SeaFire

John Gardner's Bond #14

by John Gardner

Sir Maxwell Tarn is missing. The self-made tycoon, mastermind of a global empire that embraces some highly unusual activities, has vanished with the beautiful Lady Tarn - right from under the noses of a crack surveillance team, supposedly in the flames of a dramatic automobile accident. Now James Bond and the newly reorganized Double-Oh section of the SIS must move quickly to discover what really happened to Sir Maxwell and expose him and his operation for what they really are. With Fredericka von Grusse - Flicka - his stunning partner introduced in Never Send Flowers, Bond follows a maze of trails from England to Spain to Israel, and then to a picturesque German village overrun with neo-Nazis. Evidence of a diabolical scheme leads Bond and Flicka to Puerto Rico, where the pair must move quickly both above and below water to thwart Tarn and his master plan before his cache of deadly weapons destroys much more than a few pristine islands in the Caribbean.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Action, Mystery Thriller, Spy Thriller, Mystery

Paperback

First published August 28, 1994

About the author

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

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

Reviews

[David]

Gardner weaves a longer, more complex plot with this one, involving some wonderfully psycho/sociopathic killers, a raving maniac in the Hugo Drax tradition, and the resurgence of Naziism. Even Felix Leiter makes a return appearance. But 007 is still in love, and the tender passages are more purple than ever, while the inevitable rears its ugly head -- showing why Bond should never fall in love, as Gardner has him realize even while he's inexorably doing it. Moonraker meets On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with a twist on the Diamonds Are Forever hit men stirred in. None of it quite melding as the originals did.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

We're typically used to James Bond villains being egomaniacs, but the villain in this book and his ensemble of baddies are caricatures of megalomaniacs which makes for quite ludicrous reading all throughout the book. This ending was also quite unenjoyable as well.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book followed the typical 007 framework, it was still highly readable and entertaining. The book focuses on the business dealings of a German exile and his somewhat shady business practices. Along the way we learn he has aspirations of reviving the Nazi culture in a divided Germany. Bond's girlfriend, a former Swiss agent figures prominently in the story. I won't go into more detail than that so as not to ruin the plot. I recommend this book to anyone who follows the 007 franchise.

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

SeaFire is John Gardner’s fourteenth contribution to the James Bond series, and the series would have been better off without it. If thriller writers resort to the tired cliché of a new Nazi leader with designs on finishing off what Hitler started, you get the impression that the author is not really putting the effort in. This is Gardner’s second rise of the Nazis Bond novel; and Ian Fleming had already done it with Moonraker!
Following on from Never Send Flowers, Bond is still living with Fredericka von Grüsse and they are working together in a new Double-O section separated from the rest of the Secret Intelligence Service they still meet up with former colleagues at regular oversight committee meetings. It is almost as if Gardner is trying to make this the most boring Bond novel of them all. Together they have to put the frighteners on Sir Max Tarn; a British philanthropist that appears to have crossed the line that separates a legitimate arms dealer from a gun smuggler. When things begin not to go according to the plan, Bond and Flicka dig deeper and unearth the whole neo-Nazi plan to destabilise the world in readiness for the rise of a new Nazi Germany which Tarn plans to lead.

[Ryan Scicluna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the Best James Bond Story. The third villain to be related to the Nazi created by John Gardener. In his previous books Icebreaker and The Man from Barbarossa so this makes the book a bit too boring and gives us the usual villain with superiority god comples. Also having Flicka around in the previous novel was good but here she is not amusing at all. I personally found her annoying during this book. The story is sloppy and not very believable like other plots. Having Bond propose to Flick in this book in a very casual manner really seamed out of style and taste. Just a weekend fun read with nothing memorable except the fact that Bond is becoming too sentimental and the end of the book actually suggests that he starts crying when he rescues Flicka. I really hope that in the next book we see more of the usual Bond and less of this emotional man who is being set up to take M's place in the future of the series.

[Clem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another John Gardner penned James Bond book. As I’ve mentioned in earlier reviews, my main goal when reading these books is to just get through them - as my OCD tendencies won’t allow me to read the Raymond Benson books dealing with 007 (which are supposed to be pretty good) until I finish the ones by Gardner.

