What do you think about the License to Kill novelization? Because I hate it!

Hello everyone, I started reading License to Kill by John Gardner two weeks ago, planning to watch the movie after reading, as I haven't watched LTK yet. Well, I absolutely hated it without even getting half of it. I found it very boring, the way to write was terrible and it's a lot copied from Ian Fleming's novels.
Now, about the writing style I blame the italian translater, especially because I've read another John Gardner book on the original language (Goldeneye novelisation) and, despite not being good at english, I really enjoyed it.
And much of the plot is directly taken from Ian Fleming's books. Again, I don't blame John Gardner, as he made a novelisation, infact I blame the script writer.
For example, SPOILERS Felix Leiter's wife, Della, is murdered on wedding's day, just like Bond's wife, Tracy, in OHMSS. Felix gets thrown in a sharks pool (or sea, I don't really know) just like Live and Let Die. Bond himself remembers that this already happened. Then Bond goes to the house, and the same actions happen, such as Bond putting his hands in the water, and the bad guy almost falls in the sharks pool, and he prays for his life, then Bond thinks about Felix eaten by the sharks, so he kicks the guy in the water. Exactly like in Live & Let Die. And I also heard there are parts from The Hildebrand Rarity (I have read the short story, but didn't get that part yet, and I think I ever won't).
So, I took up the book and started reading Goldfinger, I really love it.
What do you think about License to Kill novelization, then?

I hate it too -- it was enough to make me give up on Gardner altogether, either that or his novel where he has Bond go through that MAN CALLED HORSE business.. Garnder managed to destroy every good bit of drama inherent in the screenplay.

However ... I absolutely love the movie. Maybe I liked it so much BECAUSE the novelization, which I read before going to the theater to see the film, sucked so extremely.

No, I take it back. The movie is great for me because it has the harsh deadly rough feel of Bond's world as described in L&LD and other spots. It looks pretty bad cinematically, but it did exactly what I wanted Bond movies to do (as did TLD) ... make me forget about the agony that was the Moore era.

Fleming gets adapted into LTK, and then is spat back out into a Gardner novelization. The result is probably the Bond equivalent of SPAM.

Walecs wrote:

So, I took up the book and started reading Goldfinger, I really love it.

Of course. =) Fleming > any other Bond author... The Bond novels aren't like the films, where the best actor/author is debatable. All the subsequent Bond authors pale in comparison to Fleming (and they usually aren't very good taken on their own, either).

I thought Colonel Sun was okay. I never finished it, though.

Yeah I think the main mistake of the LTK novelization was Gardner's attempt to work it into the continuity of his own continuation novels, which spun off from Fleming's storyline, resulting in that "Lightning Strikes Twice" business

Thanks for your opinions. :)

Louis Armstrong wrote:

Fleming gets adapted into LTK, and then is spat back out into a Gardner novelization. The result is probably the Bond equivalent of SPAM.

Walecs wrote:

So, I took up the book and started reading Goldfinger, I really love it.

Of course. =) Fleming > any other Bond author... The Bond novels aren't like the films, where the best actor/author is debatable. All the subsequent Bond authors pale in comparison to Fleming (and they usually aren't very good taken on their own, either).

I thought Colonel Sun was okay. I never finished it, though.

I like SUN a lot, but almost never reread it. I prefer Pearson's BIO OF 007, as much for its audacity as for the way it captures and builds on Fleming's Bond.

I've got to re-read it, but I don't remember thinking anything bad about it. I read lots of these tie-ins for films I like because they typically have all the deleted scenes and backstory cut from the final edits. I can handle them if competently written. GE, TWINE, DAD all are more detailed than the films (haven't found a print copy of TND yet), but the most notable ones I've come across are the tie-ins of Batman Forever and Batman Begins.
Forever uses earlier script material and is an effective glimpse at the original 2.5 hour film that was severely re-edited by idiots multiple times. Begins is much better than the film, with more detail, feeling and narrative drive and was written by Batman legend Dennis O'Neil.

hegottheboot wrote:

I've got to re-read it, but I don't remember thinking anything bad about it. I read lots of these tie-ins for films I like because they typically have all the deleted scenes and backstory cut from the final edits. I can handle them if competently written. GE, TWINE, DAD all are more detailed than the films (haven't found a print copy of TND yet), but the most notable ones I've come across are the tie-ins of Batman Forever and Batman Begins.
Forever uses earlier script material and is an effective glimpse at the original 2.5 hour film that was severely re-edited by idiots multiple times. Begins is much better than the film, with more detail, feeling and narrative drive and was written by Batman legend Dennis O'Neil.

I think you can find Tomorrow Never Dies on eBay. I bought it along with Goldeneye and Die Another Day from an english seller before finding out that TND and DAD were translated in italian. I liked The World is Not Enough novelization very much for your same reason (deleted scenes and backstory), as well as I liked all four Indiana Jones novelizations and two of Star Wars films.

Finally I finished it.