I was highly disappointed that I spent (price)plus (...)shipping on this book. It isn't even a book. It is more like a pamphlet with a few extra pages. And, no folks, the reason I didn't like the book is not because my site isn't listed in it... The reason is, many of the links are just plain awful. They claim to be the "best resource for Bond" or some even have the nerve to say "everything you ever wanted to know about James Bond." Well, when I went to these pages, I was dismayed to see that there is one page with a really bad generic image of the five official actors in the series, which is constantly re-used a billion times on every Bond site on the web. The book does have some good points like a summary under many of the links. However, most of these summaries don't match the link, and there were plenty of Bond sites that didn't make their way into the book for any number of reasons. Also, if you read the previous review about this book and how great it is, keep in mind, that review was written last November. By now, many of the links are dead and don't look like they will ever be fixed. Take my word for it, go over to Kim Last's 007 site for links. You won't be disappointed. With this book, however, you might be.

This is definitely the best guide to James Bond on the web. Now u might say hey I could just look this stuff up on yahoo or some other search engine if I wanted. No, not at all! This book contains many unlisted and secret site and has them all compiled neatly in a conformed order of interest from bond gadgets, to the bond girls and more! Best of all there are NO NOT A SINGLE broken link in the book! If your at all interested in James Bond and have the internet get this book

I have read a few of Gardner's Bond books and have liked them as escapist fare, but this book is poorly plotted and the relationship between Bond and "Flicka"(?)was insipid. Can you imagine a James Bond who is called a ...well let's just say the phrase was so inappropriate for Bond that I felt like I was reading James Bond by way of Beavis and Butthead. Weak.

Bond is set against a serial killer who is assasinating celebrities in this thriller. Bond's love interest is probably the best one he's had in a novel of movie since Ian Fleming's novels.

Great story! Endearing and great escapism at its best! ***** Loved this a lot! fantastic scenes and great ending! Loved this to the max! High explosive! Octane excitement! Bond stays Irrisistable! Great plotting by a master!

At first Bond Films, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, looks simply like a brief outline of each of the James Bond films. However, delving deeper reveals that compiled within the Bond Films is actually quite a wealth of information from a variety of sources.

Each film has a standard set of sections devoted to it, which are all discussed in the books introduction. Some of these sections include information on fashion decisions in the films, the advancements of particular continuing characters including M and Miss Moneypenny, the box office returns for the films, award nominations and film trivia. The most interesting sections, and those which make this a successful book, are those which discuss scenes cut from the film, source to screen information, real world influences and parallels, product placement details, critics responses to the film and social references in the film. It is the latter which may prove to be the most interesting to Bond fans as they summarise information which hasn't previously been made readily available.

Despite some 'gem' sections there are two which could easily have been left out. The first is 'quotes', everyone enjoys particular quotes for varying reasons and it seems unnecessary for the authors to attempt to define which are the best of a particular film. Also unnecessary is a section called 'The One With'; a section that informs you how to remind a friend which film you mean. For instance, The Living Daylights is given as "The One With: the rock of Gibraltar, the milkman and the cello". Some may find the section interesting, the 'hardcore' Bond fan will find it a statement of the obvious.

It is obvious that a lot of work has gone into summarising material to include in the book, particularly for some of the aforementioned sections.

It's good to see areas dedicated to the majority of Bond films, Never Say Never Again included. While 1967's Casino Royale is included in the book it is disappointing to see that the 1954 version of the book is not. While, admittedly, it was only a telemovie it is undoubtedly an important part in the history of the cinematic James Bond.

Bond Films, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, isn't the best Bond book ever, but it's obvious that the authors never intended for it to be. They had an intention from the start, stuck to it and in doing so successful created an interesting source of information.

An above-average book on the Bond series. In my opinion, the book's major lapses are when it tries to put the Bond films in historical context. The most notable howler here is a lengthy discussion of the effect of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo on the UK (page 139). This whole analysis is flawed because the UK was exempted from the OPEC embargo! The book also stumbles when it discusses the Thatcher government. For one thing, it claims (page 177) that the Thatcher government was elected in September 1979 (it was actually May 1979). Secondly, the book makes much of the fact that the same Defence Minister appears in the Bond films pre- and post-1979. The book claims (page 169) that for the character Frederick Gray still to be Defence Minister after the 1979 change of government, he "has pulled off the biggest party political defection in British history." In fact, it was not unheard for a minister to serve in both the late 1970s Callaghan Labour government and in the Thatcher government--for proof, see page 546 of Kenneth Morgan's book CALLAGHAN: A LIFE.