Well, my reviews haven’t been too kind to the author’s offerings as of late, so I honestly wasn’t expecting much here. What I got was a big surprise. This is arguably Gardner’s best Bond book ever. The author has been (unfairly) criticized by many since he “took over” around 1980 from Ian Fleming, who passed away in 1964. Gardner, the critics claim, doesn’t spend enough time on the detail of the characters and/or situations, and tries to make the books more like the movies. I would agree with that assessment, but I must say that I truly enjoyed the first few Gardner offerings, yet after the first three or four, he seemed to lose his groove, and the books became too much alike (to be fair, there are many that would say the same about the James Bond movies). But for whatever reason, this one simply seems to work very well.

There are lot of Bond cliches here. He has a faithful “Bond Girl” by his side. This one is named “Flicka”. She’s a repeat from another Gardner book (can’t remember which one), which seems odd, but Bond is “serious” about this gal. As I mentioned in my review of the last Bond book, it’s never a good thing for a Bond girl’s destiny when the super agent falls in love with her. Then we have the Bond villain. He’s a multi-millionaire German guy named Max Tarn, who was born right around the time of the end of Hitler’s dominion. So this villain is out to resurrect the Nazi party and create “The Fourth Reich”. OK. How many times have we seen this happen in thrillers as of late? Then, there’s the Double O section itself. The powers that be are trying to dismantle MI6 as it once was. The world has moved on, and it doesn’t really need an enormous agency of clandestine spies to attempt to keep the world safe. So Bond’s role has “changed” much to his dismay, and he has to convince the higher ups that they’re going in the wrong direction, and they simply don’t know enough about the big, bad world as Bond and company do.

We also have M, who, at this point, the author might be trying to gracefully kill off. M is old and feeble this time around, and a lot of the pages center around him at his home in bed as he tries to help his favorite agent combat the evil outside (and inside) the organization. (NOTE: Like the movies when Pierce Brosnan took over, the Raymond Benson books had a female M, which leads me to the speculation that the Old M’s days may be numbered).

Another character who’s absent from the John Gardner books is Q (or, as he’s referred to in Fleming’s novels, Major Boothroyd). In his place is a female “looker” named Anne Reilly, who is affectionately known as “Q’ute”. Q’ute and Bond seem to have an on again, off again romance throughout the books, but for the most part, the relationship is mostly business. For whatever reason, her presence never works as well as the original Boothroyd. True, she manages to furnish Bond with a tool or two that seems to somehow be exactly what he needs later in the story to save himself from impending doom, but if you think about it, that’s always been the case with Q’s gadgets in the movies as well. I guess it was always fun to see the Desmond Llewelyn character make an entrance and do his obligatory quibbles with Connery on the big screen. It never works that well with Q’ute in the Gardner books.

Yet despite all of these drawbacks, this book seems to work better. Perhaps it’s because the plot never gets bogged down with unnecessary situations and keeps moving at a strong pace. Gardner also manages to “leave the reader hanging” at the conclusion of most of the chapters. This has always been his trademark, yet when you’re not enjoying a story, the effect is somewhat minimized. Since this story is much stronger, the temptation is to keep going when you come to a stopping point at the end of a chapter.

On a slightly strange note, I’m curious to how fans of the books picture the secret agent of the Bond books. Do they picture Sean Connery in the role? Pierce Brosnan? Or do they have a different personality altogether recreating all of the scenarios of the most famous super spy? For myself, believe it or not, I always pictured George Lazenby. For those that don’t know, he only lasted one picture, didn’t do that great of a job, and faded into oblivion after his fifteen minutes of fame. Why Lazenby? I guess it’s because the characteristics described of the make-up of James Bond by Ian Fleming seemed to closely match Lazenby’s looks. (There was a great artist’s rendition of what James Bond looks like many years ago that I came across in one of the James Bond compendiums). Well, all of this to say, that I recently forced myself to forget Lazenby, and now picture current actor Daniel Craig in the role. As weird as this sounds, this seems to help me enjoy the books a bit more. Even the initial reaction to Craig taking over the role in the films was incredibly hostile, he’s since won audience’s over big time, and brings a sense of realism to the character that nobody else, even Connery, has been able to demonstrate. The books have always diminished the invulnerability of James Bond, and rather making him larger than life, they’ve always focused on the more human side of his character. Weird, I know, but it just works better for me.

