Raymond Benson

DavidJones

Hi - I'm new here. I'm 20 and an absolute Bond nerd.

I've read Devil May Care, Goldfinger and have just finished The Union Trilogy by Raymond Benson, and have now started Diamonds Are Forever. I've got all the Benson and Gardner books and all the Bond films on DVDs.

So what does everyone think of Raymond Benson? I know there was some outrage when he was first appointed because he's an American. I understand the Bond books was the first fiction he wrote. High Time to kill, Doubleshot and Never Dream of Dying are great books. Are the John Gardner books just as good?

Anyway, a lot of info there. I guess what I'm asking is - what does everyone else think of the Benson novels?

hegottheboot

Benson was a breath of fresh air after Gardner's later attempts. To me his books were more Fleming-esque and went back to the concept that a Bond novel should leap off the page. Gardner was a great writer but his Bond novels became tiresome about halfway through his tenure. (up and to Nobody Lives Forever)
Zero Minus Ten-plot could have been smoother but 007 in China proves irresistible-this should have been made into a film instead of TND-7/10.
The Facts of Death-this is possibly the best continuation novel I have read. It has everything-absolutely everything. Plus the Greek landscape helps along with the XK8.-10/10.
High Time to Kill-Interesting this Union is, and the idea of Bond having a childhood rival is fun.-8.5/10.
Doubleshot-fantastic concept but falls flat somewhere in the middle-7.5/10.
Never Dream of Dying-while the McGuffin may seem a bit underwhelming, this is Benson's best writing and best characterizations-9.5/10.
The Man With the Red Tattoo-007 reunited with Japan and former demons. What follows is less than Bondian, but is still serviceable. Benson's farewell to 007.-6.5/10.
Am still wanting to read his short stories-especially "Blast From the Past". I've been interested in the return of Irma Bunt since the end of Pearson's fictionalized biography. Benson should be more recognized than he is. And I really do wish he had written some more.

Rick Roberts

Benson had better ideas then Gardner but his books were still James Bond movie-lite. I really found both authors mediocre.

DavidJones

hegottheboot wrote:

Am still wanting to read his short stories-especially "Blast From the Past". I've been interested in the return of Irma Bunt since the end of Pearson's fictionalized biography. Benson should be more recognized than he is. And I really do wish he had written some more.

"Blast from the Past" is a good Bond story. Gardner couldn't write about Bond's son - despite preasure from fans - because of rights to any Bond offspring being given to the produers of the US cartoon series James Bond Jr (which dealt with Bond's nephew). Benson got round this by killing off Bond's son, so he never actually appears alive. It's set in New York. There's a long car chase near the end, and a fight in a warehouse. The "Bond girl" is the investigating detection. All told, it's a good story; with a duration of 30 pages. It can be found at the back of "The Union Trilogy" anthology.

Another three-books-in-one collection, entitled "Change of Weapons", will collect "Zero Minus Ten", "The Facts of Death" and "The Man WIth the Red Tattoo" - plus, two short stories, including, "Live at Five" (which was originally written for America's TV Guide in 1999) and a short which sees Bond meet Hugh Hefner, which was originally written for Playboy magazine). The new anthology will be released in June 2010 by Pegasus Books.

Scribe74

I might be in the minority here, but I never cared for Raymond Benson. It's always surprised me when people compare his writing to Fleming's. Fleming was a master stylist, but I find Benson's writing to be incredibly pedestrian and clunky. Of course, we all have our own particular tastes and opinions.

As for as continuation authors go, Kingsley Amis did a great job with COLONEL SUN. The early Gardner novels were fun, but lacked the emotional depth of Fleming's books. You could tell, however, that Gardner had tired of it all towards the end. BROKENCLAW is where things started going downhill.

chrisno1

Benson did a good job on ZERO MINUS TEN but I wasn't happy with the others. I also felt he dumbed down with all the short magazine stuff he wrote.
I got the impression he knew he was onto a good thing but didn't really know where to go with it.
The main problem continuity authors have i that they are movie influenced not Fleming influenced
In that respect Amis' COLONEL SUN is the best. Faulke's tried hard with DEVIL MAY CARE but hashed it up; he didn't take it seriously enough. Gardner's first 3 novels are pretty tight, but he goes off the rails from there.
Many of his ideas got pinched for the movies! - so why did they not adapt them?? Gardner's main problem is an awful way with names (most of which are stupid puns)
Feel free to comment on my novel reviews as I post them David!

Scribe74

chrisno1 wrote:

Benson did a good job on ZERO MINUS TEN but I wasn't happy with the others. I also felt he dumbed down with all the short magazine stuff he wrote.
I got the impression he knew he was onto a good thing but didn't really know where to go with it.
The main problem continuity authors have i that they are movie influenced not Fleming influenced
In that respect Amis' COLONEL SUN is the best. Faulke's tried hard with DEVIL MAY CARE but hashed it up; he didn't take it seriously enough. Gardner's first 3 novels are pretty tight, but he goes off the rails from there.
Many of his ideas got pinched for the movies! - so why did they not adapt them?? Gardner's main problem is an awful way with names (most of which are stupid puns)
Feel free to comment on my novel reviews as I post them David!

