I love this series!!!
Gets better and better...

It's my third James Bond novel.
And also, by the way a huge success at publication.

After having watched the film, let me say to you that the book is the real dope and not the movie!!!
No spoiler intended, so read it yourself...

But this one thing I want to say, Bond fighting a Nazi conspiracy is an instant classic!!!

In reading Ian Fleming's books in order, I have noticed his writing getting progressively better. Although this book lacked the action that the other heretofore have had, it, nevertheless, was notably better written. This struck me early on in the book with more characterization of Bond. I am compelled to read more to see if he meet my expectations in the next book of improving further in his writing.

The Moonraker Rocket Programme was the highlight of this novel for me. I wanted more about that, although it may have bored other readers.

A high-stakes game of bridge that shows the funding head of the project, Sir Hugo Drax, cheating leading Bond to get mad at himself for respecting Drax in the first place. So now, he has to find a way to take him down. He probably would have gotten away with everything if he had never cheated.

James Bond seems to somehow grow a tiny bit of a conscious about women in this one. He is still so full of himself that he doesn't even realize what a joke he is. The chauvinism is more immense than usual. his internal thoughts are like a lewd uncle lusting for his niece.

He finally finds a woman to care about in this one, like really this time, guys! So we all know how this will end...

As with most of the Bond novels so far and much of the literature of the time period, there is a lot more "telling" than "showing" the reader what goes on.

I wonder if the next novel will have us open to a depressed Bond trying to fill his feelings with new holes...

3 Stars for me.

Very entertaining. This is the first Bond book that I have ever read, but I instantly felt that it was better than any of the movies. I picked this one because I had never seen the Moonraker movie. I will watch it soon so that I can compare the two.

Update: So I watched the movie last night. It was terrible. It would have been terrible even if I never read the book, but it was even worse when compared to the actual story. The only similarity was both had a guy named James Bond. That's about it. I will definitely read more Bond books, and I will definitely not watch more Bond movies.

Fantastic! I'm so surprised at how much I'm enjoying the James Bond novels.

I don't know why I'd previously assumed that they wouldn't be well-crafted. I've rarely been made to feel so much suspense, to feel so tense and involved in action sequences as in the car chase, the clifftop tragedy, and - wow! - that climax of the rocket launch in 'Moonraker'!

In essence, Fleming's writing is fundamentally modern, and I find myself repeatedly marvel-struck at the delicacy and refinement of his style. Consider the opening of Chapter 16: 'A Golden Day', which is like a lovesong to the English coast of Kent, and shows Fleming's appetite for precision and accuracy in his phrasing, structuring, and image building, as well as a real attraction to language:

'It was a wonderful afternoon of blue and green and gold. When they left the concrete apron through the guard gate near the empty firing point, now connected with a thick cable to the launching site, they stopped for a moment on the edge of the great chalk cliff and stood gazing over the whole corner of England where Caesar had first landed two thousand years before. To their left, the carpet of green turf, bright with small wildflowers, sloped gradually down to the long pebbled beaches of Walmer and Deal, which curved off towards Sandwich and the Bay. Beyond, the cliffs of Ramsgate showing white through the distant haze that hid the North Foreland, guarded the grey scar of Manston aerodrome, above which American thunderjets wrote their white scribbles in the sky. Then came the Isle of Thanet and, out of sight, the mouth of the Thames. It was low tide and the Goodwins were golden and tender in the sparkling blue of the Straits with only the smattering of masts and spars that stretched along their length to tell the true story. The white lettering on the South Goodwins Lightship was easy to read and even the name of her sister ship to the north showed white against the red of her hull. Between the Sands and the coast, along the twelve-fathom channel of the Inner Leads, there were half a dozen ships beating up through the Downs, the thud of their engines coming clearly off the quiet sea, and between the evil sands and the sharp outline of the French coast, there were ships of all registries going about their business: liners, merchantmen, ungainly Dutch skoits, and even a slim Corvette hastening down south, perhaps to Portsmouth. [...] It was a panorama full of colour and excitement and romance, and the two people on the edge of the cliff were silent as they stood for a time and watched it all.'

