Licence Renewed (1981)

Licence Renewed, first published in 1981, is the first novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. It was the first proper James Bond novel (not counting novelizations 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, a G. P. Putnam's Sons imprint.

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 novelizations.

Updating James Bond

In 1979 Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications) approached John Gardner and asked him to revive Ian Fleming's James Bond series of novels.

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.

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.

The novel was initially titled Meltdown during the manuscript stage.

Plot summary

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".

The Director General of MI5, Sir Richard Duggan, approaches M for assistance. Noted terrorist Franco Oliveiro Quesocriado is believed to have been meeting Dr. Anton Murik, a renowned nuclear physicist, who has recently resigned under a cloud from the International Atomic Energy Research Commission. As MI5's remit is purely domestic, Duggan seeks M's help in tracking Franco's international movements, hoping to discover his intentions.

M, however, has other plans. Fearing that Murik, who is also the Laird of the Scottish village of Murcaldy, has hired Franco for his own purposes, M orders Bond to infiltrate Murik's organisation.

Bond makes contact with Murik at Ascot Racecourse, where he feigns a coincidental meeting. He tells Murik that he is a mercenary looking for work, and Murik invites Bond to Murcaldy Castle. There, Murik hires him to kill Franco. Franco, in turn, has been tasked by Murik to kill his young ward, Lavender Peacock, because she is the true heir to the Murik fortune, which could only be proved by secret documents Murik keeps hidden in a safe within his castle.

Murik's plan is to seize six nuclear power plants around the world simultaneously with the aid of bands of terrorists supplied by Franco. While the terrorists do take over the plants, Bonds deduces Murik's abort code, and the teams stand down, instead of triggering meltdowns. Thwarted, Murik is eventually defeated by Bond and Lavender.

Characters

James Bond - agent 007

M - head of the British Secret Intelligence Service

Bill Tanner - M's Chief of Staff

Miss Moneypenny - M's secretary

Ann Reilly aka Q'ute - Q Branch

Dr. Anton Murik: the current Laird of Murcaldy, owning the village of Murcaldy as well as most of the land surrounding it. Murik is a brilliant nuclear physicist who had been kicked out of the Atomic Energy Commission for his radical beliefs on the safety of nuclear power. Murik had claimed to have designed a nuclear reactor that was as powerful as a standard nuclear power plant, but safely disposed of the nuclear waste - a view debunked by many other nuclear physicists. To make a point to the world that the current nuclear power plants in use around the world were unsafe, Murik planned to have terrorists infiltrate six plants simultaneously and start a global meltdown.

Mary Jane Mashkin: Murik's mistress who attempts to become "more than friends" with James Bond to see if Bond was lying to Murik about being a mercenary looking for work.

Lavender Peacock: Dr. Anton Murik's ward. Unbeknownst to her, she is the true heir to the Murik family fortune.

Caber: Murik's personal bodyguard and the "Champion of Murcaldy". He especially dislikes Bond for beating him in a wrestling match in which Bond cheated to ensure victory.

Franco Oliveiro Quesocriado: an international terrorist leader wanted in most European countries as well as some in the Middle East. He aids Murik by supplying willing terrorists for his meltdown operation and additionally accepts the task of assassinating Murik's ward, Lavender.

The Silver Beast

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 is not mentioned. It only became silver and took on the nickname the "Silver Beast" in the follow-up Gardner novel, For Special Services.

The car is Bond's personal vehicle, updated at his own expense by Communication Control Systems Ltd (CCS), a real-life company (now known as Security Intelligence Technology Group) that provided author John Gardner with ideas about feasible gadgets to be used. Consequently, Gardner gave them the credit in the book and not Q Branch.