Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure

Author - Raymond Benson ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Putnam Adult was reviewed on 11-Dec-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. Raymond Benson was responsible for the novelizations of two James Bond flicks, so it is not surprising that "Never Dream of Dying" too reads like a book version of a movie. Perhaps, that is why the book is quite readable and the action in it fairly fast-paced. Most fiction written these days is so boring that I have not read a full-length novel in 20 years. Therefore, I was quite pleased to be easily able to finish this book without throwing it away in disgust.

However, it cannot be said that "Never Dream of Dying" is well-written. Raymond Benson is a somewhat sloppy writer and his mistakes - both factual and literary - have slipped past his editor at Hodder and Stoughton, who, I suppose, is even more careless than Benson.

I raised my eyebrows when I read (on pages 238-239) that James Bond fires at the tail of a Porsche that is chasing him and puts several holes in its boot (trunk). The fact is that no Porsche car model has ever had a trunk in its tail! The trunk is in the front in all the rear-engined models and the few front-engined Porsche models ever made (924, 928, 944, 968) are fastbacks with no real trunk. Any way, Porsche stopped making front-engined cars in 1995. This book was published in 2001 and the undated action in it takes place well after 1995, according to the internal evidence in the book. It seems strange that Bond´s pursuers belonging to a well-funded criminal organization would be driving a rather outdated automobile (if one grants that the 1995 Porsche 968 had a "trunk" in its tail) .

When the Ian Fleming Foundation invited Benson to take over the authorship of the Bond novels, there were complaints about an American being asked to write these books. Apparently in response to that criticism, Benson tries to write like an Englishman. Most of the time, he uses British terms like "lift", "lorry" and "petrol", yet he gives away his American origins when he refers (see pages 208-209) to an Alsatian as a German Shepherd! At other places in the book, he further lapses into Americanisms like "truck" and "gas". Ian Fleming would have never done that.

Vague writing crops up here and there in Benson´s book. For example, on page 231, he writes "She ran through the channels with the remote and eventually turned it off". The reader is supposed to infer that "it" apparently refers to the television, not the remote. Benson´s grammar is occasionally bad. He uses wrong prepositions as in "gangplanks from the [ship]" (page 166).

If somewhat poor writing does not catch your attention, then this book is certainly for you.
¤

2) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. "Never Dream of Dying," by Raymond Benson, is a classic James Bond thriller containing all the necessary Bond elements. Raymond Benson does well continuing James Bond´s ventures; he picked up after John Gardner who came after Ian Fleming himself. This one was both my first James Bond read and my first Raymond Benson read. Both are as satisfying as any of the movies.

The action scenes, love scenes, and Bond-moment scenes are all thrilling ("Bond-moment": James Bond performs a slick, suave stunt). The characters, setting, and scenes were all described well enough to make them come to life. The characters especially, such as Tylyn Mignonne, were very well described that I had a firm feel for what that character looked like, how he or she acted, etc.

The weakness is in the longer descriptions, such as the beginning, where the author talks about things that the reader doesn´t really need to know; the book slows down too much at times. There is no suspense in these areas; Benson just goes on about things related to the upcoming action sequence, but the read would be much smoother if Benson would have skipped over the extra explanation.

Strength exists in Raymond Benson´s understanding of the James Bond character; he knows what Bond likes, does, how he acts.... The book contains all of the necessary elements of a Bond adventure ranging from James Bond´s stunts, attitude, suaveness, coldness, and women. James Bond in ´Never Dream of Dying´ is a necessary read for Bond-lovers and a good entertainment for everyone else.¤

3) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. I think Benson did a courageous job with this book. Some people criticized him for what he did with the characters of Marc-Ange Draco and Mathis. I say that the Bond Universe was his to make use of, JUST AS IN ANY FRANCHISE. What he did with Draco was dramatic and surprising. This is one of Benson´s BEST Bond novels.¤

4) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. This is the first of these pastiches of the old James Bond series that I have read. I will confess that I read Fleming many years ago (I think I was in high school) and enjoyed some of the earlier John Gardner books, frankly, more than I enjoyed Fleming. Later I became annoyed with Gardner somewhat, though he did attempt to paper over some of the sillier scenes in the later movies filmed while he was doing the writing. Raymond Benson is the latest contestant in the continuing saga of someone trying to write a book continuing a character that someone else created.

