Zero Minus Ten (James Bond 007)

An excellent plotted Bond spy thriller set against the handover from British sovereignty to China.Filled with the fear, leading up to the exchange with political tensions and threats of invasion, troops massing on the border. Battleship deployment and fractious diplomacy.Against these international moves, smaller players are at work complicating the peaceful transition with personal greed, criminal Triads and a rogue Chinese general seeking to fill the vacuum with their influence and corrupt trade.Business figures and generational legacy also play their part as the changing face of an independent Hong Kong is less than clear and with an uncertain future.The let down for me is that the author in progressing the legend of 007 often writes as a fan and not in the echo of Fleming. This produces and imbalance of filler and padding linking it to the cannon of original books. Also seen with the over doing of name dropping and the wider franchise into film and merchandise.The master criminal is undone by not following his own advice and allowing his actions to mirror and bring failure to all his plans by not eliminating Bond at his first opportunity. To possess this knowledge and quantify it like he’s read Dr No is strangely annoying. Better his sense of invincibility to drive him forward and say nothing. At least he thought rather than says “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die.”

Very enjoyable ... reminded me of the early Ian Fleming books. Hope there is more to come!!

As Raymond Benson's first foray as a Bond novelist, 'Zero Minus Ten' uses the backdrop of the UK losing Hong Kong to China.It's an interesting premise and rich for the world of Bond. Great villains, good plotting but the prose does lean towards explicitly involved explanations of Hong Kong and Eastern politics/history as well as convoluted descriptions of how to play 'mahjong'. Sadly, these completely take the reader out of the story and unfortunately Benson didn't have the panache that Fleming demonstrated when explaining baccarat etc. Action sequences are also a little bland and there's no relish in the use of language. Fleming's work has no fear of being overshadowed. For a great example of how to write a Bond continuation novel one can't do any worse than diving into Anthony Horowitz's 'Forever And A Day'.Otherwise, 'Zero Minus Ten' is a so-so Bond tale. I've long owned the omnibus versions of Benson's canon but only started reading them now I have completed my collection with the single editions. Looking forward to reading the rest of his Bond work to see if he improved.Great delivery and service from the seller, by the way. Have used them before and will do so again!

This is a wonderful Bond book harking back to the Fleming originals. Not too many gadgets and nothing that stretches believably along with well researched history, top class.

I've always been a James Bond nut and Fleming's original novels are the books I've read multiple times.I do read some books over and over but Fleming certainly more than most. I liked John Gardner's run of James Bond novels but when Raymond Benson took over I had stopped reading Bond, so I was keen to discover these books years later. Benson's Bond is as good as Gardner's Bond, though perhaps not quite as richly drawn.The story though, set around the British hand over of Hong Kong is pure Bond and I really enjoyed the book.

This is the first time I have read a Bond book by Raymond Benson. My initial reservation was the same as for the Gardner books. It is absurdly unrealistic to imagine that a spy from the 1950s can remain active, and in full physicial condition, in the 1990s. There is a concession to time with a female M, but this is just to follow the films. Bond showed respect to the original M, even when he didn't agree. Here he openly defies instructions. The story begins very slowly until after the obligatory casino scene, nice touch to play Mahjong though. Then it picks up. The scenes with the Triads and in China are brilliantly described and hard to put down. The only problem is an obvious twist and it's hard to see how Bond was fooled.

This won't be long but do ever feel half way through where is this going?Well I finished 5minutes ago and it didn't improve a whole lot,except for the twist near the end,but still I carried on

I think it's hard to keep in line with Ian Flaming's Bond, but I this authors done a great job