Blowing hot and cold? - Your reviews of SeaFire (1994) by John Gardner

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I'd really like to hear your collective views here on CBn about John Gardner's SeaFire (1994). I've included it in the controversial aspects of the James Bond Continuation simply because it features Bond settling down with Flicka von Grusse (from the previous year's Never Send Flowers). The plot is also rather convoluted (Sir Max Tarn wants to become the new Fuhrer of a new Fourth Reich in the newly (1990) reunified Germany (making this neo-Nazi plot element rather absurd, even for a Bond novel, IMHO) and create a giant oil spill and clean it up - not sure if I can remember how these two remotes are related, though?)

It's also controversial for the inclusion of the MicroGlobe One department taking over M's department at SIS (it also features in Cold/Cold Fall) and a lot of readers really disliked this change in the last two books - but change was in the air from the end of Never Send Flowers onwards. It was a plot device to get a mole on the Board (shades of Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal here?) and is also of course used by Gardner as a plot device to smooth over the transition between the old M and the new female M in the film series. The old M from the Fleming novels was rather put out to grass from SeaFire on (he was ill and in old age) and was replaced by the new female M from the film GoldenEye onwards, although he later reappeared in the new works by Faulks, Deaver and (in 2013) William Boyd. He also reappeared in his retirement at Quarterdeck in The Facts of Death (1998) by Raymond Benson (I think, from memory).

I've already written one article on the novel which can be found in the links from the Finer Details series on the CBn Main Page and from my The Bondologist Blog:

http://commanderbond...e-in-ww-ii.html

http://thebondologis...defence-of.html

I have ideas for TWO other articles on this novel up my sleeve which will appear on my The Bondologist Blog in due course.

Also, notice how SeaFire and Cold Fall (US title) presage SkyFall or Skyfall (?)

In the meantime, I'd really love to hear your views on John Gardner's SeaFire.

I really appreciate all of your views, as always!