So despite the familiarities that we’ve seen over and over again, in both the films and (especially) the books, this one works better than most. and managed to surprise me immensely. I have one more Gardner to go, and am hoping for a repeat of the enjoyment factor.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's difficult to know where to begin, but let's just say that if the object is to follow in Ian Fleming's footsteps, this fails, miserably. The main problem is that the character of James Bond has lost all his old certainty, strength and invulnerability; his character now better befits that of the policeman I see wandering up and down my road from time to time, and while I'm sure he's a great bloke, he's not the sort of escapist character I want to seek refuge in. The other big problem is that the emotions expressed are all incredibly naive, and, well, teen-like, particularly with regard to the relationship between Bond and Flicka; these are supposed to be mature secret agents who have lived a little, not high school students on a first date! Some of the writing is also way too obvious; Gardner will say something like 'Bond drank his vodka Martini. He liked vodka Martinis you see.' He doesn't actually write that, but you get my drift. I hope against all hope that John Gardner reads this; if he does, I would ask him to re-read any of the Ian Fleming Bond books, carefully; all the cues he needs, those that made the books such incredibly good reads, are there on the pages before him.

The villain is the next Hitler (um, didn't Bond fight the next Hitler in ICEBREAKER?) who has something to do with destroying the Caribbean with an oil spill while inventing a new way to control oil spills (I still don't know what the Fourth Reich and oil spills have to do with each other.) Bond proposes to Flicka von Grusse (and we all KNOW she will die for that.) However, I give Gardner credit for changing the Bond world with his OWN series, and not keeping everything static like all of the movies. He has M on the verge of replacement, Bond being promoted, a new committee watching the other committees. John Gardner wrote some OK Bond books (Death is Forever, No Deals, Mr. Bond, Icebreaker) but there are times when he seems to rush them or just not care about Bond or the books themselves. Seafire, quite often, feels like one of those times.

[J.J. Lair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a change for Bond. He is the supervisor of his own division. He is involved with one woman. The story involves an old WW2 topic. We have Nazis and submarine warfare. I felt this was a few stories put together.
Flicka von Grusse is a possible future wife. They are that close. That is a big change. They have small adventures together like a couple of sleuths. In the quest to learn about and take down Max Tarn, Bond partners with Flicka and sometimes goes it alone. There are big swerves whether Tarn is alone. Trish, she was a compelling character.
The henchwomen are vicious. The action continues right up to the last pages.
Gardner is not going to write someone else’s books. He is making Bond his character. In doing so, he loses some Bond traits. Felix Leiter is back so we still have connections to Fleming past.
As a story, there was a lot I liked. There were characters that I liked. I usually say there is a mid-story slog, not so here. There are enough subplots and mini-episodes to keep this going straight through.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having recently read the first John Gardner 007 continuation book from the 1980's - "License Renewed" and found it to be different but enjoyable, following a good review someplace I jumped forward to read this 14th in the series. What a terrible mistake, it's a complete turd of a book. I don't know who the lead character is but it's neither the literary nor any of the cinematic iterations of Bond. We find this "Bond" tooling around with (and preparing to marrry!?) the asinine Fredericka Von Grusse of the Swiss secret service, aka "Flicka" (what!?) The villain is (oh how original) a neo-Nazi attempting to create a fourth reich. Which is the only coherent thing that can be said of the plot, as the means by which he attempts to do it is as stupid as it is under-plotted, I'll thought out and vague. Oh and the dialog is worthy of George Lucas so 'nuff said there. Frankly, a shitty book that should be avoided.

[Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a bit of a lull in the mid-section of the Gardner novels, SEAFIRE bounces back in a big way. This is the James Bond I recognize, and - as he has aged and run the gamut with promiscuity - it's acceptable that he is now living with his girlfriend spy, Flicka.

My only gripe is in the final showdown with the villain; I thought this book was going to be predictable but it threw me for a little loop. As has occasionally been the case with Gardner's 007 novels, the build-up, the detail and the dialogue are quite fine but the ending comes abruptly. Nevertheless, he has presented us a madman villain with equally intriguing henchmen and women, good action and the return of Felix Leiter.

3 1/2 stars. #8 of 14 Gardner novels thus far.

[Tony Drummond · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of Gardener's better Bond novels (although the bar is fairly low.)

Here we have Bond globetrotting with a high level of action from the opening pages. Interesting dimensions are that he is working as part of a pair rather than being a solo agent and he gets his orders from a committee rather than M.

Although we have a more realistic villain than some of the previous ones, his plot seems unclear. The first half of the book has him going in one direction but then the second half sees him going off in another one (this is completely unrelated to the first plot.) It would have been better if the author had stuck to one of these plots rather than both.

