Role of Honour (1984)

After receiving a surprise inheritance from a rich relative he never knew he had, secret agent 007 resigns from the service, spends way too much money on an old Bentley, then wines and dines babes in Monte Carlo. But it's all just a cunning ruse to gain the trust of the baddies. Bond is soon training at a terrorist camp and channeling his inner computer nerd to play wargames with the villains... all in the name of taking down their dastardly schemes from within. Bentleys, blimps, QBasic..? Da-da-DA-DA!

So here we are barreling on ahead with the John Gardner 007 re-read marathon, and I feel as if Role of Honour is a return to form over the Scooby-Doo style shenanigans of Icebreaker. As I said early on in this series of reviews, John Gardner's Bond novels definitely feel like products of the 80's, and this particular novel is painfully dated in many ways, especially where it concerns computing and programming languages, but if you can accept it as a snapshot in time of the early 80's computer craze then you'll have fun. I admit to chortling out loud several times as Bond is being taught the inner workings of the "highly sophisticated" QBasic computer language by an improbably hot American agent who specializes in such "advanced" technology.

Still, I found myself turning the pages of Role of Honour fairly quickly. It's a book that has that sweet spot of literary Bond that I'm looking for: a decent amount of espionage, some action, at least a small serving of travelogue feel, and the main character drinking like a diabetic fish and smoking like it's going out of style. But let's get to the really good news here... the Saab is gone! Bond is back in a Bentley, baby! Albeit a custom job that seems to be capable of withstanding multiple head-on collisions with goons on the roadways, but who cares? Our suave secret agent man is traveling in style again, and that's what we're all here to see.

An interesting twist in Role of Honour is Gardner trying his hand at a small cabal of villains for Bond to contend with instead of one main antagonist. The plot certainly sets itself up for the reader to believe there's only one major villain, but as the book rolls along it becomes evident Bond has several players, and indeed an entire organization, that needs to be dealt with.

Something I haven't really addressed with these Gardner reviews yet is how much the film series seemed to acquire... shall we say, inspiration from his books? It's often bandied about on various Bond fan sites that the filmmakers weren't legally allowed to use the Gardner books, but clearly that didn't stop them from cribbing important set pieces here and there. For instance, Role of Honour features a lot of computer jargon and a climax that takes place on a blimp... which is totally not featured in A View to a Kill, right? As a fan, I've never been bothered by the idea of the films taking a cue from continuation novels instead of being strictly adherent to Ian Fleming's ideas. What bothers me more is EON Productions' insistence that they weren't copying the test answers by looking over at John Gardner's desk, because the examples are too numerous to be mere coincidences.