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.

What is there that can possibly be left to be written about Britain’s favourite secret agent that hasn’t already been said a million times before, by feminists, by film reviewers, even by distinguished literary gents? While the cover art is calculated to have any teenage boy’s blood racing – girls! guns! rockets! – this book delivers on both the book and recent film versions of Casino Royale’s promise of a more appealing, albeit less charming, Bond.

What you know are to become key elements of the films already exist here. Bond’s love of gadgetry and the high life are evident, whether that is fine tailoring, his Ronson lighter for use on his own blend of cigarettes, or the little flat off the King’s Road. He drives a Bentley, rather than an Aston Martin, an older, classic model he takes pride in racing against foreign engineering, at least until he totals it.

Yet while aiming for effortlessness in all this acquisition, Bond is only one loss at cards away from ruin. We see him chafing at the daily routine and ploughing half-heartedly through the paperwork just like any other office worker, although in the privileged position afforded to a senior civil servant, he is no idle playboy. When away from London on operations, he has a Leica camera in one pocket and a Beretta in the other but perhaps more telling are the gadgets he lacks: having to drive to the next town to telephone allies in Scotland Yard or waiting for essential information to arrive by telegram.

Also lacking is any contact with anyone he isn’t working with or for. Perhaps this lack of companionship is compensated for by being surrounded by women, of course possessed of a beauty that mere mortals can only dream of. Whether it is the carefully selected waitresses of the gambling club M frequents, the steely Secret Service secretaries, or a ‘severely competent’ police woman, the lucky fellow rarely encounters a plain woman. Yet central female characters Gala Brand and Loelia Posonby – though crazily named – are also blessed with a quiet strength, essential to keeping the battered and broken Bond on his feet throughout the action.

Though Fleming laments that Posonby is approaching an age where:

'Unless she married soon, Bond thought for the hundredth time, or had a lover, her cool air of authority might easily become spinsterish and she would join the army of women who had married a career.'

Perhaps this is not the terrible fate he makes it out to be, and it is arguable if a quick tumble with 007 would be a better one, especially as he is facing a similar destiny. His own prospects for a long and happy retirement seem slim, after all. Although contemplating certain death with hopelessness after torture and near defeat, he never questions the rights and wrongs of the power the Service wields over his life. He is good at the essentials of his job, his boss is decent, that is enough. Bond is far more of a bastard than you remember, quite a lot rougher around the edges and unafraid to fight dirty if circumstances dictate. Able to pass with the Lord Basildons of this world, but not quite of them:

'Bond knew that there was something alien and un-English about himself. He knew that he was a difficult man to cover up. Particularly in England.'

Perhaps it is his misfortune that the exotic locations so fundamental to the films are passed over for this tale, which largely happens within sight of the White Cliffs of Dover in the usually sleepy South of England. Moonraker’s plot delivers such atomic age fears as a rogue scientists, cities laid waste by the most powerful rocket ever built and an unsettling yet impolitic mistrust of those who have gone from enemies to allies in the blink of an eye.

It is a cracking read, belting along at a great pace and lending a warmth and a human side to its characters that you would perhaps not believe existed if you had only watched the films. You may think you know all there is to know about James Bond, but you won’t until you experience him on the page.

The striking thing about this one is how radically different it is from the Roger Moore movie. The novel has nothing to do with space travel; Moonraker is a nuclear missile. It is noteworthy that the 'Bond girl' in this one, Gala Brand, at a couple points steps in as the subject of the narration. This didn't happen in either of the previous 2 novels. Other departures from the movie-ingrained stereotype James Bond: still no Q, still no Walther PPK (rather a .25 Beretta), still drives a Bentley (which is wrecked and replaced in this one), and he doesn't end up with the girl at the end. No sign of Jaws. Also, all of the first 3 novels end with him quite severely injured. Nonetheless, the plot is compelling and suspenseful (despite some noticeable plot element repetition starting to emerge by the 3rd installment), and the villains are interesting. Well worth reading, though I'm not sure if I'll move on to the next one.