The ending also feels a little rushed.

[Art · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read quite a few 007 novels in my time as a Bond fan I respect Gardner as the most accomplished writer since Fleming himself. Most of Gardner's work is amazing, but seafire is the defintion of run of the mill. It's not that Seafire is terrible it's just cliche and cookie cutter. The ending feels forced and doesn't flow. If you are a hardcore 007 fan you will read this. If you're a casual Bond fan you can skip this one and be none the wiser. One positive is that seafire is a quick read. This debriefing report is over.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I abandoned this book after reading about 40 pages and skim reading another 20. It just didn't captivate me, and I've found a lot of Gardner's stories are hit and miss. I'm left to wonder: do I continue with Goldeneye, or give up altogether?

[Dustin Dye · Rating 4 out of 5]

SeaFire, while not the best in John Gardner's Bond series, is the only of his books I'd describe as a "page turner." Despite its flaws, at least it seems like Gardner is trying this time around, which is more than I can say for his previous book, Never Send Flowers .

SeaFire starts with James Bond and his girlfriend, Flicka (miraculously surviving from the previous book), vacationing aboard a cruise ship, the Caribbean Prince, which is owned by a self-made millionaire, Sir Maxwell Tarn. In an opening sequence seemingly ripped from the movies, a group of pirates--pirates of the Caribbean, if you will (no doubt a subtle reference to the previous book's conclusion at Disneyland)--board the boat and rob the passengers at gunpoint. Bond heroically fights the pirates, incapacitating them and taking their weapons. The cruise ship is then torpedoed, and Bond selflessly rescues nearly everyone on board, resembling Superman more than 007. In real life a spy would not "out" himself by fighting off a robber, they would instead give up whatever they had on them (or hand over a decoy wallet with their outstretched non-dominant hand with their body turned 90 degrees to the robber). Never mind, at least Gardner is trying to introduce Bond in a memorable fashion.

The Secret Service is suspicious of Tarn himself as they learn through an informer he is an international arms dealer. Tarn remains one step ahead of Bond as the latter tracks the villain across England, Spain and Germany, where Bond learns Tarn is setting himself up as der Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich, who seemingly has a mole within Bond's own organization. The trail leads to Puerto Rico, where Bond is reunited with his old friend, Felix Leiter.

Gardner does a lot of things right this time around. The scenes are short and action-packed. There is a question mark hanging over the story as we wait for an explanation for how Tarn keeps evading Bond and the authorities, and Nazis always make for good villains.

However, Gardner also has a tendency to undercut the suspense in his stories, and SeaFire is no exception. Early on, when Tarn's henchmen (who turn out to be henchwomen) have Bond and Flicka handcuffed to a radiator in a remote house, Tarn uncharacteristically prevents his henchwomen from killing our heroes because: "I don't want no more blood on anyone's hands. Not yet, anyway." For someone who had just killed several of his own people in order to fake his own death, this doesn't seem like a very realistic rationale. Gardner had written himself into a corner and needed to let Bond get away, otherwise there would be no more story. But when the villain comes off as incompetent, as he does here, it doesn't make for a very interesting story. Later, right before the final showdown with Tarn in the El Morro fort in San Juan, an SAS man says, "... I think we can deal with them without too much bother." How exciting.

Gardner frustrates readers with what he chooses to include and exclude. At numerous times in this book, he will mention Bond stopped for breakfast or lunch someone, sometimes including the menu, sometimes not, but it is always superfluous and feels like padding. If there is a jump in time, the readers just assume Bond ate at some point and don't need to have this mentioned. Why didn't Gardner mention every time Bond had a bowel movement as well, otherwise the reader just might think Bond never poops? Meanwhile, although Leiter's return to the series was welcome (he barely makes an appearance in Gardner's novels, except his novelization of Licence to Kill ), Gardner makes a point of mentioning Leiter was fed to a shark a long time ago, but (perhaps thankfully) didn't mention Leiter got fed to a shark a second time in his novelization of Licence to Kill, where Gardner made a lot of lightning seeming to strike in the same place twice. Also, we never learn exactly what Tarn was trying to accomplish with his SeaFire operation. His plan was to blow up an oil tanker in the Caribbean, and then have his own anti-pollution device arrive on the scene to douse the flames and purify the water, but to what end? His plan is like the underpants gnomes from South Park: Phase 1) Cause and ecological disaster in the Caribbean and immediately clean it up, Phase 2) ?, Phase 3) Nazi resurrection in Europe. Probably just an understandable oversight.

