CommanderBond.net

From CBn's Main Page...

Looking Back: No Deals, Mr. Bond John Gardner's sixth James Bond novel

I started it but never finnished.I liked the title.

I never really cared for this one. A huge letdown after the terrific Nobody Lives Forever IMO.

this was always one of my favorites because it really confused the hell out of me and it stayed that way until the end. The best Bond novels are the ones that keep you guessing in my opinion.

Perhaps with double-crosses to confuse you? The Gardner books are perfect then.

This sounds dumb, but the only thing I remember about it is the part where Bond makes his own salad dressing at Blades. It sounded like really good salad dressing;P.

LOL. Definitely don't remember that.

Well, I guess I'll have to defend it again. Providing we have left behind the Gardner double-cross problem, are there any good features in the book yet? Yes, I'd say. It has lots of daring and noordinary twists like the GRU base in Ireland, Bond having a Russian ally (Colonel of GRU, mind you!), top KGB General coming to Ireland, Commander Bond onboard of a submarine (have you seen him there before in the books?), Bond making the salad dressing (as mentioned above), etc. Think about the year: 1987. The USSR still existed. I'm sure that the then NDMB was more daring and beyond-improbable than any of the today's Benson novels.

This post has been edited by Grubozaboyschikov: 5 July 2005 - 05:54

Oh well, it's still a nightmare title for EON.
It could as well be the last title in the movie series.
*Heaven forbid!*

Gardner really did have a hard time naming this one.
And the publishers did not help one bit.


To put it bluntly.

I don't understand why they didn't just call the book "Blackfriar". Okay, it's still not great..but it works with the story and it's a heck of a lot better than No Deals, Mr. Bond.

They should have stuck with "Tomorrow Always Comes".

I have a feeling though that if they did that, the title "Tomorrow Never Dies" would never have seen the light of day. And also TND would seem like a sequel.

There seemed to be an article by Gardner where he compplains about the problem of naming his books. I definitely saw it in JPG format somewhere.

This post has been edited by Grubozaboyschikov: 5 July 2005 - 08:21

More specifically, you can read it over at his website.
Here's the url:
http://www.john-gardner.com/bond.html

Paragraph 16.

I have always believed that the editor who begins a session with the words, "I'm not happy with the title," has nothing to say about the book. Many reviewers said that my titles were poor. Little did they know what I'd saved them from because publishers almost to a man (or woman) wanted title changes and the Americans in particular suggested the most appalling new titles: I recall such wonders as Oh No, Mr. Bond! And Bond Fights Back. Those two finally became, after many protests on my part, the dreadful No Deals Mr. Bond while my original title for Icebreaker was instantly turned down only to be picked up again a month later after turkey after turkey had to be rejected. My former agent is convinced to this day that he was responsible for Death is Forever, which was actually taken from some dialogue in a Stephen King book. I tried to explain it to him but he still claimed that he was the one. I can't think why because it isn't a very sophisticated title. Peter Janson-Smith came up with two of the titles, though by now I've forgotten which, and somewhere I have the original lengthy list of quite abominable titles suggested by publishers.

This post has been edited by zencat: 5 July 2005 - 15:50