Another flawed discussion occurs when the authors claim that DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER "was very much ahead of its time" because "the idea of space-based lasers was not seriously mooted until US President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' program of the 1980s" (p. 114). In fact, space-based weaponry was the subject of international diplomacy well before the 1980s--it was even covered by a 1972 arms treaty. Another space-related error occurs when the authors give the wrong year for the first space shuttle mission.

The book takes a decidedly rose-tinted view of Timothy Dalton's box office performance. You would not know from this book, for example, that all of the 1980s Roger Moore's 1980s Bond pictures scored higher US admissions than either of Dalton's films. More generally, the authors take a scattergun approach to the reporting of box-office results, sometimes reporting world grosses, sometimes only US grosses. Moreover, for both OCTOPUSSY and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, box office rentals are incorrectly given as box office grosses. Many of the other box office comparisons in the book are misleading because of the failure to adjust for inflation.

As far as the reviews themselves are concerned, I was pleasantly surprised to see some kind words said about A VIEW TO A KILL and some reservations about GOLDFINGER. Otherwise, the reviews report quite conventional views about the films; indeed, the opinions expressed here about the first eleven movies are virtually interchangeable with those in John Brosnan's classic book on the Bond series. Sometimes the influence of previous books, while understandable, is TOO intrusive. For example, Barnes and Hearn's judgement on THE SPY WHO LOVED ME in their book KISS KISS BANG BANG was that it was "a slick...'greatest-hits' package" (page 129 of 1997 edition); Smith and Lavington's judgement on the same film is: "A slick, pacy 'greatest hits' package" (page 154).

There are numerous misquotations from the films as well as misspellings of names of characters, cast members, and historical figures. Most of these errors are minor but avoidable. On other issues, such as the running time of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and how many of the Bond films are solo-scripted, the book's errors are more serious.

The Moore films are repeatedly criticised for making the James Bond character well-known throughout the world rather than a secret agent, ignoring the precedent for this in two Connery Bonds--Bond made the papers in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and was world-famous in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. (Barnes and Hearn's book on the Bond films was also guilty of this double standard.) Other inconsistencies appear to be a by-product of the book being written over a long period. For example, page 33 claims that "throughout" the Bond film series, Soviets were never Bond's main enemy--ignoring FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, which is acknowledged on page 176 as a film where the main villains are Soviet-backed. And the statement on page 177 that "politicians had been either anonymous or not obviously based on any one person" in the films before FOR YOUR EYES ONLY seems at odds with the authors' own account of the conclusion of GOLDFINGER: "[the] plane Bond is taking to meet President Johnson..." (page 41).

This travesty is filled with useless and inaccurate misinformation which could quite easily result in an experimenter being maimed, blinded or killed. The illustrations are so crudely rendered they might as well have been drawn with a crayon. Only the first twenty-or-so pages are original material -- the remainder of the book consists of nearly illegible photocopies of obsolete pyrotechnics and ballistics patents and similar filler material. A disgusting waste of paper!

This is the ultimate "how-to" book. If u got any interests in the survival movement this is a must. Read it and understand why Kurt Saxon is the greatest author/publisher of survival works

I usually like every James Bond book that comes out, especially when they are complete with information on both the films and the novels. However, this book left me both shaken, stirred, and just plain mad. First off, I want to know how this book got published. I have been trying to sell my ideas for books about Bond for years and have been slapped with court threats. However, this book contains spelling errors, incorrect facts about both the films and books, and it is just a bad read. The pictures are bad too, when they are there. The way the format is was not great and I would have liked to see more than just a listing of crew, which looks like they ripped off part of Steven Jay Rubin's 007 Encyclopedia to get. Is this book official? No. Should Bond fans buy it? Only the die-hard collectors like me. However, it is not in my display case.

I recently purchased this book and found that most of the information is correct. Whoever edited the book did a lousy job (these people should learn how to spell S-C-A-R-A-M-A-N-G-A). Also, a few facts are totally fictitious. In one part, it lists all of the automobiles driven by Bond in films. It doesen't even mention that Bond drove his Aston Martin to M:I-6 headquarters in Tommorow Never Dies. After skimming through the book, the thought crossed my mind that these guys might not have even seen all of the Bond films.

I am a serious fan of the Bond films, and enjoy any written works on the topic. But what set this book apart besides its marvelous detail, was that it also paid homage to the novels, which, thanks to the preponderance of the movie industry, one may not even know about! I knew that Ian Fleming had written books, but had no idea that there is an ongoing series of Bond novels, including some recent and current ones that are not even in movie form. At least not yet. Further, the thumbnail sketches included in this book about each novel let me know that they, and not just the movies, are exciting and worthwhile.