I rate this book highly relative to other Bond books because it was engrossing overall, despite its numerous flaws.

[Richard Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally appeared on The Reel Bits in an extended form (with spoilers) as part of my 007 Case Files. This abbreviated version is spoiler free.

3.5 stars

“The Cold War was over,” writes John Gardner near the start of his 1994 novel. “Now they were engaged in what might be called a Tepid War: one in which even their allies were suspect, and their former enemies required watching like viruses under a microscope.”

You can almost hear the lamenting sigh behind this one line. Gardner’s Bond had witnessed the height of the tensions between the USSR and the US, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of a different kind of terrorism and espionage. Nevertheless, the villain and the plotting of SEAFIRE is very old school, drawing on a kind of megalomania that harks back to the earliest days of 007. At the same time, the rise of right wing groups and the unmitigated influence of a billionaire feels decidedly contemporary by 2022 standards.

When we first encounter our friend James in this book, he is enjoying a cruise with former Swiss Intelligence agent Flicka von Grüsse, who you might remember from Never Send Flowers (1993). Their relationship has grown stronger, but they continue to keep it a secret for fear that their employers will stop allowing them to work together. Following an attack on the ship, Bond and Flicka are hot on the trail of billionaire Sir Maxwell Tarn, who believes himself to be the next Hitler — but for the ‘90s.

Thanks to all those other traditional elements, Gardner keeps a taut pace throughout. When Bond isn’t making love to Flicka, which he does with regularity in the first half of the book, he’s dodging a gender-swapping bodyguard duo, and getting involved in chase scenes. There’s a few moments where Gardner does a pretty decent impersonation of a horror novel as well, such as the discovery of a beaten body swinging from a crossbeam, left on display for the spies in a darkened room. Bond is a fully-fledged, genre-spanning hero: all while driving a cream-coloured VW Corrado.

To contrast the super spy is the unambiguous villainy of Max Tarn, who is allowed to rise in the wake of right wing revivalists. Early on, Bond says he looks “like the Prince of Darkness.” Gardner describes Tarn as the kind of man who could bring down countries while charming your pants off. “Max Tarn is not just another fascist,” explains one character. “Max Tarn thinks of himself as the Nazi Messiah. He’s the reincarnation of Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels – you name them, he is it.” We’re told he “owns…an African-American girl who happens to be a junkie” and that he’s “politically slightly to the right of Adolph Hitler and Genghis Khan.” He's bad. Nazis: we hate those guys!

In many ways, SEAFIRE feels like Gardner bidding farewell to a character he’d been writing for at least 13 years at this point. For this reason, he allows himself some meta indulgences, such as the sort-of eponymously named Rendrag Associates, and a cheeky reference to Drinkmanship turning up their noses at Bond’s favourite martini recipe. Yet Gardner still had two books left in his tenure, one of which was the novelisation of GoldenEye, a film that marked the cinematic return of Bond after a six year absence. This may not be the height of Bond’s career, and the ending is often a convoluted mess, but it’s unabashedly fun.

[Mark W · Rating 2 out of 5]

The wheels are coming off John Gardner's Bond with Seafire. By the time Gardner had got round to this his 14th Bond, he had made a number of significant changes to the formula. Bond is out of MI5 running his own department -of whose personal we see almost nothing- M is pretty much out of the picture and Moneypenny and Q Branch are at best peripheral.

But the biggest change of all is placing Flicka von Grüsse as a long term partner for Bond and this badly effects the formula. Bond as Fleming wrote him works generally as a cipher, a man dropped into the most dangerous situations with only his native wit and gun to get him out of it. He introspects very little and this allows the reader to flesh out his character.

In Seafire Bond does almost everything with Flicka and so rarely seems to be the cold secret agent out on his own for king and country. This is particularly highlighted in the almost the last scene in the book when alone in a German submarine, trapped 20,000 ft down, with a ruthless crew and a bomb about to go off the novel comes alive just briefly.

Least this should feel like a - Woman ruin Bond review- its not that. Bond being with a partner has worked (Majesty Secret Service) but Flicka is an extremely poorly written character. She is of course beautiful and we are told, a deadly brilliant spy in her own right. Told but not shown. Flicka seems completely ineffectual, she demands to accompany Bond on each mission and then does nothing. She confronts an assassin and gets beaten up so James can rescue her. She and James discuss sex like a married couple in there 60s. She is present throughout the whole novel and yet is superfluous to everything.

