 In 1981 writer John Gardner was approached by the Fleming estate and asked to write a continuation novel for Bond. Although he initially almost turned the series down, Gardner subsequently wrote fourteen original novels and two novelizations of the films between Licence Renewed in 1981 and COLD in 1996. With the influence of the American publishers, Putnam's, the Gardner novels showed an increase in the number of Americanisms used in the book, such as a waiter wearing "pants", rather than trousers, in The Man from Barbarossa. James Harker, writing in The Guardian, considered that the Gardner books were "dogged by silliness", giving examples of Scorpius, where much of the action is set in Chippenham, and Win, Lose or Die, where "Bond gets chummy with an unconvincing Maggie Thatcher". Ill health forced Gardner to retire from writing the Bond novels in 1996.
