[John Gardner's "Icebreaker"] strikes me as deficient in many of the basic requirements. I see now why Mr. Fleming is so hard to imitate: though his books were not brilliantly written, they were, like Bond himself, very smooth. What made them so easy to read was an almost complete absence of awkwardness. The illusion of unseriousness was seriously maintained.

Mr. Gardner, however, is all awkwardness. Every time I try to enter into his latest conspiracy we bump heads. It's one thing to accept an improbable plot and quite another to accept an improbable style. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but not my affection for the English language. I don't see why, when Mr. Gardner can learn all about the various weapons, machines and intelligence procedures he describes, he can't do a bit of basic research in ordinary narrative technique….

In conversation, Bond "gives" or "signifies an affirmative...