M asks Bond to investigate why Sir Hugo Drax, the filthy-rich, noted industralist and Britain's man-of-the-moment, is cheating at cards at his club. Sir Hugo is the funder of the Moonraker, a long-range missile intended to act as a deterrent against foreign attack on Britain. When one of the Moonraker's guards is murdered in an apparent crime-passionel, Bond is sent in to help guard the Moonraker ahead of its much-anticipated test flight. He quickly discovers a dastardly plot to sabotage the weapon and ends up in a race against time to save London.

Drax is a suave, calculating villain with some ridiculously stereotypical henchmen. It's clear from the outset that he's up to no good - the question is what exactly he is trying to do. Bond is helped by Gala Brand, an intelligent, determined and spirited Bond girl who doesn't end up sleeping with Bond (nice change!)

Much of the action is set in Dover and the surrounding areas of Kent. It is strange to imagine Bond driving through the streets of Maidstone and doing 95mph past the entrance to Leeds Castle, but also makes a nice contrast to the more glamorous locations used in the Bond films.

Hugely enjoyable but, note to self - knowledge of olde-worlde card games like bridge, baccarat etc would make understanding the gambling scenes a heck of a lot easier!

I'm in awe of this title. MOONRAKER. Raking on the moon. Or maybe raking the moon? What does it mean? It's so evocative--something ominous and technological. When I was a kid I had never seen a James Bond movie, but I played the video game GOLDENEYE. In the game, the Moonraker is different from all other weapons that Bond carries. It's a handheld gun the size of a rifle, but it fires lasers, and because of that, it has "infinite ammo." And you can only get one in a level that looks like an underground Egyptian temple. I thought there was really nothing cooler in the whole world than getting to shoot a Moonraker at the bad guys while trying to escape a sandstone tomb.

The book MOONRAKER could not be more different from the movie MOONRAKER (I am serious; no content is the same. In the book Moonraker is a nuclear missile, and in the movie, it's a spaceship), and neither of them lived up to the concept of Moonraker that the video game delivered. The book is not as fantastic, and the movie is not as cool.

I was hoping Moonraker the novel would be a good beach read. The teal cover with the missile looks so good, and it's not very long. The setting in Dover is cool, the Moonraker nuclear missile is cool...all of the pieces really should be in place. But then it falls flat. Not enough happens, and what does happen is not exciting or surprising. I wasn't so much disappointed by this as I was baffled that anyone out there ever enjoyed it. Ian Fleming himself writes like someone who doesn't enjoy reading.

The jet setting glamour we associate with secret agent James Bond is absent from Ian Fleming's third 007 novel, which is set entirely in England. However, there's still luxurious food & high stakes gambling & the setting delivers fascinating characters & a superb villain in the form of Hugo Drax.
Moonraker opens with Bond practising on a dimly lit firing range in the basement of London's Secret Service headquarters & Fleming describes this brilliantly. Setting this novel in England gave it an old fashioned atnmosphere, but I always find this 1955 novel far superior to the overblown comedy of the 1979 film version.
This novel has one of my favourite endings & the last few pages are worthy of something Graham Greene could have written. Ian Fleming has always been a much better writer than he's been given credit for & for those who dismiss his work as merely "pulp fiction" I respectfully submit that reading Moonraker might change their mind. If it doesn't it's still a hell of a good yarn.

I think Moonraker is probably center cut Bond. You get what you expect, and if it's your taste, then it's choice.

The storyline is rather straightforward. More Mission Impossible than spycraft, and the book is driven by sensory description rather than being carried by plot intrigue. There are long descriptions of food he eats and beverages he drinks and cars he drives and places he frequents and, of course, the women he eyes.

I prefer fiction that is idea-driven rather than image-dominant, so, a middling three stars from me.

A good spy story with an interesting twist at the end. Nothing like the movie that was based on the book.

