42 replies to this topic

[deth]

...in Never Dream of Dying

......I personally didn't like it.... it felt like he took Fleming's character and ruined him..... it just didn't seem "right".



you?

[Qwerty]

Hmmmm, well Benson took EVERY character from the Fleming books that wasn't already dead, and totally changed them! I mean, he took the governor from Quantum Of Solace and threw him in one of his novels. Why do you mess with a masterpiece like OHMSS, and take one of it's characters, (Draco) and then have him become Bond's enemy??? Benson needed to learn to leave the Fleming alone and come up with some original characters.

[deth]

yup. Draco became very generic when Benson touched him. I do admit though that I was rather surprised when I was readin the book to see Draco become evil...

[BONDFINESSE 007]

i was to, and for me that was a big turn off, its the one thing about the story i did not like, it left me saying "why did he do that"?

[Jim]

SPOILERSPOLILERSPOLIER

(I neither know nor care how to do the graphics spolier block thing)

As I understand it, the justification would be that Draco was always a villainous character, so making him a villain shouldn't be too shocking. Being "nice and friendly" in OHMSS was out of character

However...

Where it all falls apart is the notion that Draco has been behind the Union for years. His motivation for getting revenge on Bond is because Bond's actions lead to the death of Draco's wife and child in the opening sequence of this godforsaken book.

This really doesn't explain why the Union have been targeting Bond for two books prior to that.

Nor does it really make any sense that the British Secret Service would not have known whether Draco was alive or not. The "twist" doesn't convince. Especially not because Draco is married to an actress and has a child - are they invisible? If they were invisible, what's he complaining about if Bond causes their deaths? Does nobody know who the woman is married to? Like - the British Secret Service, for example- do they not know this? Uh?

The book is an utter artifice, created around this "shock" revalation, which doesn't work because it is utterly incomprehensible. Creates the impression that Mr Benson didn't know how to end it so fell back on his well-practised routine of shoving a Fleming character in there. Problem is, this utterly devalues the only interesting character Benson created - Le Gerant - because he's treated in a very offhand manner towards the end of the book.

I'm aware that Mr Benson expressed discomfort at the way in which Gardner killed off Draco (I think he expresses a negative sentiment in his Bedside Companion thingy); however, that such a notion led to this...well, Draco was better off dead, frankly. Would have made much more sense. At least Mr Gardner tried (I'm not saying he always succeeded) to create some interesting characters without raking the past over.

[Icephoenix]

Originally posted by Qwerty
Hmmmm, well Benson took EVERY character from the Fleming books that wasn't already dead...

And sometimes even those who are

[DLibrasnow]

Originally posted by Qwerty
Hmmmm, well Benson took EVERY character from the Fleming books that wasn't already dead, and totally changed them!

But Draco was dead, he was mentioned as dead in the book NOBODY LIVES FOREVER...so I was really confused when I heard he was featured in the Benson novel. How did Benson explain that discrepency?

[Roebuck]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow
But Draco was dead, he was mentioned as dead in the book NOBODY LIVES FOREVER...so I was really confused when I heard he was featured in the Benson novel. How did Benson explain that discrepency?

I asked Benson a similar question about continuity at one of his talks, and roughly his response was that stuff from Fleming was sacrosanct but the publishers had agreed he could ignore anything from the Gardner series (including MicroGlobe One or Q

[Qwerty]

[quote]Originally posted by Roebuck


roughly his response was that stuff from Fleming was sacrosanct but the publishers had agreed he could ignore anything from the Gardner series (including MicroGlobe One or Q

[DLibrasnow]

Yes I think Benson had forgotten about that detail from NOBODY LIVES FOREVER.

[iain]

Benson should write under the name Lazerus as he also brought Che Che back from the dead. Fleming killed him off in the Piz Gloria battle in OHMSS.

[DLibrasnow]

Good point Iain....
So this proves that Benson didn't adhere to any rule that Fleming was sacrosanct but took it upon himself to dismiss both the Fleming and Gardner novels.

[Roebuck]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow
this proves that Benson didn't adhere to any rule that Fleming was sacrosanct but  took it upon himself to dismiss both the Fleming and Gardner novels.

All it proves is that he made mistakes; continuity errors any writer could have made and which would probably have been caught had he not been working to such tight deadlines. While Zero Minus Ten was an entertaining enough read, for me the quality of his later work suffered under the pressures of churning out a Bond per year.
I can't knock the guy for taking on what (for a fan of the literary 007) must have been his ultimate dream job, but I think the poor sap bit off more than he could chew.

[Triton]

Raymond Benson comments about the resurrection of Marc Ange Draco in an inteview published at the Ian Fleming Foundation web site concerning the book Never Dream of Dying:

You handled the resurrection of Draco very well. What were your considerations when using old Fleming/Gardner characters and Draco in particular?
John Gardner had actually mentioned in one of his books that Draco was dead. It was one sentence, a throw-away, and something that could be easily overlooked or even explained as being untrue. I went with the "untrue" path! I think if you're going to kill off a major character like that, you had better make it memorable! Anyway, I re-read OHMSS and got a handle on the character so that I could "write" him. He had, of course, gone through a number of changes in his life since OHMSS.

To read the complete interview, click the following link:

Never Dream of Dying: 20 Questions with Raymond Benson

[iain]

Benson presents himself as a leading expert on the 007 novels and I find it hard to believe that he was not aware that he was using a character that Fleming killed off. This is a man who can quote Fleming chapter and verse.

Also, remember that Fleming 'churned out' a Bond novel every year and did it without all of the advantages of modern technology. So I don't see that as much of an excuse either.

