| Licence Renewed | |
|---|---|
1st edition Jonathan Cape cover |
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| Author(s) | John Gardner |
| Cover artist | Richard Chopping |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | James Bond |
| Genre(s) | Spy novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
| Publication date | 1981 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 272 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-224-01941-4 (first edition, hardback) |
| OCLC Number | 8146232 |
| Preceded by | James Bond and Moonraker |
| Followed by | For Special Services |
Licence Renewed (published in American editions as License Renewed), first published in 1981, is the first novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond.[1] It was the first proper James Bond novel (not counting novelisations and a faux biography) since Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun in 1968. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Richard Marek.
The release of Licence Renewed successfully relaunched the Bond literary franchise, being the first of 14 original novels by Gardner until his retirement in 1996. In that time frame Gardner also wrote two novelisations.
Contents |
When hired to begin a new series of James Bond novels, author John Gardner was tasked with updating James Bond and his allies and transporting them into the 1980s.
I described to the Glidrose Board how I wanted to put Bond to sleep where Fleming had left him in the sixties, waking him up now in the 80s having made sure he had not aged, but had accumulated modern thinking on the question of Intelligence and Security matters. Most of all I wanted him to have operational know-how: the reality of correct tradecraft and modern gee-whiz technology.—John Gardner[2]
Updating the time frame to the 1980s, Gardner's series picks up the career of James Bond some years after the Fleming novels ended. Due to the time frame change Gardner's series suggests that Fleming's stories took place in the 1960s and 70s, rather than the 1950s and 60s.
Likewise with James Bond, his companions and allies, specifically those working for the British Secret Service such as M, Bill Tanner, Miss Moneypenny, and Q are also all transported to the 1980s, although Q is rarely mentioned and is mostly substituted by Ann Reilly, a genius of gadgetry who is promptly nicknamed "Q'ute" by fellow workers as well as Bond, not long before being added to Bond's long list of romantic conquests.
When Licence Renewed begins, M reminds Bond that the 00 section has in fact been abolished; however, M retains Bond as a troubleshooter (pun intended), telling him "You'll always be 007 to me". Bond is assigned to investigate one Dr. Anton Murik, a brilliant nuclear physicist who is thought to have been having meetings with a terrorist named Franco. Franco is identified and tracked by MI5 to a village in Scotland called Murcaldy. Since Murcaldy is outside of MI5's jurisdiction, the Director-General of MI5, Richard Duggan requests that M send Bond to survey Murik. Relying on information that MI5 did not have, M changes Bond's assignment to instead infiltrate Murik's Scottish castle and gain Murik's confidence.
Bond makes contact with Murik at Ascot Racecourse where he feigns a coincidental meeting, mentioning to Murik that he is a mercenary looking for work. Later, Bond joins Murik in Scotland at Murik's behest and is hired to kill Franco, for reasoning at the time unknown. Franco in turn has been tasked by Murik to kill his young ward, Lavender Peacock because she was the true heir to the Murik fortune, which could only be proved by secret documents Anton kept in a hidden safe within his castle.
Murik's plan is to hijack six nuclear power plants around the world simultaneously with the aid of bands of terrorists supplied by Franco. To ensure that Murik can never be associated to this deal, he attempts to use Bond to assassinate Franco. Ultimately terrorists do take over six nuclear power plants, but are prevented from starting a meltdown when they are given an abort code by Bond, believing him to be Murik. Murik is eventually defeated by Bond and Lavender before his demands were met.
In Licence Renewed Bond drives a Saab 900 Turbo. For some editions of the book, the car is shown as black or red on the book cover; however, in the book the car's colour isn't mentioned. It only became silver and took on the nickname the "Silver Beast"[3] in the follow-up Gardner novel, For Special Services.
The car is Bond's personal vehicle, updated on his own expense by Communication Control Systems Ltd (CCS), a real life company (now known as Security Intelligence Technology Group) that advised author John Gardner with ideas about feasible gadgets to be used. Consequently, Gardner gave them the credit in the book and not Q Branch.
With the release of Licence Renewed Saab Automobile took the opportunity to launch a Bond themed promotional campaign complete with an actual car outfitted like the one in the book (but using smoke instead of tear gas).[3]
Some key plot elements in Licence Renewed, including other Gardner Bond novels, may have had some influence in future Bond films; most notably Anton Murik's plot of a nuclear disaster with the aid of a infamous terrorist which was the basis of The World Is Not Enough. Other key elements from Renewed that appeared in future Bond films were Anton's cheating at horse racing, which Max Zorin did in A View to a Kill, and the obsession with weapons, not unlike Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights. Gardner's Role of Honour and A View to a Kill also share similar climaxes.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Licence Renewed, all fourteen of John Gardner's James Bond books will be republished by Orion in the UK starting in June 2011. The first five titles will be released in hardback featuring their original covers. The rest of John Gardner's Bond books will be released in the UK as paperbacks in 2012 as a redesigned collection. In the US, Pegasus will release the first three John Gardner titles in newly-designed paperback in the Autumn of 2011. The editions will feature new introductions from luminaries in the world of Bond, and will be followed by a complete re-issue of all 14 titles in the US.[4]