130 replies to this topic

[DLibrasnow]

After giving up on Raymoind Benson after reading FACTS OF DEATH and a couple of his short stories I have resolved to give Benson a second chance.

With that in mind I ordered HIGH TIME TO KILL and THE MAN WITH THE RED TATTOO today after reading what can only be described as glowing reviews by CBNs very own Zencat.

-- Just joking about the subhead to this thread John

[zencat]

Ahhh...another victim as fallen into my web. Don't struggle, just let it happen.

[DLibrasnow]

I like the plot description for HIGH TIME TO KILL and we see eye to eye on other literary Bond entries. It sounds a little like Clint Eastwood's THE EIGER SANCTION.

I'm actually really hoping that I see Benson in a new light. I was going to ask which books I should choose, but then I came across a listmania on Amazon from a certain John Cox.

Did I make a good selection?

[Loomis]

I find Benson a bit like Bernardo Bertolucci (the first time ever those two have been compared to each other, I'm sure): his work is either very good indeed or absolutely terrible, with no in-between. He either knocks it out of the park or he comes up with a total turkey. For me, "Zero Minus Ten", "Never Dream of Dying" and "The Man With the Red Tattoo" are his hits (although they're by no means in the Fleming/Amis league), and "The Facts of Death" and "High Time to Kill" are his misses ("Doubleshot" I haven't read), and when he misses he misses big.

Of course, D, this is coming from someone who finds Gardner an utter bore, so I guess my reading tastes may be very different to yours.

[DLibrasnow]

Yikes.....so HIGH TIME TO KILL is a turkey!

[Loomis]

Yikes.....so HIGH TIME TO KILL is a turkey!

Well, yes - in my opinion. On the other hand, zencat and clinkeroo rate it very highly. This thread may interest you: http://debrief.comma...showtopic=12406.

My favourite Benson is "Zero Minus Ten".

[Donovan]

I read the thread title and thought this was in reference to the play "Second Chance" that Benson co-wrote with Doug Redenius. This was produced along with three other short story plays. I saw it and there's no doubt that Benson & Redenius' segment gave audiences their money's worth.

As for his Bond novels and short stories, I think it was good to maintain a fresh literary presence of Bond. What I like about Benson's novels are they are written by someone with a genuine scholarly interest in Fleming's Bond. This lends a certain sense of credibility to his work.

[Qwerty]

I'd love to see another novel from him.

[DLibrasnow]

Yikes.....so HIGH TIME TO KILL is a turkey!

Well, yes - in my opinion. On the other hand, zencat and clinkeroo rate it very highly. This thread may interest you: http://debrief.comma...showtopic=12406.

My favourite Benson is "Zero Minus Ten".

Well I find that Zencat and I tend to like the same kind of Bond novels with only a couple of exceptions. I'll post my thoughts once I have read them.

[Qwerty]

Yikes.....so HIGH TIME TO KILL is a turkey!

Well, yes - in my opinion. On the other hand, zencat and clinkeroo rate it very highly. This thread may interest you: http://debrief.comma...showtopic=12406.

My favourite Benson is "Zero Minus Ten".

Gotta love High Time To Kill!

[DLibrasnow]

Is it okay Devin? I found Benson's prose so unreadable in ZERO MINUS TEN that I am hoping he got better as he went along.

I'm willing to give Benson this second chance. I really do want to like his Bond work - if for no other reason than to help tide me over until Higsons second Young Bond book comes out in January 2006.

[Qwerty]

I'm one of the few that really liked it. The best advice I can give is to read it and decide for yourself. (It's obvious fans are very divided on this one).

[DLibrasnow]

I started to read the thread that Loomis suggested, but then realized it's jam packed with spoilers.

[Qwerty]

Don't even bother with threads IMO - just try the book out.

[Bondian]

I'd go along with anything zencat recommends. Because he's our man in Hong Kong, or any other place in the world.

[Robert Watts]

Benson... isn't he the one who writes stuff like this.

Bond had the gun. 10 men came at him. Bond killed them with a Walther PPK. The Walther PPK was a gun.

[DLibrasnow]

I'd go along with anything zencat recommendations.  Because he's our man in Hong Kong, or any other place in the world. 

I agree Bondian. I have a lot of faith in Zencat.

[Bondian]

I agree Bondian. I have a lot of faith in Zencat.

He's our Hollywood Hooker.

[DLibrasnow]

I agree Bondian. I have a lot of faith in Zencat.

He's our Hollywood Hooker.

[DLibrasnow]

The only plot that doesn't sound appealing to me is the Bond does Hollywood novel, that just seems incredibly tacky. It's a plot device that I don't like to see in movies either and part of the same reason why I didn't like the EuroDisney thing in one of the later Gardner's.

[JackChase007]

I actually thought that High Time To Kill is one of Benson's better novels - grittier and more down-to-earth than his other attempts. More thrilling than his other ones. I loved DoubleShot - again, grittier, and a very perplexing thriller. IMO, those are THE two Bensons to read.

[Blofeld's Cat]

High Time To Kill is the best Benson I've read, by far!

[Qwerty]

I loved DoubleShot - again, grittier, and a very perplexing thriller.  IMO, those are THE two Bensons to read.

I find Doubleshot to be one of his more underrated and overlooked books. It's rather dark compared to his others I think, definitely one to try.

[DLibrasnow]

It seems there are many various opinions about the diffeent Benson books...some people like DOUBLESHOT, other dislike it, some think that HIGH TIME TO KILL is Bensons best and yet others think it is a total dud. Zencats solution is to read them all, but then I didn't like ZERO MINUS TEN.

