Gardner's World: John Gardner's James Bond Continuation Novels (1981-1996) General Discussion

thedove

I'm with you @JGFan007 I liked ROH. I am surprised that Gardner didn't care for it. To me it was a creative story and told in a engrossing way. Course I haven't read it for a number of years so maybe it's worth a re-read.

When you think of the productivity of Gardner and his output, a book a year for a number of years. Wow very impressive. I know he wasn't perfect but without him and his collective novels Bond wouldn't have been relevant on the book shelves and libraries of the world.

JGFan007

@thedove What's also impressive about Gardner's productivity during his time with Bond is that he was also writing and releasing his own original material, I guess you could say, at the same time. When he was offered the job of writing some continuation novels for 007 (his original contract was only for 3 or 4 books), he wanted the freedom to continue working on his own stuff as well. There were no objections, so the 80's ended up being a rather prolific decade for him. He penned eight Bond novels, while he continued writing his own "Big Herbie" Kruger series (which he began, I believe, in 1979) and he also wrote his Secret Genertions Trilogy during that time. There may have been others as well but I'm not certain lol.

Have you read any of his non-Bond books? I polished off his Boysie Oakes' series this summer and I'd recommend it. Pretty entertaining stuff!

Two novels Gardner wrote, well before his time with Bond, were adapted into movies. Unfortunately, they were poorly handled and weren't successful at the box office. The second film surely wasn't, anyway. Based on another character he created, Derek Torry. I don't believe Gardner was fond of either of them lol.

Gardner also stated that he wanted to write a collection of short stories for Bond, similar to Fleming's "For Your Eyes Only" and "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" but, for some reason, they shot it down.

Another novel he wrote that I really enjoyed was "The Dancing Dodo" from 1977. I passed over it a few times, finding the title rather dubious, but I eventually got past it and gave it a chance and I was disappointed I didn't read it sooner lol. It was really good, something that I could easily see being turned into a movie. It's a stand alone story, just a one off, and the title refers to the name of a WWII-era bomber that went missing during the war. It's wreck is discovered over 30 years later, along with the bodies of it's crew, in a swamp in England. It's a spy thriller involving pre-Cold War intelligence - the RAF and Nazis.

If nothing else, "Role of Honour" is definitely worth another read! Especially if it has been years since you last delved into it. It would be interesting to see how your opinion of it has stood the test of time!

Dragonpol

Rambling Collector - Diving Back into the World of James Bond! - "GoldenEye" Book Review