You're right about Gardner and the awful names he gave his female characters. Lavender Peacock is one that comes to mind. Also, "No Deals, Mr. Bond" featured "the beautiful agents of Operation Cream Cake." Ye gods . . .

mrbond

No-one as good as the master

EDOG51

Hi guys, since hearing about raymond bensons take on 'Bond in the modern day' im really quite excited at the prospect. Since im extremley fussy about my bond novels, and was extremly dissapointed with devil may care, could someone just give me a bit of info about wether benson's books are worth reading, i certainly hope they are.

hegottheboot

They move along well. For die hard Flemingites, things can get a bit too off the mark every once and a while. However if you were disappointed by Devil May Care and need a good dose of literary 007, start with Zero Minus Ten of The Facts of Death. They're much better than DMC or Gardner's later novels.

jetsetwilly

It might just be me, but I despise the Benson novels. I find them amateurishly written, dramatically nonsensical, and just plain bad. Zero Minus Ten was the first Bond novel where I read it and thought, "is that it?". I still haven't managed to get to the end of The Facts of Death, and High Time To Kill, while gaining points for trying something different, loses them again by just being dull. At that point, even though I'm a hardcore, hardboiled, "buy everything" novel collector, I said "enough!" and just stopped reading them. I wasn't enjoying them, so why torture myself with Doublesh*t? Far better to return to the Fleming, Amis and Gardner novels, and later, the Young Bond and Moneypenny Diaries books.

John Gardner's novels made a steep decline in quality somewhere around Brokenclaw; I would say that Death is Forever was the last entertaining one he wrote, while Never Send Flowers (007 saves Princess Diana's life in EuroDisney) and SeaFire (Bond vs the Nazis) are terrible lows. The difference was, Gardner still knew how to write, how to conjure up a character, and how to throw a plot together. Benson couldn't write at all.

Benson also went down the route of "fanw*nk" far too often. Fleming sometimes referred to previous adventures, but more often didn't; Gardner referred to Tracy a lot, but that's about it; but Benson clambered through hoops to try and accommodate references to the Fleming novels. The minute The Governor from Quantum of Solace turned up as a character (and a character who Bond had befriended and kept in touch with for decades, at that), I knew that his novels weren't for me. That was my bridge too far.

thesecretagent

Haven't read any of Benson's but have read a few of Gardner's and all of Fleming's at least twice. My advice would be to read Fleming's in order - you can see Bond grow as a character throughout and travel the journey with him.

The Viking

I agree that Fleming's works should be read first, and in order. However, if one doesn't mind a little of the cinema influence intruding into Bond's world; Benson's novels are fine reading. He does refer back to the previous stories a bit, but I didn't find it objectionable. Benson's updates are handled very well, in fact I find it fascinating how smoothly one can transition from Fleming's Bond to Benson's 007 despite the three decades that had passed between their respective works. The XK8 coupe is kind of cool as well, although I am biased since I own one myself.

DavidJones

I actually prefer John Gardner to either Fleming or Benson. I haven't read all of Flemings, and plan to do so once I've finished all the Gardner’s, but I think JG was a great writer. I think there's a tendency for American authors to employ the American vernacular (i.e. be grammatically incorrect) which can spoil it sometimes.

D'Arturo

Reading Gardner and Benson was an act of desperation on my part, hoping beyond hope that 1) Gardner could show some measure of being a worthy heir to Fleming and 2) hoping that Benson - a self-proclaimed expert on Fleming - would do better than Gardner! Both were HUGE disappointments to me.

The fact that both "contemporize" Bond, effectively removing him from his proper vintage cold war setting, makes for some preposterous situations, not the least of which is we must believe Bond is a senior citizen now yet being able to pull off all kinds of physical stunts while still getting all the women he wants (including doing the likes of both Felix Leiter's and Ernst S. Blofeld's daughters in one of Gardner's books)! Awful.

The general impression I had from the Gardner and Benson series was that they were mainly trying to please the cinematic-Bond fans, while tossing the Fleming fans a bone here or there by making occasional references to something from a Fleming novel. My first reaction to Gardner was to cringe at his makeover of Bond, with silly characters like "Q'ute" which you would expect to see only in one of the ridiculous Bond flicks. I'll never accept the idea of a new female M, let alone Benson's M being an obnoxious character with all kinds of emotional baggage who generates more contempt than the kind of respect Fleming's M commanded. I know there was only one Fleming, but some of the garbage these two "heirs" put into their novels comes off as hideous slaps in the face to the Fleming legacy....it's as if Gardner and Benson at times were thinking, "We can't possibly satisfy the Fleming purists, so let's just get on their nerves instead!"

Anyway, I have never had the least desire to read any of their books more than once, and in fact gave up on Gardner after his first three or four and Benson after his first two. Fleming's I have read many times over.

I just won a bid for Amis' Colonel Sun on Ebay. I've been wanting to read that for a long time. I'm hoping that he did better than Gardner or Benson.

Rolex6538

I wish they would just stop! If the literary critics think that Fleming was such a mediocre writer, then why can't anybody follow up. Everyone from Kingsley Amis to Sabastian Faulk seem to miss the essence of Bond.

I remember my first time in Jamaica and recalled Flemings prose from "Doctor No." "The sticky fingers of the tropics brushed Bond's face as he left the aircraft..." Every time I read his books I'm right there with Bond.