Another really fun read! At this rate I might have to collect all the 007 books! There’ll be a couple spoilers but the book is 70 years old and the movie 50, so ya know,

Fleming published Moonraker, the third James Bond book, in 1955. Like the other 007 books, Bond is portrayed as a very competitive, resourceful, adventurous, dedicated, and violent British secret agent. Of course his love of fine cars (especially his Bentley) and beautiful women (in this case an undercover agent for Scotland Yard with whom he shares several life-threatening and a few sensuous hours). The book begins not with an official case, but with M asking Bond for a personal favor. He asked him to determine if a wealthy industrialist, Hugo Drax, was cheating at bridge in the renowned gentleman's club to which M belonged. Of course Bond accepts the challenge and uses his own considerably unsavory card skills, reminiscent of Casino Royale, to determine that Drax was definitely cheating and to take a large sum of money from Drax. In addition to cheating at cards, Drax was an extremely wealthy and internationally know industrialist who was helping the British government develop Moonraker, a missile that would almost guarantee the security of the nation. When the government security officer at the missile site is murdered, M surprisingly assigns Bond to the case. Normally, Secret Service agents work only outside the United Kingdom, but this assignment unfolds completely within England a few hours drive from London. Drax turns out to be a German spy who plans to used Moonraker to attack London. The technology described in this book was certainly not comparable to today's systems. It also does not equal the sophistication of the technology depicted in the 1979 Moonraker movie, which had a much different plot and included outer space. However, I found the technology to be satisfying. Overall, I found this Flemming tale to be exciting, suspenseful and very entertaining. It even showed Bond to be somewhat emotionally vulnerable at times especially in his relationship with his beautiful undercover colleague.

The James Bond novels haven’t aged particularly well. There still a lot of mid-century sexism. But this one avoids most of the problematic parts. Bond is actually a decent chap to the love interest. But what can you do with lines like “the impudent pride of the jutting breasts, swept up by the thrown-back head and shoulders.”

The plot is pretty good and makes sense. The villain is appropriately loathsome.

The first part of the book takes place during a high-stakes bridge game. It’s about as exciting as you might expect.

I really enjoyed this one. Surprisingly light on the misogyny for a Bond novel. Story was entertaining, and had me a bit befuddled until the big reveal. The movie was certainly a massive departure from the source material, which I can’t really understand, as the story stood perfectly well on its own, without the space station, eugenics, and all that nonsense.

Fleming is at his best dealing with relatively mundane topics, such as card games, because these are the moments when Fleming tries to demonstrate originality in his plot. Even his most diabolical villains feel predictable, especially in Moonraker.

Readers that pay attention to early motifs can take the liberty of skimming the last 100 pages of a Moonraker (and probably most of Fleming's other novels as well).

Let's break it down:

-A car is mentioned? A car chase will follow.
-A woman is mentioned? A seduction will be attempted.
-A fighting move is mentioned? It will return.
-A villainous sidekick is mentioned? He will torture Bond after he is captured (probably during the car chase).
-A woman's breasts are mentioned? They will eventually speak to Bond "as if to declare..."

On the whole, Fleming's best moments are precursors to thrillers and his weakest moments feel like boyish adventure novels.

A good, straight forward Bond book. High stakes card games, fast cars, danger and Bonds well known charm. What more can you want?
Well, something a little more complex and plot twists that you don’t see coming would be nice, but you can have everything can you?

The book is better than the movie by a long shot. Bond effectively gets borrowed by Scotland Yard and all the action is in England. The book features high stakes cards with Bond and M playing bridge against Hugo Drax and another player. Does Drax cheat? What is going on with Drax's Moonraker rocket?

Enjoyable story, much more realistic than the films. Bond succeeds in preventing nuclear armageddon both is injured. His hopes for a long term relationship with Gala brand are dashed when she turns up to meet him with her fiancee in tow.

An excellent Ian Fleming. I am rereading the entire series and, so far, I like this one the best. And make no mistake, reading Ian Fleming is much different than watching the movie version of James Bond.

Fleming may have felt himself slipping into formula and therefore tries to mix things up a bit in Bond's third outing. The main thing that differentiates this book from the others in the series is that Bond never leaves England, and is instead assigned to investigate mysterious goings-on around Hugo Drax's "Moonraker" rocket that is scheduled to launch mere days after the novel begins... and shortly after Bond humiliates Drax in a high-stakes Bridge game.

