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jmgustaf's review against another edition
4.0
Another homerun for Mr. Benson! I am an armchair philosopher and genuinely enjoy when these stories have a philosophy-minded villain and/or plot. I also love when Bond gets philosophical-he is usually pragmatic and nihilistic with a dash of stoic. To follow Bond to Greece-the home of western philosophy-and have him pitted against the Pythagorean Society was a great fit for my taste. The trigger for the mission heavily involved the new M and open the door for Bond to quickly become her ‘go-to’ 00. It was a smart move, in my mind, to get past the confrontational relationship between M and 007 and into a one of professional respect and growing towards fondness and trust.
The villain is great and there’s an unexpected twist with him towards the end that I enjoyed (I’ll spoil it below). Having an organization as the threat was a good trial run for the authors upcoming trilogy that incorporates a single enemy organization in three consecutive novels! Having a personal connection between M and a suspected member of the group is new territory for us. We did not get to know Miles on such a personal level. We were eventually filled in on his past and we meet his grandchildren at one point, but he was much to stoic to have much of a personal life outside of his job until he retired. Bond’s love interest was a nice back-to-formula female agent ok, with ‘being his girl in that port’ as long as she’s his only girl in that port. I was glad that that wasn’t breaking new ground or trying to be anything more than what it was.
I enjoy M (both Miles and Barbara) being more rounded and accessible characters in these novels. It is nice that Miles had to retire for us to see that. It allows us in, but with a believable reason to finally let us in. With Barbara she had no choice but to let one of her 00’s in and it makes sense she’d choose her predecessors favorite (narrowly, she considered another 00). Through Bond we get let in and it quickly endears us to M and M to Bond. I love the relationship arcs between Bond, Barbara, and Sir Miles.
I very much enjoyed this read and I can’t wait to continue the Benson run of books. I also read his short story “Live and Five” and thought it was great. It is a breezy, quick read with a simple storyline of a defecting famous ice skater and Bond’s only time on video-his 15 minutes of fame. It is also the only time Bond (presumably) beds a real person-if I remember correctly. Raymond Benson is my favorite author, outside of Fleming himself, of the series. I am loving my reread of his novels. I read them all as they came out in the late nineties, early two-thousands.
On another note, I can’t help but notice some the similarities between these first two novels and the immediately following films. After “Zero Minus Ten,” which has a villain trying to start a war between England and China, we get the film “Tomorrow Never Dies” with that same plot point, then in “The Fact of Death” we get the, supposed main villain, killed by a female antagonist who then becomes the ‘big bad’ of the story which also happens in the next film released after the novel, “The World is Not Enough.” Coincidentally, or ironically, there’s even a chapter in the novel titled, “The World is Not Enough.” I’d go with coincidentally, because it is well-established that that phrase is the Bond family motto and found on their family crest. At any rate, they never adapted any of these great novels to film-which is a shame-but they borrowed elements.
The villain is great and there’s an unexpected twist with him towards the end that I enjoyed (I’ll spoil it below). Having an organization as the threat was a good trial run for the authors upcoming trilogy that incorporates a single enemy organization in three consecutive novels! Having a personal connection between M and a suspected member of the group is new territory for us. We did not get to know Miles on such a personal level. We were eventually filled in on his past and we meet his grandchildren at one point, but he was much to stoic to have much of a personal life outside of his job until he retired. Bond’s love interest was a nice back-to-formula female agent ok, with ‘being his girl in that port’ as long as she’s his only girl in that port. I was glad that that wasn’t breaking new ground or trying to be anything more than what it was.
I enjoy M (both Miles and Barbara) being more rounded and accessible characters in these novels. It is nice that Miles had to retire for us to see that. It allows us in, but with a believable reason to finally let us in. With Barbara she had no choice but to let one of her 00’s in and it makes sense she’d choose her predecessors favorite (narrowly, she considered another 00). Through Bond we get let in and it quickly endears us to M and M to Bond. I love the relationship arcs between Bond, Barbara, and Sir Miles.
I very much enjoyed this read and I can’t wait to continue the Benson run of books. I also read his short story “Live and Five” and thought it was great. It is a breezy, quick read with a simple storyline of a defecting famous ice skater and Bond’s only time on video-his 15 minutes of fame. It is also the only time Bond (presumably) beds a real person-if I remember correctly. Raymond Benson is my favorite author, outside of Fleming himself, of the series. I am loving my reread of his novels. I read them all as they came out in the late nineties, early two-thousands.
On another note, I can’t help but notice some the similarities between these first two novels and the immediately following films. After “Zero Minus Ten,” which has a villain trying to start a war between England and China, we get the film “Tomorrow Never Dies” with that same plot point, then in “The Fact of Death” we get the, supposed main villain, killed by a female antagonist who then becomes the ‘big bad’ of the story which also happens in the next film released after the novel, “The World is Not Enough.” Coincidentally, or ironically, there’s even a chapter in the novel titled, “The World is Not Enough.” I’d go with coincidentally, because it is well-established that that phrase is the Bond family motto and found on their family crest. At any rate, they never adapted any of these great novels to film-which is a shame-but they borrowed elements.
hsblechman's review against another edition
1.0
This book is set in 1998, was written in 1998, and reads like what the Bond movies were doing in 1998. It's.... Not good.
efftees's review against another edition
4.0
I personally found this a fantastic book that was hard to put down. I recommend this to anyone to anyone who enjoys an action-packed adventure, whether you enjoy James Bond or not. I do advise however, that some of the sex scenes might be a little bit graphic, but they don't last more than a page or two.
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