A Conversation With John Gardner

Scribe of the 1980s and 1990s Bond Novels

On visiting the website of former OO7 author, John Gardner, I was surprised to learn of his background before he became a writer.  He was once a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer, a journalist and, for a short time, a priest in the Church of England. ‘Probably the biggest mistake I ever made,’ he says. ‘I confused the desire to please my father with a vocation which I soon found I did not have.’

That statement intrigued me.  Who is John Gardner?  Without going into great depth into his biography (you can read about it at www.john-gardner.com), I wanted to understand the hidden subtext of his Bond novels.  Whether you liked his take on James Bond or not, Gardner was the man who brought Bond back from his literary grave.  But with this resurrection came iconographical devices Gardner would use in his story structure.  Such as Christian or Biblical words or phrases.  Magical illusions were also plot devices that encompassed OO7's non-Fleming world.  And dreams or nightmares became foreshadowing juxtapositions into the evil that awaited Bond.  

Gardner wrote a new Bond novel every year (except 1985).  But with each novel came harsher critiques from many fans.  This man certainly was not Ian Fleming and anyone expecting Fleming was in for a huge surprise.

I decided to write Mr. Gardner and conduct an interview about his tenure as a Bond author.  To try and push a few personal buttons in order to reveal the artist behind the pen and why he chose to write 14 novels featuring an established hero he despises.

Dr. Shatterhand:  Welcome to The Question Room, Mr. Gardner.  Let me start our conversation by throwing out some of the villainous names that graced your Bond novels.  Brokenclaw Lee, Vladimir Scorpius, General Brutus Clay.  How did you come up with these villains?

John Gardner: How does one come up with any character?  Someone once suggested God's backside.  It's odd how characters come into one's head.  The whole business of writing fiction still remains a mystery to me.  Characters appear and disappear.  The other day, in my latest published book ­ The Streets of Town ­ I realised that I had written a couple of lines that originally came to me in childhood, when I used to tell myself stories to send myself to sleep.  In the book I am writing at the moment I finally arrived at the villain by reading a first name in a book by an American author: it was an unusual first name and led to a name that I finally used.  The reader will have no idea he's the villain until a very late stage, but I know and I'm developing him slowly. By about the sixth draft I'll have him clear and in sharp focus. In some ways the Bond villains had to be big and loud, melodramatic even, so you paint them in broad colours.

Author John Gardner poses in front of a portrait of OO7 creator Ian Fleming.

DS: Did you base any of your Bond characters on real life people?

JG: No, except for the two women characters in NOBODY LIVES FOREVER.  Both Sukie and Nannie were drawn from life.  I know both of them and Sukie knows it's based on her.  Nannie doesn't and I'm not certain she'd recognise herself.  Also I know all the locations quite well, some I have known from childhood.

DS: NOBODY LIVES FOREVER is my personal favorite of your Bond novels.  It is fast paced, exciting and, in my opinion, perhaps the best of the post-Fleming novels.  What is your opinion about it compared to the other novels?

JG: Interesting isn't it?  That one is the nearest I came to writing Fleming.  Yes, I enjoyed doing it.  For me it's the second best plot.

DS: How much of your own personality is in the character of James Bond in your novels?

JG: None, though there could be a couple of subconscious things.  I am certainly very far removed from Bond and have no desire to be like him, or make him into a mirror image.  Part of my brief was to make him grow up.

DS: According to your biography, you are or were a novice magician.  In your Bond novels you have several scenes of illusions such as Brokenclaw’s video windows of the Blue Ridge Mountains and his Chinese Box House.  Dragonpol’s castle in NEVER SEND FLOWERS and Qute’s apartment in LICENSE RENEWED.  Is this your way of adding your favorite pastime?

JG: I was a novice magician when I was nine years old.  At 16 I was a semi-pro and for half of 1944 (having volunteered for the Forces and expecting to be called any minute) I worked as a professional with the American Red Cross Entertainments Department.  I still performed up to a few years ago.  I am an Associate of The Inner Magic Circle with Silver Star ­ for that you are judged on a performance.  Writing is my favourite pastime, but I'm still very interested in magic and the way it works.  So, yes.

The U.K. editions had better artwork than the U.S. versions.

DS: In your novels you tell stories similar to a magician who tries to convince his audience that what they are seeing and hearing is true.  Yet you trick the reader into deceptions of double and triple crosses.  Is this a common theme in your writings or only in the Bond series?

JG: In the '80s a very clever journalist spotted the fact that there was a common link between the books I wrote and the fact that I knew quite a lot about magic.  I had never really spotted it until then, but once she pointed this out I saw exactly what was going on.

DS: You stated in your biography that you became an agnostic or one who believes that it is impossible to know whether God exist.  Are you still agnostic or have you had a change of heart?

JG: No, I'm not an agnostic any more.  I cling very shakily to the Christian hope.

