with the Boysie Oakes series, and his tight action writing is fluid and highly readable. There’s at least two memorable pieces here. The first is a car chase that’s an absolute page-turner, culminating in Bond’s capture. The big finale is a gripper aboard a plane, the kind of high-stakes moment we’ve seen in a score of films by now but is used here for the same reason any formula gets trotted out: it works.
The no-frills approach coupled with the heightened sense of violence foreshadows the shift the films would make in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989) starring Timothy Dalton. Before that, A View to a Kill (1985) would see Roger Moore’s character visit a racetrack like the sequence at Ascot Racecourse at the start of this book, although it’s unknown if Gardner was an influence on screenwriters Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum. More broadly, the nuclear plot skirts the edges of an environmental concern that followed the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, and pre-empted the ones in Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) by several years. Indeed, the working title of the book was simply Meltdown.
LICENCE RENEWEDÌýmay not have the punch some were expecting for a Bond book, but it’s a solid restatement of 007’s core traits â€� and certainly an improvement on the last handful of Fleming books. You may not think so from this singular outing, but Gardner would still go on to write a total of 16 books, including novelisations for Licence to Kill and Goldeneye, over a span of 25 years. If you’ve exhausted all the Fleming books and are yearning for the 80s, this is a good place to start.
May 20, 2018
I was excited to get into John Gardner’s Bond books since my ten year journey through Fleming ended on such a sour note. Plus, I read a bunch of them as a kid and remember them being more fun. This is one I’d never read so I went in cold and I’m sorry to report it’s pretty dull. Gardner is a vast improvement on Fleming in many ways in that he modernizes Bond (for 1981) and there’s no shocking racism or sexism. The plot and stakes are very grounded but that was usually true of Fleming as well. Tonally, it reminded me of the 1980s Bond movies that I love, which is a huge plus. The problem is it all just takes too long somehow. Gardner doesn’t take Fleming’s same tangents but he seems in no hurry to carry on either. I’m still interested to see if this is an anomaly or a trend and I’m optimistic it’s the former. Here’s hoping my optimism is well founded and it doesn’t take another decade to get to the end.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 220 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.