Moonraker

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but Fun
Review: It should go without saying, but I'll mention it anyway, the book has zero relation to the film other than title. That established, the third 007 novel is the first of the series where the stakes are truly high (nuclear annihilation), however it's unlike virtually any other Bond story in that it takes place entirely in England (basically London and Dover). Like the CIA (in theory anyway...), the British Secret Service is not allowed to operate in its homeland, and thus Bond is seconded to the Special Branch in order to get him in the mix. But before this happens, the story begins with Bond being asked to do M a favor and try and determine if a popular industrialist is cheating at London's most exclusive private cards club. (By the way, an inside joke in the latest Bond flick is that the fencing club where Bond and the villain fight is given the same name -The Blades Club-as the card club from this novel.)

The industrialist Drax's heroic story is told through Bond's admiring mouth. His unconscious, and later amnesiac, body was recovered from an explosion site in Germany during the war (WWII) and eventually was determined to be an MIA British private named Hugo Drax. Over the subsequent decade he became a self-made international metals broker, notably through columbite (yes, it is a real mineral). He has recently returned to England and spent lavishly on charities, but more notably, on privately financing and building an ICBM capable of delivering an atomic warhead anywhere in Europe. The intriguing mystery is why such a popular patriot would stoop to cheating at cards, recalling that at the time of the writing some fifty years ago, as M puts it: "It's about the only way a man can ruin himself!" Most readers will, at this early stage, have already smelt a huge rat, and picked up on the the obvious clue Fleming not-so-subtly weaves in, and will have figured out what's really happening. This is the books major weakness, since from there on, one is waiting for Bond to catch up, and thus the villain's final monologue, in which All Is Revealed, is more than a little anticlimactic.

In any event, Bond's appearance at the club and a nerve-racking high-stakes bridge game against the fabulously wealthy Hugo Drax starts the ball rolling. It's a nice bit of tension-building, however those (like myself) who are unfamiliar with the game of bridge will probably not get as much out of it. Still, it's a nice set-piece, and also serves to remind one how puny Bond's salary is as a glorified civil servant when the stakes rise to ten times his annual salary! From here the book proceeds rather slowly, as a suspicious murder-suicide allows Bond to join the Moonraker missile team as security officer. He and a voluptuous undercover cop work to try and figure out what's so fishy about the whole project.

Make no mistake, the book is entirely predictable, the bad guys are either stereotypically insane or stereotypically robotic machines with zero depth to them. And perhaps weakest of all, Bond and the female cop are left to escape when throughout the whole story the villain has been ruthlessly precise about eliminating troublemakers. At the the time they're captured, there's no reason whatsoever for him not to simply shoot them in the head and leave them dead in a field. Even so, it's a decent page-turner that, with its lurking ogres of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction via atomic missile) and lurking Nazism, offers an interesting window to the past.

Rating:
Summary: Moonraker is quite the action-adventure thriller!!!
Review: Moonraker is a slam-bamm action adventure that will keep even a veteran James Bond fan on the edge of his seat. The beginning card game at Blades shows a quite sly side to the villan, Sir Hugo Drax, and near the end of this fantastic novel, shows the inhuman side to the crazy psycopath that is Hugo Drax. Gala Brand as Bond's girl shows how a Bond Girl should act, and the plot thickens with every turn of the page. If you have seen the movie, then you should read the book. There is truly quite a difference, and is a must have book to place on your shelves. Read, and ENJOY!!!!

Rating:
Summary: The First "Grand" Bond Story
Review: MOONRAKER is Ian Flemming's third James Bond novel, though it is really the first to shape up like what would become a "typical" Bond story. It is the first Bond drama on a grand scale - the first during which an atomic weapon threatens a Western city (in this case, London). The stakes in the previous two books were much smaller, the consequences of Bond's struggle much less significant. The story holds together better than many Flemming novels, and thankfully, the book shares virtually nothing with the awful Roger Moore movie of the same name.

