The Professor

“Never Dream Of Dying” completes the “Union Trilogy” set of Benson novels and is almost the last of the old school set of continuation novels, the ones Kingsley Amis slated as Not Bond and which no one in their right mind would champion as great literature. Formally published fan fiction, some might say, and not exactly gourmet fan fiction at that. But is it worth reading? Certainly. Passes the time most enjoyably. In fact reading the Raymond Benson Bond spin-off novels for the first time, the surprise has been that these are very far from the blaphemous, unreadable dreck Bond bores would have you believe and they are distinguished by an admirable lack of pretension. Back in the day when literary ventriloquism was de trop “Never Dream Of Dying” was a late (and, post-9/11, dying) entry into the sort of airport thriller genre you might actually pick up at an airport, rattle through on the plane and quite rightly discard once you got to your hotel. Those novels lacked the puffed-up self-importance and fanfare of the current “offically sanctioned” continuation novels which arrive bearing the holy imprimatur of the Fleming estate, are usually birthed in some publicity stunt involving the Royal Navy and – say in “Solo”’s case – bomb like one of SPECTRE’s stolen warheads. The supposed legitimacy and literary standing of Bond continuation novels in the twenty-first century – the whole dubious rehabilitation of literary ventriloquisim as an art form – seems to me to be a function of a publishing industry under seige trying to leverage brand recognition in a fragmented, digital age…but I digress. It just would have been fun to see Benson get the chance to sky-dive onto the La Croisette bearing a briefcase full of his first editions.

So for what it’s worth this is the spin-off novel in which Bond (or the “Milk Tray Man” as it’s better to think) goes undercover as Neil Tennant, rides a horse called Lolita, gets into a scuffle with a Labrador live on TV, gets mistaken for a stuntman and has a PA called Nigel. It also has a post-watershed sex scene which would have delighted schoolboys thirty years ago but which Fleming would never have written. In fact, the ventriloquism in general is wobbly. Fleming never threw brand names around unless Bond was likely to know them, as characterisation, but here Benson notes it’s a “Coherent Novus Omni argon laser” about to be used on Bond without regard to which character in the room might reasonably know this. That’s kind of a rookie error for someone writing Bond fiction. There’s also a welcome supernatural element to the antagonist in this novel, which is a good fit for a novel series in which Red Grant murders people at full moon and Mister Big likes a bit of voodoo but Benson has Bond flatly slag all that off. Better to have left that uncommented and playing on the mind of the reader, I would have thought. There’s also practically no mystery or tension, the narrative is a series of events that eventually gets slotted together and none if it has that tricky to reproduce "Fleming Sweep" or the sense that the plot has grown out of something Fleming once experienced or suggested as a wheeze to the MoD. But still. “Never Dream Of Dying” is the epitome of low-hanging fruit. It’s a pulp romp and there's no point dismissing it for what it’s not. Obviously give me the complete Fleming for the desert island first, but if that’s not available some Gardeners and Bensons will do fine. Failing that, Zadie Smith’s oeuvre will have to do. For firewood. Heh. “Schocking.”