DS: There are references to Christianity and/or religious subtext in your writing.  For example, Bond makes a joke about "the piece of cod that passes all understanding".  Or the religious cult order of Scorpius.  The same applies to your chapter title headings.  Examples found are "Pearls Before Swine" in LICENSED RENEWED.  "The Meek Shall Inherit" from SCORPIUS.  "My Brother’s Keeper" from NEVER SEND FLOWERS.  "A Judas Kiss" and "Lazarus" from COLD.  How much did your Christian upbringing influence your writing?

JG: I guess the Christian faith is ever present in my work because it's part of my life.  I am what used to be called an Anglo Catholic ­ not a very good one, but the St. James' Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are both wonderful sources for beautiful language and I was brought up with both of them.  I loathe the changes and attempts to modernise Christian worship in the Anglican Communion to make worship more accessible.  That's a load of bunkum to my mind.  It was never broken and it certainly didn't need fixing.  People who have tampered to ­ as they say ­ put bums on pews don't seem to me to have grasped the fundamentals of the Christian liturgy.  Oh dear, I'm on my hobby horse.  The re-written Bible and Prayer Book are horrific.

DS: Your version of OO7 is very different to the Fleming version.  Fleming would write his character as having destructive qualities such as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day and drinking heavily.  Of course, Fleming died of a heart attack at a young age and his abundant lifestyle may have contributed to it.  According to your biography, you are a recovering alcoholic.  Did you write OO7 with less vices because of your own experiences?

JG: I really felt that it was not appropriate for Bond to be drinking and smoking so much in the eighties when we knew far more about the results of such behaviour.  True I didn't give up smoking until the 90s after a heart attack, but I knew it couldn't do you much good. I also had a tussle with Glidrose about Bond's women and ­ in the light of AIDS ­ making sure he took precautions.

Gardner riding a snowmobile while doing research for his third novel ICEBRAKER.

DS: Dreams are prominent in your books.  Bond would be dreaming of some horrible creature or moment in which it would foreshadow his conflict with the main villain.  Is this a style you use often?

JG: Yes, I've been using it since the Boysie Oakes days (in the 1960s).

DS: You created some gruesome scenes in your novels such as the harvester ants in FOR SPECIAL SERVICES and the spider sandwich in DEATH IS FOREVER.  What inspired you to come up with these scenes?

JG: Gruesome sequences are part of the Bond thing.  Read the early Fleming books and you'll find some horrific moments.

DS: Bond made three wedding proposals during your tenure  (Harriet from SCORPIUS was a ruse of course).  But all three women died.  Why was this theme revisited so often?

JG: Haven't a clue.  Just thought people should be led up the aisle/garden path regularly.

DS: SPECTRE makes a few comeback attempts in your novels.  With film producer Kevin McClory owning the rights to this organization and the character Ernst Stavro Blofeld, how is it that Glidrose could use this organization without McClory taking them to court?

JG: He, or his company, indeed own the movie rights, but Glidrose owns the literary rights.

DS: Ian Fleming went to court over his novel THUNDERBALL.  Did any of your novels come close to a lawsuit?

JG: Of course not.

DS: Fleming attempted to break the format of his novels with the experimental THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, which was written in first person from a woman’s point-of-view.  You attempted to break the formula by writing THE MAN FROM BARBAROSSA.  Most fans did not like this departure, but you did.  Why?

JG: One of the main objects of the exercise, as it was explained to me, was to bring Bond into the 1980s.  I also wanted him to grow up.  He was, until then, a teenager's delight, and Fleming acknowledged that, saying that he had the mind of a teenager.  When I got to THE MAN FROM BARBAROSSA I had quite a long meeting with Glidrose to tell them what I proposed to do, and they were certainly behind me.  In fact when the manuscript was delivered I was told this was just what they wanted.  I was amazed and amused when I heard a broadcast during the run-up to Benson's first book when Peter Janson-Smith said that the readers just were not ready for such a change.  I think it would have been accepted if I had been allowed to follow through and go on writing the books in that way ­ getting away from the formula.  As it was, when we delivered the book the British publishers said how good it was and the Americans went berserk and said, "This is no good. This isn't the mixture as before," which was the object of the thing.  I tried to deepen the character and make it work on different levels.  I understand that when Fleming delivered THE SPY WHO LOVED ME everyone tried to stop him from publishing it.

DS: Did you have a storyline that was, in your opinion, great but rejected by Glidrose?

JG: No, absolutely not.  Rejection was by mutual consent and it usually only happened in the very early stages of preparing a book.  I would come up with an idea, they would say "We don't think so," and I would agree.  It didn't happen very often.  I can only remember two occasions and the ideas weren't very strong.  This was the one thing I did not like about doing the Bonds: they expected a full outline before I started work, and I don't work that way.  I like to start with a small idea ­ maybe a set-up or a villain and then I'd like to see how that progressed.  But they wanted a beginning, middle and an end before I began writing.  I don't do that so I used to produce what my then agent called "It'll be all right on the night outlines."  I guess I spent a lot of time trying to convince them to let me just get on with it.  ROLE OF HONOUR was so structured that I could not write it as I had outlined it.  I really got stuck and Peter Israel, who was the boss of Putnam at the time, called me one day and said, "John, just do it." That worked.  We are still very good friends.  While I had no really good plot turned down I do have one in reserve which would be a humdinger for Bond but I guess I'll write it with a character of my own once I've completed the series of six books I'm writing now.


