Moonraker

n  “These secret service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”n

After a couple of interesting but uneven entries, the James Bond series kicks it up a notch with the third book: Gambling! Methamphetamines! Intrigue! Sinister henchmen! Beautiful operatives! Megalomaniacal Bad Guy! Mustaches! World Politics! Car Chases! Remote Lairs! Rockets! Explosions! Submarines! And a race against time to save the world (or jolly ol' England anyway)! The plot won't contain many surprises for suspense/mystery readers but it's a blast just as well, and parts of the story don't turn out the way fans of the film series might expect. In fact, the Moonraker movie shared very few plot elements - almost none, in fact - with this book which was originally published in the wee hours of the Space Race, about two years before Sputnik fired the starting gun. And if you were wondering what M's name is...

n  "I thought M was a randomly assigned letter; I had no idea it stood for..."
Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006)n

This was an entertaining Bond novel that feels somewhat near-sighted compared to the other ones I have read. It takes place exclusively in Britain, so the European continental (and international) milieu of most of the other Bond novels was lacking. The plot was somewhat slowly paced. You don't understand the nature of the conspiracy that Bond is arrayed against until about two thirds of the way through, so the majority of the nov is more atmospheric, abstractly tense, and less plot driven. Gala Brand is interesting but doesn't stand out as a Bond love interest. The villain, however--Sir Hugo Drax, the multi-millionaire rocket engineer--is interesting and fun to hate. Some of the more memorable passages are when Bond is playing bridge in the opening scenes and when the Moonraker rocket finally lifts off. Fleming's writing style becomes innovative and stylistically intriguing during these scenes. I haven't seen the 1979 film adaptation but I'm told the novel is much more serious.

Moonraker was the fourth of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, appearing in 1955. By that time Fleming had the formula well and truly nailed and the result is wonderful entertainment.

A mysterious businessman has announced plans to build a missile that will ensure Britain’s defences. He is prepared to finance the project himself as a kind of gift to the nation. The rocker, known as the Moonraker, will be able to reach any city in Europe (which in 1955 made it a super-weapon).

Sir Hugo Drax is very mysterious indeed. In fact no-one is absolutely certain of his identity. During the German breakthrough in the Ardennes in 1944 a British headquarters was destroyed, and a badly burned man was found among the wreckage claiming to have total amnesia. He was tentatively identified as a former dockworker from Liverpool. After the war this man made a fortune speculating on precious metals and by the early 50s he had been knighted and with the announcement of his Moonraker project had become a sort of national hero.

Sir Hugo Drax just happens to belong to the same club as M, the head of the British Secret Service, and M had noticed something peculiar and disturbing- Sir Hugo cheats at cards. It’s peculiar because he is so wealthy he has no need to do something so petty, and it’s disturbing because in 1955 being exposed a card cheat could still mean social ruin. So it has the potential to become a matter of national security and M asks James Bond as a personal favour to find out how he does it and find a way to cure him of this unfortunate habit before a scandal erupts.

This sets up the obligatory gambling scene without which no Bond novel would be complete. Fleming was fascinated by the dangerous glamour of high-stakes gambling and always liked to find a way not only to include such a scene but also to make it integral to the plot.

The very next day a double murder takes place at the headquarters of the Moonraker project and Bond finds himself working undercover as Drax’s chief of security. Naturally there’s a beautiful woman involved, in this case a policewoman from Special Branch also working undercover in Drax’s operation. Her name is Gala Brand. At this stage of course it is still assumed that Drax is a patriotic hero and that some outside group is trying to sabotage the Moonraker. Bond will soon discover there’s more to Sir Hugo Drax than meets the eye.

Fleming’s success with the Bond novels was based on making use the traditional ingredients of the spy thriller but adding extra sex and violence and most importantly, adding extra glamour. He more or less created the stereotypical secret agent as handsome, charming, sophisticated, witty, cultured and as an all-round bon vivant. Fleming loved to drop the names, not of famous people, but of famous and luxurious products. The pages of the Bond novels are littered with references to luxury products. He was sometimes mocked for this but on the whole it was a very effective technique. Spy thrillers are after all escapist fantasies so you might as well make the fantasy as exciting as possible.

Bond also differed from earlier heroes of this type such as Richard Hannay and Bulldog Drummond in being sexually amoral. Bond is as patriotic and as courageous as Hannay and Drummond but you can’t imagine those earlier spy heroes indulging in the sexual adventures that Bond gets up to.

Fleming’s Moonraker bears little resemblance to the outrageous 1979 Bond movie of the same name. By 1979 technology had moved on and the Moonraker rocket of the novel would have seemed very dated.

The novel is immense fun and if you’ve never sampled the delights of Fleming’s spy fiction it’s as good a place to start as anywhere since there’s no particular need to read the novels in sequence. Highly recommended.

England probably suffered as much from the Second World War as any of the defeated Axis powers, what with rationing continuing until 1954, two years after Ian Fleming began the James Bond series, and the year before Moonraker was published.

Just imagine the English taking in the scene of the duel at Blades between Fleming super-villain Sir Hugo Drax and one "Commander Bond." The gambling club is flowing with rare French champagnes and Beluga caviar. The betting involves thousands of pounds sterling. This to me is the five-star part of the book.

Unfortunately, the ending involves the typical derring-do, as well as the chase of a Scotland Yard policewoman by the name of Gala Brand. Even worse, the villain commits the unpardonable faux pas of explaining his foul deeds ... and then walking away leaving James and Gala simply tied up. This simply won't do!

Fleming's popularity in the U.S. was to come later, with the popularity of such Hollywood productions as Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger. Add to that it was splendid as Cold War entertainment.

But really, why would the Russians ally themselves with Nazis after what the latter did to their country and people in the Great Patriotic War?

The book is always better than the movie right? It's definitely the case with this installment of the Bond series.

The film was rushed into production after the success of Star Wars, they were jumping on the bandwagon with jetting Bond into space.

The book is completely different, set in England - Moonraker is actually a nuclear war head.

The story is split into 3 sections, Bond is asked to investigate millionaire Sir Hugo Drax as it appears that he's cheating at cards.
The story then moves into a mystery during the second section and finishes with a compelling action set piece.

This is my favorite of the series sofar, Fleming continues to craft Bonds characteristics perfectly. The story is fast paced, the movie is one of my least favorites in the series so went into it with trepidation. I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed this one!

This is the best Bond book I've read so far, with the sequence at the game of bridge particularly exciting (and how often do you get to write that?)

Totally different to the movie (thank God!) and the character of Bond is much more rooted in the real world, and the 1950s, than any representation in the films.

So far in this series the stories have almost seemed a little far-fetched, they have a sense of make believe. However, Moonraker seems to encapsulate the worries in the minds of those living through the Cold War. After so recently experiencing WWII. With this realism in mind, I imagine the ending helped to give fresh hope to the public.
I really liked that M was explored more deeply in this novel. We saw a side of this mysterious character that has not been seen before.
This isn’t my favourite James Bond book so far, but it’s certainly a great read that filled me with tension.

So far, this is my favorite of the Bond books so far.