MOONRAKER would actually make a great movie if adapted faithfully from the book. Although it was written as a modern spy story in the 1950s, it is really a period piece that captures the fantasies of a moment in time. Hugo Drax, the villain, is a Nazi now sabotaging the British for the Soviets. When the book was written, Nazis were very much on the minds of the young WWII vets reading Bond novels. The Soviets were presumed to be essentially just like Nazis, and their new atomic threat was ominous - if only there was some way for them to get their bomb to London. The Moonraker does the job both as a state-of-the-art long (for the time) range missile, and also because it was being fired from England into England.

At the time, the premise, that Soviet spies are everywhere, must have been a British version of McCarthyism. But the story is about Britain turning to Drax, posing as an eccentrically heroic millionaire, to build the country's first atomic rocket. In retrospect, this is a cautionary tale against privatization. While whatever McCarthyites served in Parliament at the time must have liked this story, later Thatcherites probably hoped to keep it hidden.

Though the scale of MOONRAKER was the most ambitious yet for Flemming, the book contains some already familiar elements. As in CASINO ROYAL, a card game plays a key role in the story. This time Bond suspects that Drax may not be all that he appears to be because he cheats at an exclusive British gambling club. As with LIVE AND LET DIE, and most of the following Bond books, the villain is physically grotesque so that he both looks and acts like a monster. And again like the previous book, the villain's henchmen are all of one ethnic group (this time Germans), playing upon all the stereotypes of that ethic group (they are ridged, sadistic, mechanical Nazis scientists).

Finally, the villain's activities are ultimately in the service of the Russians. The role of the Soviets as the secret backers of all things evil in the world is distinctly absent in the Bond movies. In the early movies, SPECTER (which appears in the later Bond books) serves as a non-political substitute for the Russians, but the entire premise of the literary Bond's life and work is that commies are around every corner, lurking in every back ally.

Bond of the books is distinguished from his movie-self in other ways as well - he smokes more, eats conspicuously unhealthy foods and drinks like an alcoholic. Although this Bond is smart, he is not the walking encyclopedia of the films (and often takes longer than the reader to figure out fairly obvious mysteries). In this book, the Bond girl is at least as responsible for saving the day as Bond, and a conventional bureaucrat named Vallance shares in the credit as well.

The books are more brutal on Bond and his friends. He "dies" in the later, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, Felix Leiter is permanently maimed in LIVE AND LET DIE, and the Bond girl, a guilt-ridden double agent, kills herself in CASINO ROYAL. Bond merely gets pummeled over and over again in MOONRAKER, but perhaps more painful for the character - he doesn't get the girl in the end. While the "mysteries" of the main plot are not terribly mysterious, the real surprise is that the Bond girl turns out to be engaged, and she maintains her virtue. The final words are, "they turned away from each other and walked off into heir different lives." If the Bond movies rely on formulaic predictability, Flemming is worth reading because he keeps coming up with genuine surprises.

Despite its age, despite its anachronistic technology, despite its tough-to-relate-to-these-days premises about Nazis and communists, MOONRAKER holds up as an exciting story that is actually fascinating (if for unintended reasons). It is well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Bond Novel
Review: Moonraker is the best of the orginal James Bond series. I cannot say enough about it, except that the film which took the title from this book and the name of some of the characters is as bad as this is great! If you want to read a good Bond page turner that shows him as a human as opposed to super human spy, then this is the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: James Bond battles the evil Sir Hugo Drax!
Review: Moonraker is the complete opposite of the action filled, space-traveling movie. It is one of the best 007 novels of all. Never before has there been so much indepth characterization as in this novel. A true winner!

James Bond's boss, M, asks Bond to accompany him to the Blades Gentlemen's club to look over a man called Hugo Drax. Drax is a hero of Britain, because of his building of a nuclear rocket for Britain. M suspects that Drax cheats at cards, and wants Bond to play with them to find out why he cheats. Bond discovers how he cheats, and uses it to take a very great amount of money from Drax. Days later, the security head working for Drax is found murdered and Bond is sent to find out what happened to him and meets up with Gala Brand, an undercover policewoman working as his secretary. They investigate his unusual rocket designs and discover that drax is planning to fire the rocket into London and destroy the city. They are both captured by Drax, who tells them he was a Nazi who now works for SMERSH. They both escape and reprogam the rocket to shoot away from London, and it hits and destroys the submarine Drax was escaping in.