Thanks to this book, I have discovered a whole new Bond interest/outlet. In fact, I immediately went out and bought four of the recent Bond novels for my library, have read three, and plan to acquire all of them over time.

Bond fans should not miss this book!

Coming on the heels of "Icebreaker" this ranks as a major disappointment from John Gardner. The plot and prose is a collection of disjointed and very uninspiring ideas for our hero James Bond. However, several of these ideas did seem to make it to the screen shortly after in some of Roger Moore's later Bond films and Timothy Dalton's first outing. "Role of Honor" ultimately has a rambling plot that leaves the reader totally disinterested. I was very disappointed with this novel.

The plot to this novel is pretty intrigueing and it's good to see Bond square off against SPECTRE again. The book does have some bad points, but all in all it's one of Gardeners better Bond novels.

Not John Gardner's best, but certanly not his worst. The plot and villians could be spruced up a bit to make it better. At least SPECTRE is in it. This 007 book is very complex and only should be read by true 007 fans!

This book really sux. If u want to get it, then u r a idiot!

TRUST ME, I KNOW!!

I couldn't allow Jeff Rovin's ADVENTURE HEROES to be represented by only one derogatory review. In this book, Mr. Rovin continues his ongoing quest to familiarize his readers with the wide range of science fiction and fantasy characters that have been presented throughout history. I might quarrel with some aspects of Mr. Rovin's alphabetical system (The tv show wasn't called "Lt. Columbo," so why should the entry have been under the "L"s?), and, of course, Mr. Rovin's selection process is, as always, occasionally questionable (Where were the kids from the tv show "Dungeons and Dragons"? Where was Kolchak? Why give space to a one-shot parody of Sgt.s Fury and Rock? If you're going to include Rama, then why not delve further into various other religions? How do some golden-age comic book adventurers rate inclusion while others do not? And will we ever be treated to more than casual glances at the literatures and popular cultures of other countries?), but this book remains an excellent example of its type; with so many characters to choose from, we can't expect Mr. Rovin to get to them all, and he does pretty well by the ones he includes. Aside from the above, the only real complaint I can offer about this book is that the cover features Doc Savage so prominently, but, since Doc was covered in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SUPER-HEROES, the book does not discuss him at all. As noted, no book of this type can ever hope to be all-inclusive, but for a look at several American adventure characters of the first half of this century, most of whom Mr. Rovin had no space for, I strongly recommend Robert Sampson's six-volume series YESTERDAY'S FACES.

If you want to read a good book, do not read this. All James Bond does in it is walk around Russia wearing Mukluks. The book could have been made a lot better if it had some decent action scenes in it to sustain it, but all it has is a part where James Bond rolls over the bonnet of a car and stuffs up his shoulder, a short gun battle at a chalet in Russia which is hardly worth mentioning and a final skirmish in my home town of Baku, which is at least some violent relief for us. The plot makes no sense, as do some characters that change sides later on in the story. Why? Why?

This book is a departure that I think failed. It is a Bond story with very littl action and lots and lots of boring dialog. If this was your first exposure to a Bond novel, don't give up. Read some of the original Ian Fleming books and have a ball.

Amazing! THE MAN FROM BARBAROSSA is full of wild action-packed stunts and action. James Bond is forced to fight against a secret group called The Scales of Justice who want to control Russia and wish to film an legal trial of a spy. If you're searching for thrills, this is the book for you. It is fulled of action, and the besat part is when James Bond fights the men in the house. Disagree with the one and two stars and go for the five, You will be happy with results if you read John Gardner's best. Others best include the action-fulled ICEBREAKER, NO DWEALKS MR BOND and COLD FALL and BROKEN CLAWS.

Do not confuse this with the "James Bond Dossier," a great work for any Bond fan. This is really just junk and not worth the price.

As a Fan of james bond for many years I have come across countless books dealing with james bond. Having read some of the reviews for the aformentioned book(The 007 Dossier) I have one good book to recommend to readers although it is hard to find.
It is titled, 007 JAMES BOND A REPORT by O.F.Snelling. The back cover of the paperback book reads"Here is the full fantastic lowdown on James Bond."
The contents are as follows; His Predecessors
His Image
His Women
His Adversaries
His Future

Proust and Mark Twain self-published some masterpieces. But often self-published books are junk, as is this one. Pass.