Benson´s writing is only mediocre, but of course the plot is what´s important. All of the typical elements of a James Bond novel are here: a criminal mastermind who´s trying to do horrible things, a weaker sidekick who´s been maneuvered into cooperating, a beautiful woman caught up in things who´s unsuspecting, and of course exotic locales and sophisticated entertainments like fancy restaurants and gambling in Monte Carlo.

Benson handles all of this reasonably well, though as I said the writing´s only so-so. I enjoyed the book reasonably well, and would recommend it to someone looking for mindless beach entertainment or something to read on a plane while travelling somewhere.¤

5) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. After enjoying James Bond novels for the guilty pleasures they are, I finally have to put them to rest with Benson´s latest `novel´. I may pick up a Bond book one day, but it will not be a Benson.

Ian Fleming´s novels are finally back in print in the USA, and I would encourage everyone reviewing here to pick them up and read them all. Fleming was very good at what he did. Bond was a perfect character to go to the movies, and he has endured as a character well past the Cold War.

Bond was resurrected for the page in the early 80s by spy novelist John Gardner, who churned out no less than 13 Bond novels in about 15 years. Some were good, some were awful. It became clear that Gardner was not very interested in the legacy or the character of Bond. His books seemed to be about a guy named Bond who was a secret agent.

Raymond Benson, super James Bond fan and indeed president of a fan club, was given the mantle to write these books. Not a novelist, Benson did good research and came up with good stories to work Bond and UK interests in.

Unfortunately, he is a bad writer. A non-writer. His books alternate between long descriptions of everything Benson learned on his fact-finding missions to the locales featured in the novel, and then he cuts over to action, bad dialogue, more description, and even went so far as to include some nauseating and embarrassing sex scenes. He cannot write a novel where all of these elements blend into a solid story with sharp plotting and clear characters.

Benson is obsessed with Fleming´s Bond. However, he is not obsessed with attempting to write prose that even approaches John Gardner, let alone Fleming. The results are incredibly disappointing and downright silly at times. I don´t know how well these have been selling, but it seems like the literary franchise of Bond has been destroyed. While each new Bond films takes in more than the last, Bond books just keep getting more upsetting.

I couldn´t even finish this book. After resurrecting characters Fleming created and killed, Benson´s plotting is very shoddy, skipping out on Bond for whole sections. The lack of anything approaching engaging prose made me put this, and Benson, down for good.

I gave him a chance. I endured most of `the Union´ trilogy, which is a sad attempt to resurrect SPECTRE. It doesn´t have to be this bad. Glidrose needs a pro writer who can up the stock of Bond books.

Not recommended. Go and hunt down Fleming, who must be spinning several times in his grave.

Goodbye, Mr. Benson.¤

6) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. A movie is a perfect hiding place for crime, as Bond finds when he uncovers how a film producer is a front for an international crime conspiracy. The Union - already encountered in the latest two Bond adventures High Time to Kill and Doubleshot - reveals its connections to the Cannes Film Festival and the Corsican mafia. Before he has finished, Bond will have to save the producer´s exquisite movie-star wife, confront Le Gerant, the brains behind the Union - and settle a score from many years ago.¤

7) Hardcover Book Never Dream of Dying: The New James Bond Adventure by Putnam Adult. Raymond Benson continues his string of bracing, true-to-tradition James Bond adventures with Never Dream of Dying. As in his last two outings (High Time to Kill and Doubleshot), Bond is up against the Union, a supersecret international cartel of arms dealers and assassins headed by a satisfyingly diabolical mastermind. All the ingredients are there: solo forays into enemy territory, exotic European locales, brushes with death, high-tech gadgetry, a gorgeous femme fatale, and a hair-raising conclusion featuring plenty of explosions and a deadly race against the clock. Benson, a scholar of the original Ian Fleming series who has written four other original Bond thrillers as well as the novelizations of several Bond movies, gets the tone just right. Bond fans won´t be disappointed. --Nicholas H. Allison¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, , 990-560-010-480-660-040-130-BSB-W5B-8

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