DS: Which of your books did you title personally and can you tell us any titles that were never used?

JG: In spite of all the stories and chatter I think I did most of them.  Others have claimed to have provided titles but I think Glidrose and Putnam only gave about two (and I couldn't tell you which ones they were).  You have to remember that there were huge pressures on me.  I really couldn't do as I wanted.  It was like being in a straight jacket as far as writing was concerned.  When we came to the editing phase I was edited three or four different ways ­ By Glidrose, then the British publisher (Richard Cohen wanted me to completely rewrite and re-set the first book): then the American publisher.  I was sliced and diced every time.  It was as though everyone wanted to get into the act and, nearly always, it started with the title which made me very suspicious.  I've always thought that an editor who begins a meeting with the words, "I'm not certain about the title," is the kiss of death.  I can remember only one title that was flatly denied me ­ BLONDES PREFER GENTLEMEN.   I still think it's a good Bond title.

DS: Why didn’t Glidrose (the Literary Executors of James Bond) ask Kingsley Amis to continue the novels before they asked you?

JG: I have absolutely no idea, and I would never ask.  Maybe they asked him and his pressures of work got in the way.

DS: What was your relationship with Kingsley Amis?  Raymond Benson?

JG: Kingsley was always very nice to my face.  Benson was ­ to me ­ a kind of journalist. We met at a book signing years ago in New York and he came to Charlottesville to do a long, and very good, interview with me.

DS: There was a story floating around the Internet years ago which said you and Cubby Broccoli did not get along and that Cubby refused to film your books.  Is there any truth to this?

JG: Rubbish.  I got on very well with Cubby and we spoke whenever I was in LA.  However, as soon as Glidrose announced that they were going to employ someone new to write continuation novels he announced that he would never make a movie from any of them.  Indeed why should he?  He owned the character rights and didn¹t need to pay for any books.  He could get people within his organisation to write stuff for him at no extra charge.



DS: Is it a coincidence that your novel ROLE OF HONOUR has a scene where Bond battles Tahani onboard an airship and in that same year (1985) Eon Productions filmed A VIEW TO A KILL, which also has a final battle scene onboard an airship?

JG: I presume it is a coincidence.

DS: Can you shed any light on a OO7 novel THE KILLING ZONE, which was written by the late American writer Jim Hatfield in 1985?  Did Glidrose hire him to write a novel or did he do this on his own?

JG: I have never heard of The Killing Zone.

This rarely seen novel was written by the author of the notorious George W. Bush biography 'FAVORITE SON'.  Hatfield committed suicide in 2001.

DS: In the second half of your series, many storylines took place in and around the Washington DC area.  Since you lived in Virginia during this time, did this have a great influence on the stories or was it because Glidrose could not afford to send you to other parts of the world?

JG: I've never thought about that but I guess you could be right.



DS: What is your opinion of the Raymond Benson novels?

JG: I couldn't possibly comment.  It is not my job.

DS: It now looks like Raymond Benson’s contract has expired.  In your opinion what is the future of OO7 in print?

JG: I don't know about Benson, and I have no opinion regarding 007 in print.  This is not a put down of Raymond Benson but if they are going on with the continuation books I hope they get an Englishman to write them.

DS: You said that when you were writing the novels you were under contract not to mention whom was your favorite Bond actor.  Of course now we know it is Sean Connery from your website.  Yet in one of your novels you write that Bond is onboard an aircraft watching the film THE UNTOUCHABLES with his favorite actor. Was this a subtle way of getting around that clause?

JG: Thank you: I didn't think it was that subtle, but yes, of course.

This photo of John Gardner appeared on the back cover of his Bond novel SeaFire.

DS: You wrote the novelization of LICENCE TO KILL, based on the screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson.  Was that difficult to do?

JG: It was more interesting than difficult (I did write a second from a screenplay): a great challenge.  A screenplay can switch from a seaplane on water a long way from land to Bond coming out of a hotel in Key West.  In a novelisation you have to build bridges.  In the one quoted I had fun.  All the people who help get him back to Key West exist and had a good laugh.



DS: How well did the novels do financially?  In England?  In the U.S.?

JG: A lot of people think they know the answer to that question, but I have never read a true picture of how the books did.  I don't intend to go into actual figures now because all the paperwork is still in storage and it would take several weeks to get it and go through it.  However, from memory I think the books certainly sold very respectably in both countries and, in fact, all over the world.

DS: Thank you, Mr. Gardner.