As with the other Ian Fleming novel I've so far read ('Casino Royale'), I'm pleased to see that it's really not from Fleming's presentation of women whence the sexism in the James Bond franchise arises. Galatea Brand in 'Moonraker' is as carefully drawn as Vesper Lynd in 'Casino Royale'. Gala says that she loves the rocket Moonraker as much as Drax; in my view, Fleming attempts to portray her as just as dedicated and driven as the male characters. In fact, the archetype whose role Gala Brand seems to fulfil in the plot, unusually, is the figure of mentor. She is the character from whom the hero protagonist gains the skills and tools that they need in order to complete the quest, at the centre of the plot. Gala is, as such, the wisdom keeper in 'Moonraker'.
Actually, I suspect that even our hero, if truth be told, recognises Gala as his mentor. She is the only one whilst on-mission to whom Bond discloses his suspicions and to whom he imparts his findings. And thus, Gala is often the figure who unlocks knowledge for Bond. Observe that it is Gala who confiscates the notebook from Drax's pocket, it is Gala who gets hold of the crucial figures, and it is Gala alone who, in fact, solves the entire mystery and comprehends the truth of Drax's evil scheme! Furthermore, it is Gala's superior 'head for numbers' that devises the eventual plan to foil Drax and save London from nuclear devastation. James Bond could accomplish nothing in 'Moonraker' without Gala Brand empowering and equipping him.

I am mindful that Fleming offers us the narrative through Bond's eyes. The following quote illustrates the complexity where the author's gaze and the hero's gaze vie for assessment of Gala's character:

'She said something to Walter and then stood beside him looking upwards as the pipe was delicately manhandled through into the interior of the rocket. Bond thought she looked very innocent standing there with her brown hair falling back from her head and the curve of her ivory throat sweeping down into the plain white shirt. With her hands clasped behind her back, gazing raptly upwards at the glittering fifty feet of the Moonraker, she might have been a schoolgirl looking up at a Christmas tree-except for the impudent pride of the jutting breasts, swept up by the thrown-back head and shoulders. Bond smiled to himself as he walked to the foot of the iron stairway and started to climb. That innocent, desirable girl, he reminded himself, is an extremely efficient policewoman. She knows how to kick, and where; she can break my arm probably more easily and quickly than I can break hers, and at least half of her belongs to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. Of course, he reflected, looking down just in time to see her follow Dr Walters into Drax’s office, there is always the other half.'

One personation of Gala Brand (either Bond's or the author's) often silences the other, as in the above, but it's fascinating to witness the interplay between the two. We can see that Bond's view of Gala differs from Fleming's characterisation of her by the fact that it is only ever Bond who refers to her as 'the Girl', and yet, she foils even Bond in the end: she gives him her wisdom, but not her body. Fleming holds back on Gala's biggest secret, in order to gather the clout for that final revelation of her unattainability. Fleming forbids Bond possess Brand, and so, the hero's innate desire to subjugate his female counterparts in the Intelligence/spy game (Moneypenny, Ponsonby, Goodnight, Lynd, Brand) comes to naught, and we see Fleming frustrate and undermine his protagonist in terms of his most rudimentary drive.

I know this is only an assessment of a very small slice of the novel, rather than a full review, really, but I'm interested to see where this particular train of thought leads me as I listen through other novels in the series.

Being a Gen-Y’er – the first Bond film I watched was Goldeneye, and even that for me was difficult given I was still in single digits. So it was with great shame, that I reveal, this, Moonraker, was my first Bond novel. So I’ve had to trawl through several reviews (good and bad) in order to gain more insight into the background, but upon completing it, while the dialogue did drag on at times, you can’t argue that Fleming’s prose is fantastic. He employs some really thorough techniques, especially when describing location and the emotions of his characters. It’s rare you find an author that can paint such a vivid picture of characters with less dialogue. This needs to be appreciated.
I’m hoping with future Bond novels which I’ll get around to reading, that the action does pick up, because Moonraker, seriously lacks in adventure. Other than the card game and car chase, the excitement of an espionage novel is non-existent. In saying that, Drax’s monologue at the end where he describes his hatred for all things British, is brilliantly written.
Good, but not great, especially given the plaudits Fleming’s received for his work.

