Role of Honor
Back to the Bond books. I tried to break them up a bit instead of reading them all in a row. It helped me not to burn out on the John Gardner books as quickly as I ended up doing.
All right, if you want an in-dept summary of the story go to Amazon or Wikipedia. I'll say this about John Gardner, he likes the double cross and people switching allegiances. A LOT! In order to disrupt Russian spies who are looking for double agents Bond (in a ruse) is forced to resign from the service under disgrace. Later at the end of the book, in order for him to get back into the good graces of the service in the public's eye, his life is risked for no real reason but for looks. Why John, why?
The similarities to this book and some of the later movies are numerous. Oddly enough Gardner wrote novelizations for Goldeneye and The Living Daylights but not for the other movies which also shared traits with this book. What movies share traits with this book? Unfortunately my notes don't say and I don't recall.
Overall this is weak story. Yes I was held by the story and writing until about 3/4 of
the way through. Then my interest started to flag. This Gardner book
is more movie like and his style is pretty formulaic. The first
chapter sets up a crime. Then jump to 007 being, eventually, given the
assignment. He beds the requisite 3 women. Stops plot and or kills bad
guys. Except in this book the plot was stopped by the powers that be
and as it turned out Bond's life was on the line for no real reason.
Just for public image.
This book and A view to
a Kill the movie had some similarities. Apparently Gardner wanted Bond
and Holy to fight the battle at a computer but it was nixed (remember he
is being hired to write these books by the Ian Flemming estate?) This
was due to the scene in Never Say Never Again? Maybe? Later there was a change to the battle for Bunker Hill and The Battle for Waterloo was put into The Living Daylights. Yeah if that last paragraph doesn't make a whole lot of sense, sorry. I'm just going off the notes I made.
Interesting history; not the best story. As of now I still think the compound in For Special Services is the most memorable bit from the first 4 Gardner books. One of the battles in this book is the most violent yet, of any Ian Flemming or John Gardner book I've read so far. Or even compared to the movies.
