CommanderBond.net

How old were you when you first read John Gardner's No Deals, Mr. Bond--the current book in the ?

I had found a US Charter paperback copy very early on when I was beginning the John Gardner series and saved it until after I had read the first five. I'm not positive, but I seem to remember reading this one during the 12 hour car ride to the Outer Banks during a summer vacation. Must have been somewhere around 2003.

After reading Nobody Lives Forever, my personal favourite Gardner Bond novel, I was a bit let down here. The plot seemed overly complicated and the villain was somewhat forgettable. It is certainly not Gardner's worst, but there are several other novels I prefer to this one.

I think I was 14. I read all the Fleming books in one summer, then read most of the Gardner ones for various school book reports.

Reading it for the first time now, aged 38.
Really enjoying the Gardner books, which I never new about until i found this site.

My Gardner history here or the continuing story of Bungalow Bill.

OK, by now I was regularly on the phone to Glidrose and when they told me the title (well prior to publication), I almost fell off my chair. It is the worst Bond title ever (I know Gardner did not come up with it).

That summer, my maternal grandmother visited and I was gifted some money which went on buying up first editions. I remember NDMB was the first time I'd bought the new Bond book around the date of publication. I remember being disappointed that the cover of the UK first was glossy (not matt like the predecessors) and that the illustration was not Chopping-esque. Still, I was feverish in that eccentric Aladdin's cave for bibliophiles that was the old Foyle's Bookshop on Charing Cross Road, London (the refit means you can actually find books there now but I miss those mysterious, musty aisles).

The book itself was fun. I guess now Gardner had got into his own Bond formula with double plus crosses, tradecraft, James Boldman, the ASP and the COB etc. I enjoyed the book and felt he had done well with the locations (Ireland, HK) and motley, Alistair MacLean-like crew of fellow travellers. The logic of the story always troubled me (won't spoil it here) but compared to what was to follow, NDMB seems fairly sensible now. I loved Heather Dare (although I later discovered this was a character name from a Boysie Oakes book) and Ebbie Heritage (whom, we discover later in a subsequent GardnerBond, Brokenclaw, taught Bond how to lip read). I felt it was a beat below ROH and NLFE. It reminded me somewhat of Icebreaker and Gardner would re-use virtually the same plot in Death Is Forever (the 2nd worst Bond title ever!). It's Cold War leanings have not been kind to this book either. However, I really enjoyed reading it, it was great fun and I devoured the book in a single sitting.


Totally agree, Qwerty


I forget the exact chronology but it was summer 1987.
Hmmm. Summer 1987.

Well, everything happened this summer.

Suddenly last summer
I started going out of my head...

Second wind on filmBond with the Timothy Dalton reboot. Joined the various fan clubs. The Living Daylights was a wonderful whole other adventure in itself from premiere day onwards...

Left school.

Fainted on the first day of my first real job - with Bruno, the motorbike crazy Swiss-German headchef...

Also, it was twenty years ago today during the Sgt Pepper CD launch that I began to properly discover the Beatles....et alors il y avait Christelle, ma belle.
Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble, très bien ensemble.

I read it when it first came out, which I believe was early 1987...
so I would still have been 16.

I read it when it was first released, so I was 20-21, still in college.

I was 22 and this was a year of major change for me. I rolled the dice and was accepted into USC. Unlike my first aborted college experience, I wasn't going in as a business major, I’m going to study Cinema (you can study movies? Ha! Suckers.) I shaved my bad mustache, got a gleaming new super computer -- a Mac Plus with, yes, and 800K internal drive! Nothing can stop me now -- and I moved to Marina del Rey (the beach).

I found NO DEALS, MR BOND in the USC University Village bookstore. It was sitting right there on the pile of new releases at the door. It was a total surprise. With all the changes in my life, I just hadn't kept up. I instantly didn't like the Dr. Suess color of the jacket nor the title. I barely had time to read it I’m so swamped with school. The book was a letdown. First Gardner that was really a stink bomb, IMO. Or, I thought, maybe I just wasn't into it that year (I've since given the book two more chances -- yep, stink bomb).

What wasn't a letdown that year was the Bond film. Feeling like I could do anything, I rolled the dice on that one and landed a ticket to the premiere of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. My first trip ever to England, and end up sitting two rows behind Prince Charles and Lady Diana (and Cubby, Dalton, etc). I even met Timothy Dalton after the movie! Best Bond experience of my life. A wonderful year.

I was 19 and it was just before spring break my Freshman year of college. Also, I was off to London. A friend of mine had opted for a student exchange program in Sweden to take the additional year of school there. Before email made it easier, we had traded letters. We discovered that our spring breaks were the same week. Hence, we met in London.

So I read the book during the flight over and the flight home. While I found it an enjoyable read, it still wasn't as good as the first four novels (LR, FSS, IB, ROH), but I did like some of the elements. The Seahawk operation, another dinner with M at Blades, the locales from Ireland to Hong Kong. Smolin had some great menace to his character though.

You know, as my mind casts back, I did really enjoy this novel and I'm certain it's been 15 years or more since I read it last. Maybe it's time to revisit that territory.

Maybe it's time to go back to London again too. It's been a whole five months. Hmmmm...

I’ll be at least 35 when I do.