From Russia with Love and Moonraker

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"Using a rich palate of international voices and accents, Whitfield takes an engaging story and infuses it with the additional drama that only a fine actor can provide."--"AudioFile." Unabridged.

0 pages, Audio Cassette

First published September 1,2006

About the author

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units: 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels.
Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952, at age 44. It was a success, and three print runs were commissioned to meet the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels centre around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the best-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction. In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Fleming was married to Ann Fleming. She had divorced her husband, the 2nd Viscount Rothermere, because of her affair with the author. Fleming and Ann had a son, Caspar. Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously; other writers have since produced Bond novels. Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by six actors in the official film series.

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April 17,2025
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I had read some of the short stories and had wanted to read at least one full-length novel. The novels are grittier, sexier and are written with much more detail.

I found that with "From Russia With Love," Bond doesn't show up until Chapter 11. Though I was anticipating him from the get-go, I eventually found this intriguing. The first 10 chapters tell all about the villains and the plot to get Bond. I liked this way of storytelling. Overall, I rate it 3 stars. I would have given it 4 stars if it weren't for a few chapters in the middle that could have been deleted altogether. And the way it ended was unresolved, but I won't go into detail for the sake of spoilers.

About a week later, I finished listening to "Moonraker." As you can probably guess, it is absolutely nothing like them movie. The book was published in 1955, long before a space shuttle (as is depicted in the movie) was even thought of. Instead, Moonraker is the name of a prototype nuclear missile, designed by multimillionaire Hugo Drax (same villain name in the movie) who (spoiler alert) is a Nazi sympathizer who plans his missile "test" as a way to get revenge on England. A clever plot, but predictable. This is a pretty good read, and unlike the previously mentioned "From Russia With Love," this starts right off with Bond. However, like the aforementioned "Russia" this also has plenty of unecessary chapters and drawn out depictions of this and that, which slows the story down. Altogether, both novels are good stories and impressively written.
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