THE‌ ‌GREAT‌ ‌COMPLETIST‌ ‌CHALLENGE:‌ ‌In‌ ‌which‌ ‌I‌ ‌revisit‌ ‌older‌ ‌authors‌ ‌and‌ ‌attempt‌ ‌to‌ ‌read‌ every‌ ‌book‌ ‌they‌ ‌ever‌ ‌wrote‌

Currently‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌challenge:‌ ‌Margaret‌ Atwood‌ |‌ ‌JG‌ ‌Ballard‌ |‌ Clive‌ ‌Barker‌ |‌ Christopher‌ Buckley‌ |‌ ‌Jim Butcher's Dresden Files | ‌Lee Child's Jack Reacher | ‌Philip‌ ‌K‌ ‌Dick‌ |‌ ‌Ian Fleming | CS Forester's Horatio Hornblower | William‌ ‌Gibson‌ |‌ ‌Michel‌ Houellebecq‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Irving‌ |‌ ‌Kazuo‌ ‌Ishiguro‌ |‌ Shirley‌ Jackson‌ | ‌John‌ ‌Le‌ ‌Carre‌ |‌ Bernard‌ ‌Malamud‌ |‌ Cormac McCarthy | China‌ ‌Mieville‌ |‌ Toni Morrison | ‌VS‌ Naipaul‌ |‌ Chuck‌ ‌Palahniuk‌ |‌ ‌Tim‌ ‌Powers‌ |‌ ‌Terry‌ ‌Pratchett's‌ ‌Discworld‌ |‌ Philip‌ ‌Roth‌ |‌ Neal‌ Stephenson‌ |‌ ‌Jim‌ ‌Thompson‌ |‌ John‌ ‌Updike‌ |‌ Kurt‌ ‌Vonnegut‌ |‌ Jeanette Winterson | PG‌ ‌Wodehouse‌ ‌

Finished: ‌Isaac‌ ‌Asimov's‌ ‌"Future History" (Robot/Empire/Foundation‌)

2023 reads, #67. It's summer, which means among other things that it's time again for another of Ian Fleming's 14 original James Bond novels, which I'm reading in chronological order by publishing date. Regular readers will remember that I added Fleming to my Great Completist Challenge in order to "reclaim" these stories from my 1970s-'80s Generation X childhood, when the only Bond I knew was the silly, hammy, over-the-top Roger Moore Bond of such terribly rotoscoped, cheap-feeling, laurels-skating nonsense as The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only. My Baby Boomer father and many other men of his generation loved these stories sincerely, and I thought it'd be a nice reading project to go back and discover why these Mid-Century Modernist males went so nuts for the franchise, before the whole thing became a self-parodying cultural cartoon all about cars and gadgets and Playboy Playmates and Playboy Playmate boobs (speaking of Baby Boomer legacies).

I've been so far really satisfied by the results of the first two novels, 1953's Casino Royale (my review) and the next year's Live and Let Die (my review), because they indeed show a leaner and meaner Bond who's actually supposed to exist in the real world, stripped of all the movie regalia and heavy mythos of things like the Q department and the million-dollar sci-fi toys (about the most exotic tool Bond uses in these first stories is simply scuba gear), as well as his suave, womanizing nature. (In the early books, Bond is actually supposed to be kind of a cruel sociopath who no one gets along with, with Fleming intimating that the reason a guy like Bond is made an 00 Secret Service field agent in the first place is because no one else at the agency really wants him around the central office, and that he's so unpleasant that no one would really miss him if he died.) And indeed, this third book of the series, written one year after the last one (an annual schedule Fleming would keep up until his death in 1964), keeps up with the movie mythos deconstructivist demolishing, revealing among other things that Bond's boss is known as M. not as a code word applied to all past and future holders of the office as well, but literally because his first name is "Miles;" and that as of 1955, only three 00 agents are actually still in active service, their numbers surprisingly being 007, 008 and 0011, implying that these numbers are permanently retired after an agent leaves the service.