That and of course the SAS on motorised parachutes.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Berlin Wall has fallen and Germany is reunified, and a group of Germans considers this a perfect time to bring about the Fourth Reich. And Maxwell Tarn is just the man to be the new Fuehrer. James Bond and his friend Flicka are sent in to flush him out and reveal his plans. They travel across England, France, Italy, Israel, and Germany, before finally coming to Puerto Rico to ferret out his plot. It somehow involves a U-boat and an oil spill. Bond continuously tries to leave Flicka behind while dealing with a new bureaucracy that hinders his every move.

While the writing itself is fine, the overall plot leaves something to be desired. Gardner has been trying for years to divorce Bond from MI-6, and he finally pulls the plug here. Bond is now in charge of a separate unit that answers to a Commision made up of MI-6, MI-5, the Foreign and Domestic offices, and Scotland Yard. It is as unwieldy as it sounds, and Bond spends much time working around them. They are also naturally leaky, which nearly gets him killed.

On top of it all is the villain's master plan. How this plan is going to result in him taking over the world is beyond me, and the best explanation for it given is the repeated claim that Max Tarn is insane. Also, after years of Bond resisting the idea that he is a hired assassin he decides from the very beginning that he is going to kill Tarn.

It is easy to read, but it never makes much sense, and it ends quite abruptly. The whole business with M being bedridden is annoying, and the long-term romance with Flicka just tiresome given that we know how this is going to end.

[Gerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I still maintain that Never Send Flowers is John Gardner's worst James Bond book. As I noted in the review, the Bond-elements are okay but the plotting was very poor.

SeaFire, is a bit the opposite. The plotting, villains etc are very good. It also takes in many locations, with Bond unusually not spending the whole book away on the mission, but doing little bits of it and then returning to London. But the plot is among Gardner's best.

What doesn't work is Gardner's attempt to bring Bond up to date (and I say that now some 20 years after the book was written). Bond is monogomous, Flicka has moved into his flat, they are a couple. The film series has also made attempts recently to bring Bond inline with the #metoo generation. And they've been a lot more successful at keeping Fleming's essence intact.

At one point musing on their relationship, Bond thinks "she liked Classical music, he preferred Jazz". That is the worst line Gardner wrote, I think. It singularly sells out Bond, shows a strange lack of understanding of the character. I remember when I first read this when it came out, I wondered if it hadn't been Gardner that wrote it, and whether a new writer has just taken his name as a Pseudonym to not scare people away.

He was still writing good fiction of his own at this point, but he'd lost it with Bond, or lost patience. He was only to write one more...

[Karen Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely done update of the venerable 007 franchise, with Bond facing off against a billionaire with designs on reviving the Nazi party and becoming the successor to Hitler. The big change is a steady for Bond in Flicka, a former Swiss intelligence agent who has gone to work for Britain. Also new is 007 being reassigned to the English version of homeland security, where he sits rather uncomfortably in its meetings to assess threats rather than being out in the field. There is also the welcome returns of Q, who is now a very attractive woman, and Felix Leiter when the action shifts to Puerto Rico. There is also a nice touch in a pair of evil henchmen, who plague Bond and Flicka through the story and aren't exactly what they appear to be. The plot, meanwhile, is the typical action packed and witty remarks filled story which moves along quickly but it does seem to have a rushed conclusion. It is, however, a nice relaxing time killer that will leave you satisfied in the end.

[Kost As · Rating 2 out of 5]

Οκ, ώρες ώρες απορώ γιατί συνεχίζω να διαβάζω τις ιστορίες του John Gardner με ήρωα το James Bond. Μάλλον είναι κάποιο είδος ψυχαναγκασμού, δεν εξηγείται αλλιώς... Δεν ενθουσιάστηκα όπως έγινε αντιληπτό. Πλοκή τραβηγμένη από τα μαλλιά για να μπορέσουμε να την κάνουμε μυθιστόρημα, ενώ οι επιλογές του ήρωα σχετικά με το τι στρατηγική θα ακολουθήσει στη συνέχεια είναι το λιγότερο αμφισβητήσιμες. Ακόμα και ο ίδιος το αναλογίζεται αρκετές φορές. "Ένας πράκτορας δε μπαίνει ποτέ από εκεί που τον περιμένουν" είχε πει κάποια στιγμή ο ΘΒ, οπότε φαντάζομαι ότι κάτι τέτοιο έχει στο νου του αρκετές φορές ο JB.

