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Title: The World Is Not Enough
Author: Raymond Benson
Narrator: Simon Vance
Format: Unabridged
Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
Language: English
Release date: 09-09-16
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 8 votes
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Espionage
Publisher's Summary:
Greed, revenge and world domination are just some of the ingredients in this James Bond adventure. After oil tycoon Sir Robert King is killed in a bombing at MI6 headquarters, his daughter, Elektra, inherits his fortune and the attentions of her father's killer. His name is Renard. A bullet lodged in his brain has rendered him unable to feel physical pain, and he has but one reason left to live - revenge. There's only one man who can take the heat between a beautiful heiress, a malicious sociopath and his final diabolical plan, agent 007.
Members Reviews:
Twice as good as the movie
Movie novelizations aren't really on my literary radar at all, unless they're James Bond movie tie-ins written by Raymond Benson. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH book is much richer, nuanced and layered than the film.
In the sense that Sean Connery IS James Bond then Raymond Benson IS Ian Fleming. He doesn't write like Fleming (could any writer duplicate Fleming's mid-20th Century snobby prose poetry?) but Benson's deft blending of Bond's literary progenitor and Bond of the movies is spot on, but more important, exciting and fun. Benson writes books I look forward to reading, even movie tie-ins originally plotted and scripted by others! In particular Benson makes the improbably stupid and foolhardy boat chase scene early in the movie into something a lot lower key and almost believable.
My chomping at the bit to read a movie novelization is the highest compliment I can pay Raymond Benson.
An audiobook review
I never quite got around to seeing this Bond flick. I am a casual fan, meaning that I eventually get around to seeing them, but not usually in the theater. I ran across this audiobook version and figured I'd kill two birds with one stone - liven up my long commute with some entertainment and cross this Bond story off of my list.
This version is read by John Kenneth. Kenneth was confronted with a tough choice - how does he read Bond? Does his version of Bond sound like Connery? Dalton? Moore? Who? Kenneth's voice for Bond is unique and unforced, which cannot be said of some of the other voics he uses. At times, Kenneth presents the listener with a variety of increasingly-shrill British voices that sound more like the soundtrack of a Monty Python skit rather than a more serious presentation.
Being free of the movie format does offer the author, Raymond Benson, a bit of freedom and he uses it in two interesting ways:
#1 - the amount of sexual detail. Benson goes into graphic detail with Bond's sexual adventures. This is not in keeping with the movies which generally feature a wink and a nod and a female voice purring, "Oh, James!" as the camera fades to black. This is a trademark of the series, just as much as "Bond. James Bond" and "Shaken - not stirred" are and I think it should have been given more respect.
#2 - Benson explores the twisted background of a Bond arch-enemy rather than limiting his background to the bare oral briefing that Bond receives when he is assigned his mission. We learn all about the childhood of Renard, a terrorist bent on anarchistic chaos.