Moonraker is one of the most thrilling and exciting novels in the entire series of James Bond novels. A must for any James Bond fan!

Rating:
Summary: good fun
Review: Moonraker the book and Moonraker the movie have almost nothing in common. Bond is up against a villain whose smart, evil and completely crazed. There's no Holly Goodhead in the book and that's no loss because Gala Brand is a remarkable character. She's tough to survive to violent attacks with her wits in tact and she's vital to the success of the mission.
Moonraker shows the reader more of Bond's day to day life than the previous book, I didn't even know Bond had his own secretary. The movies combined Miss Ponsonby and Miss Moneypenny into one character. M and the lives of the folks who work for the Service are more clearly examined and once again 007 takes a heck of a beating and comes out on top. I still like the movie but the book is like finding a whole new world.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the movie!
Review: Not the best of the Bond books, still a much stronger entry than most of his later books. The scene where Bond plays bridge against Drax at Blades is my favorite. The plot of the film Goldeneye was taken from this book. You will find no hint of the film Moonraker here, even though the deceased Mister Fleming seems to think otherwise.

What is it about death anyway?

Rating:
Summary: Best Of The Old James Bond's
Review: Of all the old James Bonds, Moonraker is the best. I've seen the movie over 20 times and everytime I watch it, it's better. So you should all buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: 007's adventures continue in the utterly awesome Moonraker.
Review: Of the first four novels that Ian Fleming wrote, Moonraker is, without a doubt, the best. This third Bond adventure revolves around the plot of Hugo Drax to decimate England with a nuclear missile, the Moonraker. Suspense is present on page after page, even when Bond and M are just sitting at a bridge table with Drax. Gala Brand is another atypical Bond girl, and their relationship certainly doesn't take the course one might expect. Moonraker is one of my very favorites, and one of the five best novels of the Bond series.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing Like The Movie!! Lots Of Action!! Great Plot!!
Review: Ok, you probably know by now(after reading all the other reviews) that the book is nothing like the movie. It's true, they are completely different. I don't see how the movie is related to the book at all, except the bad guys name is Drax, and the good guys name is James Bond. Seriously, there is no Dr. Goodhead in the book, bond doesn't go into space, there's no Jaws(oh well), and most importantly, Moonraker is a Nuclear missile in the book, unlike the movie where it's a space ship.The movie is retarted and cheesy. Please don't let that make you stay away from this book. Here's my review:

Unlike all the other Bond books, this one doesn't take a while to get goin'. For that reason, I reccomend it to anyone, not just bond fans. It has a really interesting plot being that it was written right after the end of World War 2.(I don't want to give it away, even though other reviewers already have)
It starts off with a great card game(brings back great memories of the first bond book, Casino Royale, read my review!)and you can sense the thickening plot as it...uh...thickens? At any rate, it is action packed and has a great...I repeat, GREAT plot.
It really opens your eyes to the cold war and what could have happened(it has a much more realistic plot then the movie)
Now, you might wonder why I only gave it 4 stars... Unlike most bond books, It has a great beginning, but, UNLIKE most bond books, it has a boring ending. Most Bond Books end with a great action scene, not moonraker. The whole last chapter, Drax(the bad guy) is, uh... done with (don't want to spoil it for those who havent read it) and there's this whole long chapter that seems to be leading up to something and then all of a sudden, the book ends, and your like, okay? But, that, in no way, shape, or form gives you permission to NOT read this book. It is great the entire time, it just should have ended with the 24th chapter, instead of the 25th chapter,...that's all. So, all in all,it is a great book, I just can't figure out why Fleming added that last chapter, you'll see what I mean when (notice i said "when" not "if")you read the book.