Gardner or Benson?

Yes, the old debate that people used to argue about all the time.

I'm still in the John Gardner corner, perhaps one of the very few. I've always enjoyed his works. His non-Bond works are quite spectacular as well.

I've come to realize to just enjoy them for what they are. No, Benson is a good writer. But I if I'm open minded to the experience I can get into it.

I sort of have an urge to re-read the Gardners and Bensons Never Dream of Dying. As for the latter, is was one of the first Bond books I read, I'm guess I'm curious to read it know having read the whole Bond cannon.

DDT or Agent Orange?

ambler wrote:

DDT or Agent Orange?

I'll take DDT, that is Gardner, although I've only read one novel from each. No interest at all in reading anything else by either Gardner or Benson. The one continuation novel I liked was Colonel Sun.

Having read Benson's sex scenes, I vote Gardner purely on principle.

You'd find more erotic writing in a Men's Health article

CC'd from another thread, "Top 5 non-Fleming Bond Novels":

Licence Renewed: A perfect literary revival.
Icebreaker: If Allistair MacLean had written a Bond.
Nobody Lives Forever: FRWL, LALD & YOLT rolled into one.
Scorpius: Eerily prophetic plot involving suicide bombers.
Win, Lose or Die: Gardner's OHMSS.
Brokenclaw: Appears much tighter when compared to anything Gardner wrote subsequently.

vs

Zero Minus Ten: Raymond Benson writing as Ian Fleming.
High Time to Kill: Benson's Icebreaker.

= Gardner over Benson, 3-1.

AMC Hornet wrote:

CC'd from another thread, "Top 5 non-Fleming Bond Novels":

Licence Renewed: A perfect literary revival.

I give it two stars. I fail to see what is so peferct about it. For some reason some of the Garnder novels felt more compelling when I was younger, so my recent project to read all Bond from Fleming forward was to help the adult version of Gravity's SIlhouette (and I use "adult" loosely) see whether or not his tastes had changed since his teens. I had a better appreciation for Fleming in my late 30's than I had in my l late teens, but my appreciation for Gardner changed in the nearly 20 year gap of my reading. One novel that went down for me was LICENSE RENEWED.

Quote :

Icebreaker: If Allistair MacLean had written a Bond.

Having never read MacClean, I don't know if that' an insult or a compliment. I can say this: Gardner's ICEBREAKER is the one novel that has stood the test of time for me. It was great when I first read it in 84-85, again in '90, and then in 2011. It's one of the rare Bond novels that entertains me each and every time I read it and leaps off the Bond literary canon and onto my overall list of favorite books, including non-Bond books.

Quote :

Nobody Lives Forever: FRWL, LALD & YOLT rolled into one.

The exchanges between Bond and the women after ICEBREAKER never felt authentic to me. They felt like they were written with Roger Moore in mind; some of the dialogue Gardner gave the women was groan-inducing and embarrassing. In NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, Gardner awkwardly sets up the plot, which I think sort of shambles on for a while, but really picks up steam and becomes a much tougher, grittier, interesting piece by the time he hits Key West.,

Quote :

Scorpius: Eerily prophetic plot involving suicide bombers.

And in once sentence you quickly condense the only redeeming feature of this story that I have found to be the worst novel in the series (so far).

Benson, but only in the same way that I'd rather be killed by a gun than a knife. Neither is a pleasant option.

I'll take the early Gardners, right up to Win Lose or Die, then I think they level off a bit, but still a solid 14 novel body of work.
Benson's 6 books are quite readable but he makes the cardinal errorr of bringing iconic Fleming characters into the his 90's 00's Bond world. It didn't make much sense. At least he handled Tanaka better than Draco but still I think he would have been better off leaving them alone.
So I vote Gardner over Benson.

The early Gardners over any Benson -- Benson always felt like officially licensed fan fiction to me.

1980s Gardner - interesting, inventive, some great ideas; after that it became a bit of a chore.

The 1990s generally - bit poor for literary Bond. Didn't take to Benson's style but he had some good ideas too.

Gardner; while his work often notably lacks the Flemingesque touch of surrealism, he is clearly a vastly more talented writer than Benson, whose prose is sometimes downright appalling.

Safari Suit wrote:

Gardner; while his work often notably lacks the Flemingesque touch of surrealism, he is clearly a vastly more talented writer than Benson, whose prose is sometimes downright appalling.

Pretty much agreed.

I do give Benson quite a bit of credit, though, for some interesting ideas that he put forward in his novels. I think that the ideas he puts forward, notably those found in DOUBLESHOT and NEVER DREAM OF DYING, could have been turned into truly great Bond novels in the hands of more capable writers. I still enjoy his novels for what they are, which is basically Brosnan Era films put on the page, but Gardner's early work most definitely comes out on top.

Gardner wasn't a perfect writer by any definition, but anyone placing Benson's prose on a higher pedestal baffles me. Benson's novels have strong ideas, construction, and pacing, but his writing is weak and the passages of exposition often read like he is holding his breath until he can write the next line of dialogue.

Col Sun, was fantastic
The Gardner Books IMHO where far Better that Bensons, even thought the Gardner novels began to feel as if it was the same story idea rewritten several times.
Benson's first couple of Books I enjoyed but then seemed to go downhill fast, High Time to Kill, is Terrible I feel cheated of the time I spent reading it. And it will be the One Bond novel I'll never read again.
I do agree bringing back old characters from the Fleming Books for the 90's was a mistake.

Col. Sun still drags terribly, with a underwhelming conclusion.

I used to love most of the Gardners, but on my current read through realized that they all went down considerably. LR-NLF are fine, but No Deals onward become more and more of a chore to get through which is not what 007 should be.

Benson felt like a godsend after all the years of increasingly dull Gardner. A Literary 007 that felt of flesh and blood? WHAT? I liked the use of classic characters and ignored the ramifications of bringing them into a modern context much like ignoring Bond's actual age etc. The books move from point to point as Bond should, and thus I can overlook their flaws much easier. There are some really great setpieces and moments in this run, EON had some great stuff to pull from but of course ignored it. I still maintain that the basic structure of HTTK could make a great Bond adventure, and that you could take the idea of Doubleshot and make a great psychologically infused Bond film that would really get inside Bond's head.

So, Benson for me. Never thought I could choose between them, but things like The Man From Barbarossa changed my mind.