Unlike the first two, though, here the actual story being told just falls flat on its face, in such a surprisingly clunky and terrible way that I'm kind of surprised the franchise even survived a title such as this one. Based on the limited research I've done into the subject at Wikipedia and Goodreads, it's my understanding that Fleming was already thinking about the movie version of Bond even here in the early 1950s, after receiving early interest from producer Alexander Korda; and that the plot of this book had actually started life as Fleming's own attempt at writing a James Bond film, but after realizing that in prose form it would only make up about two-thirds of a small novel, he had tacked on the current first third that infamously feels exactly like a separate story tacked on to the main one just to pad the page count. Namely, just like Casino Royale, Bond spends a hundred pages meeting and getting to know the main villain through a convoluted evening of high-class, high-stakes card gambling, and only about a third of the way in learns that said villain, one Hugo Drax, is actually planning something evil, kicking off the main "Bond-style" story of this book. (And indeed, Fleming basically admitted in later interviews that the entire reason he started writing novels was actually more an attempt to write about card games, with it occurring to him that it'd be randomly interesting to make a secret agent the card player in question; Fleming was obsessed with the subject himself, helpfully explaining in Moonraker's fictional first third that even in real life, gambling in the UK was illegal at the time, but could be gotten away with at the super-rich blue-blood gentlemen's clubs of London, because these clubs were made up of all the rich white dudes who created and enforced the gambling laws in the first place.)

That makes this a bizarre, disjointed mess of a story, with a prologue that's an entire third of the book, a proper first act that doesn't even begin until the 33% mark, and a climax that just flies by at the very end in the blink of an eye. This is then further marred by Fleming's strange decision that for this particular novel, he really wanted to play up and emphasize all the fine, wonderful things about England that make it in his opinion The Greatest Country On The Whole Damn Planet, and so decided to set the entire adventure this time within the small confines of just London and Dover, with the globetrotting and exotic locations already present from the first book now entirely gone, and with Fleming's attempts to highlight "the best of British culture" now being so inept and old-fashioned that they often now elicit unintentional laughter. (At a certain point, Bond and his companion order for dinner a Salisbury steak, bone marrow [delivered in actual overcooked bones with accompanying tiny spoon], and a pile of raw pineapple slices, and I was like, "Jesus Christ, Fleming, is this really your ultimate example of the brilliance of British cuisine?!") That I suppose is what makes it ironic that among his contemporary readers of these actual years, Drax was far and away seen by many as Bond's greatest villain, precisely because he seemed the most realistic to 1950s audiences; an amnesiac war orphan who stumbled out of the conflict with no identity and no money, he nonetheless spent the go-go postwar years becoming a rich and powerful innovator of rocket technology, eventually inventing what at the time was the science-fiction concept (but actually invented a few years later) of the intercontinental ballistic missile, the "Moonraker" of the book's title. (And this, by the way, is another huge drawback of this book; for it seems that Fleming rather thought of himself here as a fellow "hard science-fiction" author in the style of his '50s contemporaries like Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and here files one of the most overwritten and tediously detailed explanations of how rockets work that I've ever seen, just pages upon pages of badly written pseudoscience babble that you can just entirely skip right over.)

