Rating: 
Summary: Around the world 007 goes!
Review: After oil tycoon Sir Robert King is killed in a bombing at MI6 headquarters, his daughter, Elektra, inherits his fortune-billions of dollars worth of oil deposits in the Caspian Sea...and James Bond, 007, as a bodyguard. Her new wealth attracts international interest. But she has also attracted the attenions 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-revenage. There's only one man who can take the heart between a beautiful heiress, a malicious sociopath and his final diabolical plan. Buy this book! It is another great 007 book to read!
Rating: 
Summary: Well... it's a novel...of the film
Review: Based on the new James Bond film, Raymond Benson takes up on Bond once again. This time, the story really stays pretty straight with the movie, only providing a bit more than the film. It contains some background information of Elektra/Renard, and what happens in the past, etc., but it isn't too much. Unlike Tomorrow Never Dies:A Novel, TWINE is not adding much to the film. Basically, if you saw the film and you are a little wishy-washy on reading a Bond book or having to read the what you saw on film, you probably don't need to buy this. However, if you're an avid Bond fan or would still want to take up on a Bond book, it's still a good read. If you see the movie first, it becomes easier to imagine the scenes. Raymond Benson has written better Bond novels than this, however, so make your choice more warily.
Rating:
Summary: A good novelisation
Review: Being a Bond fan since I was a kid, I naturally can find little fault with Mr. Benson's novelisation of the screenplay. At least he attempts to flesh out the characters more than John Gardner ever did. Ian Fleming always made that extra effort in presenting the villain as a real person with a proper background, and Mr. Benson has retained that tradition. Though he has copied the dialogue faithfully from the screenplay, I can't help wondering how more excellent this book would have been had he created the situations and characters from scratch.
Rating:
Summary: There's Still Nobody Who Does It Better...
Review: Bond has always been unique in that the cinematic 007 adventures are usually even bigger and more wonderfully improbable than their literary counterparts. Unlike most fiction, in which filmmakers are bound by special effects constraints while authors are free to stretch reality as far as they like, the Bond films have always been bigger and rather less believable than the stories. Not less fun; just less likely. If there is any problem with Benson's adaptations, it's that some of the elaborate stunts and convenient coincidences that look so good on-screen seem rather far-fetched and contrived in print, without the flashy visuals to sell the scene to the "viewer". Still, TWINE is an exciting, taut thriller that I was unable to put down. Benson again proves that he was an excellent choice to keep the literary Bond alive. TWINE is top-notch Bond!
Rating: 
Summary: Begins With a Bang, Ends With a Whimper
Review: First of all, let us be clear on what this is: it is merely a prose adaption to the Purvis and Wade screenplay. However, this does not excuse Mr. Benson's bland, cliche-riddled style, nor does it excuse the utter lack of energy which permeates the work about a third of the way through.Mr. Benson has written three previous Bond novels of his own design: ZERO MINUS TEN, THE FACTS OF DEATH, HIGH TIME TO KILL. And, while none of them tops Fleming at his best (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) or Deighton at his worst (CATCH A FALLING SPY, THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN), they nonetheless manage to be breezy, entertaining espionage fantasies, as much fun as nineties pulp fiction can be. Unfortunately, when he writes novelizations, Mr. Benson seems to lose that sense of fun. Action pieces that should be energetic and high powered become flat and labored, romance becomes silly, and locations lose their exotic flavor. The only time the TWINE novelization comes to life is in the opening sequence, in which Bond escapes from a sniper attack in Bilbao and chases a female bomber along the Thames. The setup, too, is intriguing, especially the briefing that occurs in Thane Castle (complete with holographic displays). From there, the book quickly runs out of gas. The imagination that went into the first act suddenly disappears, turning the entire effort into a Defuse the Bomb scenario. The Q scene is ludicrous. The locations are threadbare and lack the gloss of previous outings. The villain's plot to irradiate the oil fields of the Caspian Sea meets with little more than a shrug. (Does it really matter who's controlling the world's oil supply?) And the less said of Dr. Christmas Jones, the better. I can only partly blame Mr. Benson. True, his handling of the action is flat, but he does succeed in breathing life into the characters, rounding the villains into beings less two-dimensional. The rest of the blame must fall on Purvis and Wade, who allow the entire thing to become routine at the end of the first act. With any luck, it will play better on the screen.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOND NOVEL SINCE GOLDENEYE!