The third Bond I am reading, and in order. So after making ill-advised social commentary in his last book, Fleming begins to really get into the groove for which we know him best, fast action sequences. Bond battles against multi-millionaire and British national hero Sir Hugo Drax, who we discover is actually German, but these are the post war years, so almost all the villains in all the books that have villains are Germans. Fleming taps into our desires for wealth and luxury as we get into a card game at the world's most exclusive card club, where he of course bests Drax. In this, the third book, it's everything "exclusive": fine whiskey, martins, Bentleys/Alfa Romeos, Mercedes Benz, the finest weapons, all of it, and we want all of this vicariously through Bond.

And of course, fine women, here represented by Gala Brand, who is beautiful, of course, but also an accomplished scientist. It is almost as if Fleming were responding to early critiques of Bond as harshly misogynist, as he has Brand actually narrate a couple sections to articulate her resentment that Drax and the other men don't respect her as a scientist because she is a woman. And in the end, it is Brand that comes up with the scientific solution that saves the day. Oh, he's still a womanizer, and he gets the girl, but she also gets him, and while he's no feminist he at least is respectful of her mind.

So this story, with it's focus on a great and truly impressive missile launching, is about the sudden race to space in the fifties, Russia vs. . . well, in this case it is Britain instead of the US, but with the turn of the story it is also about fears about Germans turning those technological marvels into atomic bombs. 3.5, rounded up because he sticks to what he does best, fast action sequences, fast car chases, big, possibly ending-life-as-we-know-it explosions, high stake card games, escaping tight places with the girl. Fun. Now to see the movie again.

V cool. Again, nothing like the film - no space stations, cable-car battles or Jaws. Just boring old Dover and a rocket, but it's marvellous. Quaintly dated rather than amusingly so like some of the others I've read this year, he doesn't even get the girl!

Although she is called Gala Brand, and they do survive a cliff falling on them, so it does maintain a certain level of ridiculousness I expect from Bond.

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.

007 is much less incompetent in this one.
Good for you, Bond!



Still, when his inner monologue drifts into describing or thinking about women, things get unintentionally hilarious. Like, I can see how he thinks he sounds suave with his she may be able to break my arm but she still has a mole above her nipple musings.
But really.
Listening to him describe women makes me think that if James were a real person, he'd be the kind of guy who doesn't understand that foreplay is a thing.



And yet!
He's not as big of a douchebag in Moonraker.
I was looking forward to more of his causal assholery and all I got was one uninvited kiss in the ocean. He actually kinda respected this gal in his own weird way.



Like Casino Royale the beginning of this book is all about a high-stakes bridge game.
I'm not a card player so none of the descriptions excited me. But the gist is that this rich dude, Sir Hugo Drax, is cheating at cards in this fancy club that M is a member of, and he wants Bond to beat him at his own game. The point of it is to warn him off cheating without causing a scandal because the guy is a national hero.
Why?
Well, he's funding this Moonraker rocket, which is going to be an integral part of England's defense system, out of his own pocket. His backstory is that he was badly scarred in the war and ended up with amnesia, yet still managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps and become a millionaire.
I realize that now you can't buy a block of generic cheese for less than 1.2 million, but it was a lot of money back in the day.



Before meeting him, Bond is as big a fan of Drax as everyone else, but after he sits down to cards he finds his manners and mannerisms to be thoroughly disgusting.
Spoilery things happen and he ends up undercover at the site of the Moonraker, trying to solve a murder and keep tabs on anything fishy that might be going on.
Let the spy games begin!
But not really because these books are nowhere near as cool and interesting as the movies.



The biggest takeaway for me was that this installment makes Bond seem like less of a complete chucklefuck, and the dialogue and characters are leaps and bounds less cringy than the last book.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but that actually makes me sad in a way. I've been thoroughly enjoying my romp with 007 simply because these books were a filterless look at the inner workings of a dude who gives zero shits about being a nice guy.

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Edition: Unabridged
Awards: Earphones Award
Bill Nighy - Narrator