Targeting Bond

Last year I gave myself a little project: to read all of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels.  There were seven to cover, and it was pretty easy because I read some and did a few others on audio. I enjoyed the project and will probably write a little more about the series before all is said and done (I wrote a handful of reviews already).

This year's project will be a little more about pure entertainment than the entertainment/educational vibe of last year's assignment.  That's because this year I'm going to read all the James Bond novels that were written by John Gardner in the 1980's and early 1990's.  There are fifteen or so of them, and the project will be do-able because the lion's share of them were recently released on audio by Audible.com.

I'm going to read my old copies of the first two books, License Renewed and For Special Services, as those are two of the titles not yet available on audio, then listen to the next several entries. Incidentally, I had read the first five or six of the Gardner Bonds back in the day, but for whatever reason drifted away from the series.  Remembering that I liked the ones I read, I'm now looking forward to shooting through the whole series this year.

Anyway, I'll shortly go into more detail about why I'm picking these books now to read or reread, probably in the forthcoming reviews of the individual titles as I post them. For now I'll just say that these were fun books that came along at a fun time in my life and I thought it would be, well, fun to revisit the good times I had with them.

And, what the heck, I think I'll also listen to a few of the original Ian Fleming Bonds this year, too, as I really enjoyed revisiting Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, near the end of last year, when Audible offered it at a special sale price. Might as well jump in with both feet, right?