John Gardner (1926-2007)

John Gardner passed away last Friday, 3 August 2007. He died from a heart attack near his home at Basingstoke. He was 80 yrs old at the time. Mr. Gardner was tapped to write a new James Bond novel by Glidrose (now Ian Fleming Publications) in 1981. His 1st novel was titled Licence Renewed. It was welcomed, but not without some controversy. Some people were upset with some of the changes done to update the character of Bond. Actually, the biggest problem was that of continuity. Bond was basically taken from where things left off in the mid 60s & dropped into the 80s only slightly older. (He should have been in his 60s & too old to be an active spy. But age progression was often a problem with authors who had long lived characters. It was the same problem Agatha Christie had with Hercule Poirot & Miss Marple.)

The novel proved popular enough that he went on to write 13 more novels & 2 novelizations of Bond movies before he stepped down due to health problems.

According to a report on CommanderBond.net his daughter Alexis said that "John Gardner phoned her at the time: ‘He told me he’d had a bit of a turn and thought he’d fainted. Two doctors happened to be passing and—typical of him—he said he didn’t need an ambulance. Then he took a turn for the worse and was rushed to hospital.’" (Full bio with the report.)

I enjoyed his Bond novels. Yes, they weren't quite the same as Ian Fleming's. But they were still well written for the most part. He did capture the Fleming characters. & they were the type of adventures Bond would have had in the 80s & 90s.