Customer Reviews

Licence to Kill

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

John Gardner's screenplay approach to writing novels pays off. This is his first novel based on the screenplay of a Bond film and he seems to have found his niche even though some of these events are a retelling from Ian Fleming's novel "Live and Let Die" with the same character being mangled again! However, this novel is based on Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson's story for Timothy Dalton's James Bond in LICENCE TO KILL. It remarkably makes for an interesting read from an otherwise unsatisfactory film adding detail to scenes and venturing inside the head of the main character exploring his feelings and motivations. For John Gardner this is pretty inspiring stuff.

I know everyone hates the movie(I don't) that this book is based on. Well, if that's the case, read the book, as it is actually better than the movie(although the tanker chase just doesn't read as exciting as watching it). Most people dislike Gardner's book's when compared with Fleming's, but this one is top notch. The only problem is, Gardner goes to slightly...schizofrenic means to tie License to Kill in with the on-going Fleming series. Seeing as that Milton Krest appeared in an earlier(but almost completly unknown) Fleming Bond short story, and Felix Leiter got his leg and an arm bitten off in Fleming's Live and Let Die, Gardner has to resort to ignoring Milton Krest's death in "The Hildebrand Rarity" and the shark bites of Leiter's false limbs.

When I started the book it was interesting. Felix Lieter and his wife got killed by Franz Sanchez and his henchmen. Bond met Pam for a meeting that Felix was supposed to be at but he was dead so he couldn't be there.There were a couple of Sanchez'z men looking at them.