Sorry John, I've given up.

Muston

Have tried to get through Role of Honour for the past 9 weeks and every time I've tried to sit and read it I've found my eyes looking over to my bookshelf and more interesting novels waiting to be read.

I enjoyed Icebreaker and hoped that after that I'd see Gardner continue to get better. But for me Role of Honour is a dragged down waste of time that just doesn't ring true with a Bond novel. The worst thing for me is that in this novel I began caring less and less about the man himself. And that's something I don't want to happen as I love the character throughout all of Fleming's books and also in Kingsley Amis' one off novel. But after going through five of Gardner's attempts, I think I'll leave him there (also going to bypass the Benson years) and just await the release of SOLO. I believe the Bond of the novel works best in the timeline set down by Fleming and that's where he should be kept.

NOTE:

I will however be reading Gardner's Licence To Kill novel as it's my favourite Bond film and has old Dalton on the cover. I will also still read Christopher Wood's two novels as they come with such high praise.

chrisisall

Muston wrote:

I will however be reading Gardner's Licence To Kill novel as it's my favourite Bond film and has old Dalton on the cover.

Not sure you'll like it; it gets very lukewarm reviews. Gardner apparently just churned it out.

I will also still read Christopher Wood's two novels as they come with such high praise.

Good. -{ TSWLM is 100% Fleming-worthy IMO.

Edit to add: And Muston, my research indicates that ROH was Gardner's weakest early book. The next two seem to be winners. FYI

PDJamesBond

Muston,

I agree with you that Role of Honor is a drag - but I think many people feel that way. I would urge you, at the very least, to check out Gardner's next two 007 novels after that: Nobody Lives Forever and No Deals, Mr. Bond. Those are really fantastic and are him at the height of his Bond era. If you don't like those two, then I would think it's safe to say that Gardner is just not for you!

Thunderpussy

I'm going against the grain, but I rather liked ROH -{

AlphaOmegaSin

Gardner is like Marmite, you either love or hate his Input into the Bond Novel Cannon -{

Sir Miles

Thunderpussy wrote:

I'm going against the grain, but I rather liked ROH -{

Me too...I've always enjoyed reading it - but I've never understood why I do )

barracuda

I'm not a huge fan of Gardner. Have read the first 5 and mean to get around the the others but... there is always something better to read. Icebreaker was probably the best of the 5.