(1926-2007) UK writer who was a minister for several years before becoming an agnostic, a drama critic, and the creator of the Boysie Oakes sequence of spy thrillers spoofing Ian Fleming's James Bond books, most famously in The Liquidator (1964); one Boysie Oakes tale, Founder Member (1969), involves its hero in a Sex experiment in space. From 1981 to 1996, Gardner wrote 14 novels officially continuing the James Bond saga as originally developed by Fleming, plus Licence to Kill * (1989) and GoldenEye * (1995) – novelizations of the Bond films Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995; vt Golden Eye), the latter having strong sf/Technothriller elements. Among his many other novels, mostly thrillers, Golgotha (1980; vt The Last Trump 1980), is a Near-Future thriller in which the USSR has occupied most of Western Europe including the UK; its apocalyptic imagery may owe something to Gardner's early theological training. He should not be confused with the US writer and academic John Gardner. [JC/DRL]

John Edmund Gardner

born Seaton Delaval, Northumberland: 20 November 1926

died Basingstoke, Hampshire: 3 August 2007

works (selected)

• The Liquidator (London: Frederick Muller, 1964) [Boysie Oakes: hb/]
• Founder Member (London: Frederick Muller, 1969) [Boysie Oakes: hb/]
• Golgotha (London: W H Allen, 1980) [hb/]
  • The Last Trump (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980) [vt of the above: hb/]
• GoldenEye (London: Book Club Associates, 1995) [tie: released before the nominal first edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996): James Bond: hb/]

links

• John Gardner

Previous versions of this entry

• 10/08/2007
• 21/12/2011