Review: Firts thing's first, the book was fantastic! Non-stop action! Well, it jumped from the least to the highest! Bond keeps it up, as well Raymond describing the characters. All of the scenes the characters including James Bond, Miss Moneypenny, M the new R, and Dr. Christmas Jones. I dont't know what you freaking guys are talking about! Looks like Action Is Not Enough for you guys!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Read This Book
Review: Hey guys, go see the movie because the book follows the script of the movie word for word. You'd be better off seeing the movie. It would be cheaper than buying the book. The only thing that this book has to offer is a little better understanding of the characters and the plot twists. The movie was really great, but when you read it, it's EXTREMELY STUPID.
Rating:
Summary: Cooooool
Review: I am not done reading it yet, but it seems to be very detailed in what goes on in the movie. I hope the movie is as good as the book is.
Rating:
Summary: Let's all hope the movie is this terrific!
Review: I am on record as trashing High Time to Kill (see reviews for that book) along with vowing to wait for the Benson novels in paperback (if not used papaerback). Well, I bought this paperback new and would have paid for a hard cover of this story's quality. Benson is terrific on this novelization. I'm sure there is a lot of extra info that will clarify parts of the movie when I see it. The rumored "airhead" personality of Christmas Jones does not come through in the book and I was afraid that the return to "sexpot" Bond girls would send the modernized Bond into a tailspin. One especially bright point is the meatier role for M. I think Benson likes writing her and it shows. For fans who haven't followed every plot point posted on the web, I'm sure there will be more than a few surprises. The plot-Bond is assigned to bodyguard Elektra King, the daughter of a recently-assassinated oil magnate. Elektra has already been the target of kidnappers led by the villainous Renard, a terrorist who has no pain center. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a "painless" killer was written into the Tomorrow Never Dies plot, but was scrapped after the novelizatioon had already been written) Great gadgets, great plot, great girls,a surprise development with M, and an atomic bomb stolen from a foremer Soviet Republic make for an exciting and riveting thriller.
Rating: 
Summary: More Junk Bond from Raymond Benson
Review: I approached this novelization of a Bond film from a "literary" standpoint: I haven't yet seen the new film "The World Is Not Enough", so I read the novel as a novel, without any visual references--memories--of the film. Unfortunately, the non-novelist Raymond Benson offers us another bland effort. This alleged novel self-destructs in many ways. Foremost is the novel's lack of suspense: the narrative stays on one level; and Benson's description of action scenes are awkward. (He still can't describe a series of quick moments and therefore resorts to boring explanations: "It all happened in six seconds" (11), he tells us in the fight scene in Lachaise's office.) Added to this mess is Benson's tone of voice. We sense, as we do in his previous 007 efforts, that he's nervous about writing a Bond novel. As a result, he lacks the confident, booming authorial voice of a seasoned novelist. Oh, he does try to convince us that he knows what he's doing: he struggles to add background material to some characters, but he pours the information all at once. Take, for instance, the villain Renard: the background of the character appears late in the novel, taking up almost an entire chapter and, consequently, disrupts the main narrative. To make matters worse, we learn nothing new about our man Bond. He's so bland that he is nothing more than nine letters on a page that comprise the name "James Bond." And let us not forget the laughable travelogue narrative. Benson's description of cities and places is more suitable for an elementary school geography book, not a spy thriller. Indeed, his description of the Bosphorous is geared for six-year-olds: "The Bosphorous has always been a strategic focal point in the magnificent city of Istanbul, the link between the two continents. The western shore lies in Europe, while the eastern one is in Asia" (167). Geez, how fortunate we are to have Benson remind us that Europe is the West and Asia is the East! But perhaps the narrative reaches its lowest point during the love scenes. Whereas Ian Fleming, Kingsly Amis, and John Gardner present romantic scenes that were, yes, risque but with touches of mystic, Benson takes the extra step to become blatantly risque. The love scene of Bond and Electra is low-class junk... To which we say: Pass the Tylenol. All in all, this novel is a waste of brain cells. It's best to just watch the movie. Ah, better still, my fellow Bond fans, let us return to Ian Fleming's orignal novels for good James Bond stories.
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