This being a James Bond novel, Drax of course turns out to not be what he seems; but what he actually is and what he's actually attempting to do don't get revealed until way far along into the third act, already unusually short because of all the "bridge game for a million pounds? Don't mind if I do, sir!" nonsense of the book's start, which when combined with the blase settings (c'mon, bro, Dover?) leads to just a really lackluster reading experience, one that if I didn't know any better (for example, if I was a contemporary audience member who was reading these as they actually came out) would cause me to think, "Does this guy even know what he's doing?" It's telling, for example, that when the Albert Broccoli money-printing machine did finally start cranking out Bond movies beginning in the Kennedy '60s, they deliberately wrote an entirely new story for the film version of Moonraker, retaining the title and the villain's name but otherwise changing every single other detail, despite Fleming having meant for this to be his first sincere attempt at actually writing a screenplay himself. That kind of tells you how much this isn't working, and now makes me interested in seeing how he managed to save himself from a short and unremembered three-book career with the next novel after this, the hugely popular Diamonds Are Forever (aka the last of the Sean Connery films). I'll see you in Summer 2024 for that one!

Ian Fleming books being reviewed in this series: Casino Royale (1953) | Live and Let Die (1954) | Moonraker (1955) | Diamonds Are Forever (1956) | From Russia, With Love (1957) | Dr. No (1958) | Goldfinger (1959) | For Your Eyes Only (1960) | Thunderball (1961) | The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) | On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) | You Only Live Twice (1964) | The Man With the Golden Gun (1965) | Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

Of the first three books in the canon, this is my favorite. Fleming appears to have allowed himself to play with language more than in _casino royale_ and _live and let die_. he is less the correspondence reporter and more the poet--not Tennyson, but moving closer on the poetic scale (albeit a small increment). for those still chilled by memories of the movie, fear not. the movie uses only the villain's name. with but three books read, i must admit that I like the literary Bond so much more than his celluloid counterpart. I write that fully acknowledging my love of the movies. a good read that has none of the distasteful racism of l&ld...if you don't count the antipathy toward nazis.

I'm definitely getting my feminist card revoked for loving this book!

Please, people, ask me to tell you how to run a prestigious men's club or how to manage the salary of a secret agent/ high-ranking civil servant. These are things that Fleming puts in this book, which are completely incessant for the plot, but damn did I love it!

Also, just for the record in this one (SPOILER), Bond doesn't get the girl!!! Power moves by Gala, kisses the pretty boy, and then goes to marry the good one.

Going to use this same review for all the James Bond books I read several years ago. Why did I keep reading them if I hated them so much? Because I kept hoping for ONE good book with ONE woman valued for more than just her body. And anyone out there can tell me it was a reflection of the times, but I throw that argument out. I've heard it used a lot for slavery, for example, but that fails too because there were always abolitionists, just like there have always been feminists, even if that word didn't necessarily exist back then.

Amazon was practically giving away these Ian Fleming books, so I'd bought them all. And ultimately, I hated myself for it. They are such sexist filth. Sure, I like the "good guys" winning as much as the next, but in every one of them, it felt like it was at the expense of some woman (the "Bond girl's") identity where she's reduced to nothing but an objectified and glorified sexual being whose sole purpose is to make James Bond look good. Ew. I would've known better (I hope) had the cover been one of the more semi-pornographic ones that seem to be more common, but the Kindle series I'd bought had very unrevealing cover art. UGH. And remarkably, I hadn't watched any of the older Bond movies - only started with Daniel Craig versions which I thought was just dumb sexist typical Hollywood. In retrospect, I should've known better!

Multi-millionaire and war hero, Sir Hugo Drax, prepares to test the prototype of a missile the British Prime Minister hopes will bring far greater defense to the UK. However, when M, Bond’s superior at the secret service, suspects Drax of cheating at cards at a prestigious club, he asks Bond to confirm those suspicions and prevent an embarrassing scandal involving the mysterious businessman.

Not long after discovering that Drax was indeed cheating and setting up a “game” between Drax and Bond, a Ministry of Supply security member serving on Drax’s team is murdered after possibly witnessing a foreign submarine in the waters near the test site. M secures special permission for Bond to work on British soil to replace the dead man and make sure the Moonraker missile is not in danger of sabotage.

