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Looking Back: 'Tomorrow Never Dies'

Raymond Benson's first James Bond novelization

Some of the worst descriptive writing I've ever seen is in this book, but I imagine he was under a lot of pressure. Not sure that's any excuse, but there we go.

It is quite interesting to flick through and note the changes that were obviously made to the script after he got it. Some nice additions and backstory.

Tend to agree with Markt about Benson's writing. Though the quality in TND is probably no worse than in any of his books.

Unfortunately, he doesn't benefit from someone else giving him a taught plot to follow. John Gardner, who tended to meander and into one doublecross after another when left to himself, fares far better in his two novelisations than in most of his own, particularly later, work. Plots were always Benson strong point, probably his only strong point and so sadly he doesn't benefit from the work of others, but is left to his own "skills" to put description to their words.

That said, my take on the entire Benson collection is that even his originals were merely unfilmed tales of Brozza-Bond.

Curiously, I have fallen victim to the marketing ploy of merchandising and bought all the novelisations available.

But, of the Benson ones, I have only read DAD. Quite why I never got around to the rest (and why I read DAD!!) is open to debate (my own, one-sided affair) but is probably due to the torturous efforts in getting through his other works.

Agreed with the immediate above. His stories were really quite good but the translation of ideas into the printed word was always laborious.

There's currently a copy of the UK 1st hardback (along with first editions of seven or so other Benson Bond novels) selling for over $1700 on eBay at the moment.