6 replies to this topic

[dinovelvet]

Just read The Facts of Death, which is my 3rd Benson book after Red tattoo and Zero minus ten. I have to say that Facts is probably my least favorite of the three so far, but it was still better Bond reading than the average Gardner, IMHO.
Having read Benson's Splinter Cell books beforehand, it felt a wee bit familiar (one of the SC books involves Cyprus, and the other involves Hong Kong...hmm, well if you've still got the research notes, might as well use 'em again I guess!), and again we get Benson's theme of cultures fighting for land again (after China vs Britain over Hong Kong in ZMT, and Japan vs Western influence in TMWTRT).
None of the characters stood out here quite the way they did in TMWTRT or ZMT, the villain Konstantine Romanos seems reminiscent of Gardner's Scorpius character, and the good and bad girls were business-as-usual Bond stock types. Some interesting moments here and there - the climax where Bond must solve a math puzzle(!) was amusingly eccentric, the insight into M's private life was...different, the Texas stuff with Felix was fun, with Bond going to Chuy's (was Applebee's not available? ) although in the sperm bank sequences we came dangerously close to having a scene where Bond might, y'know, have a wank.
The references to previous books and characters is still good fun, with Felix, and Kerim Bey's son etc. It is kind of amusing that the villain's grand scheme is to launch a nuclear missile at Istanbul, which is oddly reminiscent of TWINE. Stranger still is Benson calling the last chapter 'The World is not enough', and then of course Benson gets hired to write the novelization of TWINE. He must have raised an eyebrow or two when he read the script...?!
So it was not bad overall. I'll tackle Gardner's "Win,Lose, or Die" next.

Edited by dinovelvet, 11 March 2006 - 02:48 AM.

[Flash1087]

Actually, if I remember my interviews correctly, The World Is Not Enough was the original title for Facts of Death before EON came by and said they were using it for a movie.

[Qwerty]

Actually, if I remember my interviews correctly, The World Is Not Enough was the original title for Facts of Death

Correct. If I recall correctly, Benson mentioned that his publishers did not think the title 'bondian' enough.

[Double-Oh Agent]

Actually, if I remember my interviews correctly, The World Is Not Enough was the original title for Facts of Death

Correct. If I recall correctly, Benson mentioned that his publishers did not think the title 'bondian' enough.

Say what???

But seriously, yes, I've heard that reason before too, Qwerty. I don't know what the publishers were thinking. The World Is Not Enough is not a "Bondian" enough title? Have they every read any of Ian Fleming's work? That reason is very hard to believe. At least The Facts Of Death wasn't a bad alternate title--and we did get TWINE later on so everything worked out...fortunately.

[Qwerty]

Yep - read about it all here.

[dinovelvet]

Come to think of it, Zero Minus Ten was about a clash between China and Britain, engineered by one angry Brit...which sort of turned out to be the plot of TND, for which again Benson wrote the novelization. Hmm!

Funny stuff about TWINE not being 'Bondian' enough.

[zencat]

Yep - read about it all here.

Here, this makes it easy:

[box]Q. Your original title for this book was The World Is Not Enough. Why was this title rejected? Were you surprised when it was later used as a title for a Bond film?

RB. Would you believe that Glidrose and both publishers didn