Από την άλλη, βέβαια, σίγουρα η απόφασή μου να συνεχίσω και να διαβάσω και το επόμενο βιβλίο της σειράς του John Gardner είναι το λιγότερο αμφισβητήσημη, έτσι δεν είναι...;

[Daniel Callister · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a James Bond novel, this did not disappoint. However, there were some elements that were decidedly uncharacteristic of the Bond character and of what fans have come to expect. For instance he's in love and living with a woman who is essentially acting as his partner/sidekick throughout the whole book (no thank you, Bond is a loner, an army unto himself, that's why we love him). He even proposes to this woman (because what Bond fan doesn't want to see James settle down and commit to a monogamous relationship?). At the end of the book he even cries when he's reunited with his love (*barf*, not MY James Bond!). Besides that whole mess, the book was lots of fun.

[Ben De Bono · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Gardner frequently commits the cardinal sin of writing Bond: he makes the character dull. License to Kill is my least favorite of the Eon Bond films because Timothy Dalton seems to hate everything that makes Bond, Bond. He plays him as a chaste, uncharismatic regular guy. John Gardner probably loved that take

Seafire is the worst example of this approach because Gardner has Bond successfully settle down with one woman. Bond’s sex life works one of two ways: either genuine but doomed or as a serial playboy. Blissful monogamy doesn’t work except as a prelude to tragedy. But that’s what we get here and it sucks

[Ben Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

It isn’t Bond, but it isn’t bad.

Gardner’s Bond is unrecognisable in all but name from Fleming’s. He drives a Saab and is in a stable relationship with a woman. Certain things that don’t chime with the original novels. However if you can put those issues aside we have a reasonable tale of espionage.

Middle of the road fare which I probably wouldn’t have read had it not been a Bond continuation novel. That said I was invested in what happened to Bond, Flicka and whether they would foil the Bond villain.

[Jack Sakalauskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author writes a good James Bond story and this is one of the best. Ian Fleming must be smiling down on him. We know Bond's lifestyle and this book will point out his vanity, letting us see that he is far from perfect.

This book is written as the last of the Bond series and it was a good endeavor. We are told his weak points, his strong points, that he does not have a heart of stone and can shed tears. Although there are other Bond stories, they will not move his life and career further on.

[Benjamin Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well built plot falls flat as 007 does several things out of character. A tense scene is set with Bond and Flicka aboard a vessel occupied by the villain, seemingly trapped, then telephoned their hotel with no explanation of their escape. I also have a hard time buying into Bond loving again, and rather wish Gardner would have killed Flicka off. The elaborate plot ends in a rather anticlimactic disappointing short skirmish.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

My least favorite Gardner 007 so far.The plot is good, if disturbingly prescient- the return of Nazis. Where it fails is messing with the formula. MI6 is almost nonexistent. M is being put out to pasture. Bond is in management and in a monogamous relationship, We don’t come to Bond for innovation and character growth, we come for 097 saving the world while romancing new beautiful women, flirting with Moneypenny, exasperating M, & sparring with Q. There’s a formula, stick with it.

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bond is once again with Flicka and now works for OmniGlobe. Action packed from the beginning, starting on a cruise ship, shifting to France, England, Germany and ending in San Juan. This is the second to last Bond book by Gardner. The neo-Nazi villain Tarn and his entourage is a bit typecast and not very plausible, but the plot moves quickly

[Eric Keegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modest return to form, with a sprinkle of lighter Bond elements that you can see John tried hard to stray from. Fast paced plot, great action, intriguing villain (in spite of the overdone Nazi plot), return of Q’ute, amazing side narrative with M, and a non-rushed ending. Very much enjoyed this one!

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best of the Gardner batch, hands down. Taut and thrilling from the get go. A bit reminiscent of License to Kill, in terms of the villain, but the cast of characters is solid and the pacing is good. The ending is a bit ambiguous, making it simultaneously frustrating and satisfying.
Of all of Gardner's installments, this one would have made a great film in the right hands.

[Andrew Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The storyline is typical James Bond.
This book was clearly written to be easily adapted into a screenplay . Timothy Dalton would have done very well playing this roll.
Storyline is good and as it is set in the early 90's, the theme of the book runs true to the movies at that time.

Worth a read if you like JB.