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Tomorrow Never Dies/Die Another Day Novelisations...


18 replies to this topic

#1 Jake007

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 04:23 PM

Does anyone remember if those two books were any good? I've already read his the World is Not Enough novel, but I would like to read the two I've mentioned. Do they add extra detail not in the film? Are they at least 200 pages long? And does Benson go into graphic detail about sex? (Like in TWINE and most of his other Bond books).

#2 DamnCoffee

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 06:15 PM

I have both novelisations in my room. I read the Die Another Day one a while ago and I remember it being a good read. I haven't got round to reading Tomorrow Never Dies yet. I've been told it is also a good read though.

#3 Jake007

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 06:22 PM

Are they long or short?

#4 DamnCoffee

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 06:26 PM

Pretty average I think. Not long, but not short. Around 200 - 300 pages. I'm working from memory, since i'm not in my room. So I could be wrong.

#5 Jake007

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Posted 22 November 2008 - 07:04 PM

Ok, thanks. :( I really have to buy them now!

#6 Qwerty

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Posted 23 November 2008 - 03:51 AM

Some general overviews:

Tomorrow Never Dies: http://commanderbond.net/article/4599

Die Another Day: http://commanderbond.net/article/4720

#7 Craig Arthur

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Posted 24 November 2008 - 12:25 AM

Jake,
In answer to your question, are Raymond Benson's novelisations of "TND" and "DAD" any good . . . the answer is as good as can be expected from a novelisation. They are sincere efforts compared to John Gardner's cynical novelisations of "LTK" and "Goldeneye" or Christopher Wood's habit of stealing and bastardising passages from Fleming in "James Bond: TSLWM" and "James Bond and Moonraker". Raymond works hard in "TND" to link the novelisation with "Zero Minus Ten". For instance Bond's mechanic, Melvin Heckman, from Raymond's Bond novels is referred to in the novelisation. So, we get a sense of the novelisations occurring as part of the saga, in between "ZMT" and "The Facts of Death" and so forth. (Interestingly, rumours abounded that "TND" featured a plot to explode a nuclear device in Hong Kong and I was mistified when I got hold of "ZMT" to find it had this exact plot.) Differences always occur between the novelisations and the finished films, often because the author must work from an earlier version of the script. But in "TND" Raymond comes up with a better ending on board the stealth ship than in the movie.

Why this concern that the novelisations must be 200 pages long? Is that you feel ripped off if they are shorter? And what is this reference to graphic sex??? If you are looking for graphic sex you should look somewhere else. There is no graphic sex in Raymond's Bond novels. Sex, yes. Because this is Bond not Sherlock Holmes! This notion that Raymond's Bond novels are more salacious than Fleming's is absurd. (Perhaps you are confusing him with Christopher Wood - or rather the 'Confessions of' series Wood wrote under the name Timothy Lea.) What Raymond does well is sketch minor characters well and the emotional (or sexual) geography between them and Bond, so that - for instance - in "Blast From the Past" we believe in the encounters between Kate (on page 1) and Cheryl Haven on the final page and register the progress from one lover to the next as if we have moved through the same progresion as Bond. Hence we share the signifiance of the encounters and they feel more "graphic". But this is an imaginative sleight-of-hand and nothing more.

Edited by Craig Arthur, 24 November 2008 - 12:32 AM.


#8 Jake007

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Posted 24 November 2008 - 10:46 PM

Thanks for the explanation. And no I do not feel ripped off if I get a book with less than 200 pages. I only wanted to know the length. As for the graphic sex question, It was just a matter of curiosity.

#9 Gothamite

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Posted 17 January 2009 - 04:32 AM

Today, I read DAD in essentially one sitting.

Very serviceable and to-the-point. A fair bit of characterisation and depth beyond what was in the movie, but really not a whole lot. It certainly didn't feel like the blend of the literary and cinematic Bond the way I'd heard it was supposed to be.

6/10

#10 Double-Oh Agent

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Posted 17 January 2009 - 06:26 AM

They're both good, but Tomorrow Never Dies is the better novelization.

TND has an added back story of Elliot Carver and an even earlier scene of Wai Lin that sets up her later appearance.