It is a testament to Fleming's strength as a writer that he is able to make Bond's bridge game with Drax so damn exciting, and its denouement so satisfying. It's to the novels' weakness that the rest of it almost doesn't live up to the quality of that initial confrontation. The middle of the novel drags, simply because Bond has to go through the slow, painful process of investigation to figure out that Drax is an evil mastermind when to us readers, knowing what to expect from a Bond novel, it's obvious from the get-go. However, Fleming pulls it together in the end with a truly thrilling conclusion.

Another plus for Moonraker is the book's "Bond Girl," Gala Brand, who I believe is the best in the series so far. She upends the expectations of the role in a way that, unlike Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, serves to strengthen the character instead of weaken her.

A mixed bag, this book. Fleming’s third Bond novel recycles a number of plot elements from CASINO ROYALE in more or less the same order. The McGuffin is different, of course, and that keeps certain scenes fresh. Fleming seems addicted to torture. There is scene after scene of Bond bleeding and dripping blood on the floor, but somehow, when the rest of us would be dead, he soldiers on. Couldn’t he duck under a desk and be OK just once? Not with Mr. Fleming as the author.

Critics of the series complain that Bond is a super hero, not a real man. This soldiering on when it would be impossible to do so contributes to this feeling, but I think the charge is partially misplaced. The antagonist is really a super villain and his plot quite impossible. Bond, I think, is tarnished by this more than his alleged super heroic traits, his near invulnerability aside. Those who make this charge often compare Bond to the more realistic spies of John le Carrie and Len Dighton. This is unfair, for Bond’s antecedents helped shaped him. Readers should understand Bond in light of John Buchan, Eric Ambler, and especially John Creasey’s Department Z novels. The Bond of MOONRAKER is very much a hero in their mold.

There is some dull writing, though the interminable Bridge game may fascinate those who play it, I wouldn’t know, and even the first half of the last chapter is a bore, but in my mind this is the book where Fleming proved he could write. The passages of terrible writing in CASINO ROYALE and LIVE AND LET DIE now have a style that is recognizably by the same man but after he improved as a stylist. There is pleasure to be had in meeting this emerging writer after suffering through two books that were a good deal worse.

* The third Bond book.

* And far and away the best of the three. Tense, exciting; cards and spycraft. Always hard to believe when such an excellent book is turned into such a dismal movie.

* Hugo Drax is the most fully realized villain, and the most frightening. Le Chiffre was a bit pedestrian, Mr. Big little more than a criminal; Drax is highly neurotic, yet a patriot, motivated by vengeance and national pride. He comes off as Bond's first truly worthy foe.

* Fleming devotes the first third to a card game in which Bond must cheat a cheater, and during which the author deftly lays his foundation for the real battle to come. The game itself is even better than the one in Casino Royale, and infinitely more personal.

* Interestingly, Bond has yet to kill his nemesis face to face. In fact, only once can he be said to kill him at all. I wonder how that compares to other similar novels both modern and contemporary.

* And as for "getting the girl," well, he hasn't had a lot of luck there, either. One commits suicide and another one runs off to get married to someone else.

* These aren't formula books, which must be one reason they continue to be so popular.



* The eleventh Bond movie (Roger Moore).

* No relation to the book, other than the presence of a secret agent named Bond and a character named Drax.

* Everybody's least favorite Bond movie, right? An opinion I shared at the time and for years afterward (as you can see from my comments above). Seeing it again, though, I had the same reaction I have to most Bond films: it has good moments and stupid moments, and (because the whole series takes place on some other-Earth where someone always possesses technology far in advance of our own) not even the battle in space fazed me. Hope, as they say, springs eternal, and I always have to fight with my brain at the beginning of a Bond movie, but, when I'm lucky, after a half hour or so, my brain shuts down and I just sit back and watch all the pretty colors. I was lucky this time, so I rather enjoyed it.

* I have this image of the screenwriters slapping themselves on the back and high-fiving each other when they somehow manage to work in a scene from the book. They got one in this time: when Bond and "a girl" are trapped under the shuttle just before take off. At least Drax actually admits that his attempts to kill Bond (he, like most Bond villains, is obviously a fan of the Batman TV series) have more to do with amusement than functional execution.