[DLibrasnow]

If Benson did indeed reread OHMSS then it is more than simply an error bringing Che Che back -- it's just plain stupidity on his part!

[BONDFINESSE 007]

well for me to watch ohmss is bitter sweet because now i know thanks to benson draco turns bad so it takes some luster off ohmss

[DLibrasnow]

Thanks for not posting a spoiler on that post Bondfinesse007 -- grrr....

[BONDFINESSE 007]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow
Thanks for not posting a spoiler on that post Bondfinesse007 -- grrr....

well snowie you being the bond man that you are you already know, and someone had to do it, and the book has been out for some time so there is no shock value at this point in time:)

[mccartney007]

Originally posted by iain
Also, remember that Fleming 'churned out' a Bond novel every year and did it without all of the advantages of modern technology.  So I don't see that as much of an excuse either.

Yeah, but Fleming also didn't have all the restrictions placed on him that the subsequent authors did. Fleming had free reign of his characters and as to whether or not he would write a book. Benson on the other hand had to get the approval for nearly every decisicion he made within the series. Not to mention he had to try and please three different editors; Glidrose, Hodder and Stoughton and Putnam. He also didn't have the option as to when he could write a book. Dates were set and he had to meet them. And then he had to try and deal with crazy, crazy "fans".

[DLibrasnow]

Originally posted by mccartney007


Yeah, but Fleming also didn't have all the restrictions placed on him that the subsequent authors did.  Fleming had free reign of his characters and as to whether or not he would write a book.  Benson on the other hand had to get the approval for nearly every decisicion he made within the series.  Not to mention he had to try and please three different editors; Glidrose, Hodder and Stoughton and Putnam.  He also didn't have the option as to when he could write a book.  Dates were set and he had to meet them.  And then he had to try and deal with crazy, crazy "fans".

But noone twisted his arm to take the job. Being a Bond fan of so many years standing Benson knew exactly what he was getting himself into, after all Gardner worked under exactly the same conditions.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by mccartney007

Yeah, but Fleming also didn't have all the restrictions placed on him that the subsequent authors did.  Fleming had free reign of his characters and as to whether or not he would write a book.  Benson on the other hand had to get the approval for nearly every decisicion he made within the series.  Not to mention he had to try and please three different editors; Glidrose, Hodder and Stoughton and Putnam.  He also didn't have the option as to when he could write a book.  Dates were set and he had to meet them.  And then he had to try and deal with crazy, crazy "fans".  

All of that may be true, but it doesn't put Benson beyond criticism, does it?

[DLibrasnow]

I agree with Roebuck when he says that Benson bit off more than he could chew. I mean he is not a writer and unfortunately it really showed!

[Loomis]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow

I agree with Roebuck when he says that Benson bit off more than he could chew.  

The whole creative and commercial impetus (if you see what I mean) was different for the continuation novels, and that was no fault of the writers. Glidrose wanted to keep the literary series going in some form or another purely for the sake of it (well, for the sake of making money, but probably making more from creating more Bond books to own the rights to than from the actual sales of those books to the reading public - wasn't it zencat who wrote once on these forums that it was all a clever, convoluted exercise in extending copyright?).

I've enjoyed the works of both Benson and Gardner, but I consider them trivia rather than "canon". For "proper" Bond novels, look to Fleming and.... well, Fleming. (Although "Colonel Sun" is absolutely superb.)

You can't reinvent the wheel. The literary Bond died in the 1960s, either with "The Man With the Golden Gun", or with "Colonel Sun" - but die in the 1960s it most certainly did. Gardner and Benson? Really nothing more than a money-grubbing life-support-machine operation by Glidrose.

[DLibrasnow]

Originally posted by Loomis


The whole creative and commercial impetus (if you see what I mean) was different for the continuation novels, and that was no fault of the writers. Glidrose wanted to keep the literary series going in some form or another purely for the sake of it (well, for the sake of making money, but probably making more from creating more Bond books to own the rights to than from the actual sales of those books to the reading public - wasn't it zencat who wrote once on these forums that it was all a clever, convoluted exercise in extending copyright?)..

I always thought that Glidrose getting John Gardner to write continuation novels was a way for them to:
a)Prevent Bond from becoming a public domain character, and
Keep Bond out there in the literary public eye.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by DLibrasnow

I always thought that Glidrose getting John Gardner to write continuation novels was a way for them to:
a)Prevent Bond from becoming a public domain character, and
Keep Bond out there in the literary public eye.  

Right. (a) would have been their main aim, but I'm sure that they really couldn't have cared less about (.

[Jim]

You're not possibly suggesting that the books were essentially a tax -write off designed to get around copyright legislation and therefore the quality was immaterial, hence getting a cheap pliant stooge, who probably thought he was contributing great craft, to bang out any old rubbish; as long as they were out there, rights protected.

What a positvely scandalous assertion. Tsk!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[iain]

Why didn't Glidrose use Christopher Wood to write the continuation novels? The two books he wrote are very Flemingesque and far better than any of the Benson or Gardner efforts.

[Genrewriter]

Perhaps the double-taking pigeon in Moonraker made them change their minds. Even if it wasn't his idea, he's still the screenwriter listed in the opening titles.

[DLibrasnow]

Originally posted by iain
Why didn't Glidrose use Christopher Wood to write the continuation novels?  The two books he wrote are very Flemingesque and far better than any of the Benson or Gardner efforts.

Good point Iain, I really liked the two Christopher Wood novelizations. Darn they are at home in the UK....time for me to request another care package full of James Bond stuff I guess!! LOL