Die Another Day has an added scene that describes how Bond gets from the British warship and into Hong Kong as well as more back story involving how Tan-Gun Moon and Miranda Frost became aquainted.

Each new scene adds to the books' depth and characterizations.

#11 Gothamite

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Posted 29 January 2009 - 08:15 PM

Each new scene adds to the books' depth and characterizations.


That new scene in the DAD book is the closest the book ever gets to resembling Fleming and even then, it's a far cry. Descriptions are given of Bond's first proper meal in a restaurant and his first taste of alcohol since his capture. Unfortunately, the food is something really simple like sweet and sour chicken and because Bond has so little money he drinks beer.

#12 godwulf

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 01:39 AM

I've been looking around trying to find a good copy of Tomorrow Never Dies to buy - it's the last Bond I don't have at least one copy of - and I was hoping to find a hardcover...but My God! I think the cheapest copy I've seen for sale anywhere was $200! Are the hardcover copies genuinely that "rare"?

#13 Qwerty

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 03:00 AM

I've been looking around trying to find a good copy of Tomorrow Never Dies to buy - it's the last Bond I don't have at least one copy of - and I was hoping to find a hardcover...but My God! I think the cheapest copy I've seen for sale anywhere was $200! Are the hardcover copies genuinely that "rare"?

The hardback for Tomorrow Never Dies was only printed in extremely limited quantities in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton and is without question one of the most difficult UK 1sts of any Bond novel/novelization to track down. Prices are almost always in the $300 and way up range.

If you're simply looking for a copy to read, do yourself a huge favour and settle for the paperbacks - you can find either the UK or US edition for sometimes less than the cover price.

Best of luck searching!

#14 godwulf

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 01:46 PM

Thanks for the info. Yes, I think I wiil settle for the paperback, in this case. I've been finding some things on eBay this past week or so that are much better values, all Colonel Sun-related: an American first hardcover (the one with the Dali-esque cover art), the Panther pb with the girl in the white dress sitting on the big pistol, and the issue of 'True' with the CS cover art and exerpt. Even including shipping, I think those three items only ran me about $40 total.

#15 Qwerty

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 02:50 PM

Not too bad. You can often get some really good deals on eBay if you have the time to search through a lot of the listings.

#16 volante

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 06:17 PM

They're both good, but Tomorrow Never Dies is the better novelization.

TND has an added back story of Elliot Carver and an even earlier scene of Wai Lin that sets up her later appearance.

Die Another Day has an added scene that describes how Bond gets from the British warship and into Hong Kong as well as more back story involving how Tan-Gun Moon and Miranda Frost became aquainted.

Each new scene adds to the books' depth and characterizations.


Both are great reads; and a true inspiration to me in my Fan Fic writing.
Raymond and I (Mr. Benson and I, if he's reading this) are friends on Facebook.
I love the way he brings the films to life in the reader mind.

To anwer the original question
TND 213 pages

DAD 245 pages


Real good, Real Bond

#17 dlb007

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Posted 04 May 2010 - 02:12 AM

Just finished Tomorrow Never Dies. For a novelization it wasn't too bad. Benson is very knowledgable about history and things of those nature, and it shows, for that is where his writing is at its best. I can't help wanting to yell: "Show, don't tell," after every sentence. He is far too fond of exclamation points. I've counted more in his first two works than in all of Gardner's and Fleming's. Still, mostly poor written Bond is better than none at all.

#18 marktmurphy

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Posted 04 May 2010 - 12:38 PM

TND is one of the most poorly written books I've ever flicked through. The bike chase is more of a synopsis than a piece of descriptive writing: it's appalling. He actually writes something like 'Wai Lin jumped the bike across the river, hopping from boat to boat'. That is not an event you cover in one brief sentence! B)

#19 Blofeld's Cat

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Posted 04 May 2010 - 08:19 PM

TND is one of the most poorly written books I've ever flicked through. The bike chase is more of a synopsis than a piece of descriptive writing: it's appalling. He actually writes something like 'Wai Lin jumped the bike across the river, hopping from boat to boat'. That is not an event you cover in one brief sentence! B)


True, and he most likely just copied word for word from the script he would've been given as the source to write the novelization.