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Looking Back: 'Die Another Day'

Raymond Benson's third and final James Bond novelization

I thought that the book was 10 times better than the film. I rather enjoyed the book. Well, it wasn't bad for a action packed Bond film novelization.

It was still a little funny to see the literary Bond trying to fit into very unliterary story, but I agree that things were handled much better than in the film. It helped Jinx immensely to have a semblance of a background, and Miranda's relationship with Moon made much more sense. Also, the lines weren't quite as clunky, and I distinctly remember Jinx' "Your mother," in the book sounding smoother than "Your mama" in the movie (and for the love of Pete, no race-baiting this time, just leave it alone). Oh, and there were some references to earlier Fleming/film adventures that hadn't been as apparent when I was just watching the movie! Definitely helped.

While it definitely felt like a film in its tone, the subtle ways that it filled in some gaps made it a considerable improvement upon the film. I only wish they'd have made the few extra steps to fill these gaps onscreen.

Did the invisible car make an appearence in the book?

Yeah, it's still there, but somehow when described in the book, it doesn't come off so .

The book benefits from having bits and pieces of the backstory not included in the film.

It's been quite a while since I read this, but I think the intro (pretitle) was sequence given a lot more context in the book...

Benson also made a several comments in this CBn interview from a few years ago about how exactly how much other bits and pieces he could add in.