As the reader might expect, Bond, along with the beautiful undercover special services policewoman, Gala Brand, who is working as Drax’s secretary, discover Sir Hugo is not who people thought he was and Britain is in danger. Once again, it is up to Bond to restore order to the world.

If you only know Moonraker from the 11th Bond film (the 4th starring Roger Moore), you might be surprised to find the 1979 film is nothing like the novel. By this time, the films were becoming “cartoonish” and the Bond character nothing like the cold, hard, professional Bond of the Fleming novels.

Moonraker, the novel, was released in 1955 to good reviews, even though some people commented they missed the exotic locations. The book, however, still has the car chases, evil villain, and beautiful women. It still includes the “Fleming sweep” in which each chapter ends with a cliffhanger that propels the reader ahead.

Moonraker portrays English virtues of tradition, strength, refinement, and order while tapping into the people's fears of communism, the German V-2 rocket attacks of the previous decade, and the resurgence of fascism. It also soothed England and suggested it could regain its influence and power on the world stage.

Moonraker also allows Fleming to further develop the character of Bond, a man who seems more vulnerable and “human” than in the other novels. During the first half of the novel, Fleming presents Bond at home and in the routine,, and even drudgery, of work.

Drax, however, is unique in the Bond canon in that he has no woman who holds his attention. Instead, it is the missile that is his obsession:

The shimmering projectile rested on a blunt cone of latticed steel which rose from the floor between the tips of three severely back-swept delta fins that looked as sharp as surgeons' scalpels. But otherwise nothing marred the silken sheen of the fifty feet of polished chrome steel except the spidery fingers of two light gantries which stood out from the walls and clasped the waist of the rocket between thick pads of foam-rubber.

The novel’s greatest flaw, however, lies within the novel’s origins. Fleming originally intended to write Moonraker as a screenplay, but after deciding to write the novel, found the story was too short. He, therefore, grafted a card game to the start of the plot. Possibly because of Fleming’s writing process, he did not notice that the two halves of the novel are not smoothly integrated. Fleming planned to write a Bond novel each year while spending two months at his vacation home, Goldeneye, in Jamaica. To meet this schedule, he said in an interview "I write for about three hours in the morning ... and I do another hour's work between six and seven in the evening. I never correct anything, and I never go back to see what I have written ... By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day."

Today’s reader will likely take exception to Fleming’s treatment of women and minorities. Live and Let Die, for example, is clearly racist in tone. Though Moonraker is almost unique for its lack of sexual tension between Bond and the “Bond woman,” the male characters still frequently objectify women, attempt to seduce them, and use their power to handle them as they want. Once again, though, the modern reader can read this novel and better realize that misogyny and male power are deeply ingrained in our culture.

Despite its flaws, few people read a Bond novel because they want to think deeply or experience “great” literature. Instead, most of us read Fleming for pure enjoyment and escape. With that in mind, Moonraker is still a pleasant “adolescent” diversion from the routines of life.

To continue my study of the Ian Fleming Bond (see my review on Thunderball for an explanation of what I mean...http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...) I decided to give Moonraker a look. It is, quite frankly, the worst movie of the series, and I thought I'd see if the book might turn out to be better. (I'd had a hint of this from GoodReads friend Tracey (see her excellent review here...http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....) I was happy to discover it was much, much better.

Keeping with the Fleming characterization of Bond, we still see him as a bit more lucky than skilled. However, we begin to see flashes of his too-good-to-be-true accomplishments. (I won't spoil it for you, but the welding torch bit is, well, ahem...tough to swallow. If I tried that in one of my books I think I'd be embarrassed to let someone read it. But I digress.) He seems less petty here than he did in Thunderball. In keeping with the lengthy golf game in Goldfinger, Fleming shows Bond at another "sport", this time the not so glamorous game of "Bridge". I know this was a popular game back then, and my parents played it all the time, and I even learned to play it with them for a time, but this does date this book a bit.

(for the rest of this review, click on the link to my blog:
http://roomwithnoview.blogspot.com/20...