[JackChase007]

In retrospect, what does almost ruin High Time To Kill and DoubleShot for me is Never Dream Of Dying; the "Union Trilogy" had been so promising and was developing brilliantly up to that point, but NDOD was such a disappointing climax. It just felt thrown together and lazy - the boat chase was right out of the opening of The World Is Not Enough. The Man With The Red Tattoo was pretty decent, not as good as the first two in the "Union Trilogy", but better than his other attempts.

And I agree with Qwerty - DoubleShot is much darker and is very underrated and underappreciated. I liked seeing Bond in a weakened state.

[Loomis]

It seems there are many various opinions about the diffeent Benson books...some people like DOUBLESHOT, other dislike it, some think that HIGH TIME TO KILL is Bensons best and yet others think it is a total dud. Zencats solution is to read them all, but then I didn't like ZERO MINUS TEN.

Given the subject matter (Hong Kong and its Handover) and the skill with which Benson treats it, I consider "Zero Minus Ten" one of the most thought-provoking and poignant Bond novels (the Flemings included). Certainly, there's more of interest plot- and character-wise than is to be found in Gardner's debut, "Licence Renewed", which coincidentally enough also deals with a scheme to create nuclear carnage. More of the spirit of Fleming, too (and, no, I'm not just referring to the "fanboyish" in-jokes for which Benson is often slated).

Benson's research into and descriptions of Hong Kong and southern China are genuinely impressive. I've read the book twice, and the only false note I could find was the misspelling of a street name, or something like that; otherwise, the history, the culture, the ambiance, the political mood(s) around the time of the Handover.... well, it's all there. A bit of a cliche, this, but Benson succeeds spectacularly in making Hong Kong into a character, and a character to care about.... to the point where the novel's closing lines pack a tremendous emotional wallop.

Bond's journey into the People's Republic on the Kowloon-Guangzhou Express ("Day Trip to China") is a wonderful piece of Flemingian travelogue, conjuring not only the excitement of "the exotic", but displaying a terrific eye for authentic detail. The subsequent chapter, "Agony and Anger", contains a horrifying torture sequence worthy of Fleming (or Amis.... or Lindsay Anderson's IF....):

Bond turned his head to the left and spat, 'Please ... sir. May ... I have ... another, you ... bloody ... bastard ...?'

Apart from which verisimilitude and unpleasantness, ZMT is a rollicking good yarn (and extremely filmic). The Bond girl, Sunni, is a far more developed and interesting character than may be apparent on first reading, while there's a surprising amount of humour (that works pretty well).

Is it a perfect book? No, not at all. There's a lot of what can only be described as "very sloppy writing" (I'm talking about a lack of elegant prose, and the occasional true howler in the use of the English language*; Benson's research, as stated above, is spot-on, while characterisation is, generally speaking, good, and the story is more than sufficiently interesting and well-told to keep one turning the pages). If there weren't so many good things about ZMT, I wouldn't care - but there are, and those good things make me wish that Benson had had a better editor, more time to hone and polish his manuscript, etc. It's something I feel all the time when reading his novels. He has imagination and talent, but, bluntly, needed more help while writing the Bonds than he evidently received.

All in all, though, perhaps the second best continuation novel I've read (after "Colonel Sun").

I wonder, was 1997 the only year in which we had a Bond novel and a Bond film with so many similarities (Chinese Bond girl, European tycoon with a background in Asia as the villain, locations in the Far East, etc.)? I think I give ZMT extra points for being considerably less inane than TOMORROW NEVER DIES and telling a much more interesting story. Given that Benson wrote the TND novelization, I reckon he must at times have had the feeling of writing the same book twice!

*Robert Watts asks whether Benson writes stuff along the lines of: "Bond had the gun. 10 men came at him. Bond killed them with a Walther PPK. The Walther PPK was a gun." Yeah, there's more than "a bit" of that sort of thing.

[DLibrasnow]

While I disagree on the merits of ZMT Loomis, I do agree that Benson could have benefitted from having a better editor. Really, I would have fired the editor after ZMT. If that editor still has a job I'd be VERY surprised.

[David Schofield]

Hey, great, another chance to rip into Benson.

Seriously, if you can handle his pretty dubious prose, go for High Time to Kill and Never Dream of Dying (just don't have read or watched OHMSS). Doubleshot is OK but reads like one of those 70s TV shows like the Bionic Womand and Gemini Man where an exact double turned up).

Facts of Death is lousy, Zero Minus Ten an absolute disappointment considering all the Benson will return Bond to Fleming basis (WLL SOMEONE please tell me where Bond was returning from to perform a HALO jump onto his own beach unless it was just a chance for Benson to hear the Bond theme in his ears as he wrote it???) and the Man With the Red Tattoo as Bondian as the line about Bond having become Tony Blairs favourite agent.

[Jim]

http://www.commander...es/2441-1.shtml

and

http://www.commander...es/2457-1.shtml

Which reminds me that I should have finished the High Time to Kill piece ages ago. Will dig it out, bung it up.

[Loomis]

the Man With the Red Tattoo as Bondian as the line about Bond having become Tony Blairs favourite agent.

I may be wrong, but I don't think Blair is actually mentioned by name at any point in the book. Bond is "the Prime Minister's" fave. Besides, haven't there been plenty of references to real people in the books and films, ever since Fleming's day?