Product Description

Moonraker, Britain's new ICBM-based national defense system, is ready for testing, but something's not quite right. At M's request, Bond begins his investigation with Sir Hugo Drax, the leading card shark at M's club, who is also the head of the Moonraker project. But once Bond delves deeper into the goings-on at the Moonraker base, he discovers that both the project and its leader are something other than they appear to be.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111822 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Ian Fleming (1908-1964), creator of the world's best-known secret agent, was the author of fourteen James Bond adventures.

Customer Reviews

A bit disappointing
This is only the second Bond book I've read recently, the other being Doctor No (James Bond Novels) (Although I've read one, One Her Majestys' secret Service, I think, many years ago). It didn't live up to my expectations. It's a short novel, but the pace is still slow, and not until the last third or so does it become suspenseful. I liked Dr. No better than this one and I would guess there are other better Bond novels.

Best Of The First Three
Well I was ready to hate Moonraker because of the movie. So if you hated the movie...try the book. It isn't campy with the Space Shuttle at all. It has a rocket as the object, but it really isn't about that. The beginning part of the book is about cards. I loved it. However it starts getting bogged down in the middle section and then like all Ian Fleming books it wraps up really quick. I just felt the ending was just too contrived. I liked it because I was prepared to hate it, but it's still not that great. It's the best of the first three but that's not saying much. I would recommend it just for the beginning section because it shows how James Bond thinks and rationalizes things. Plus he doesn't get the girl at all in this book.

Solid-fuel thrills
While I always knew that many films of the James Bond series drifted into camp and outright cheesiness, I never realized how much of a disservice some of them did to the source material until I read the novels. And wow--Moonraker in particular, while one of the better '70s entries in the film series, bears no relation to the gritty homeland security thriller written by Ian Fleming.

The titular Moonraker is an missile designed by British hero Sir Hugo Drax. Drax's invention is set to thrust Britain into the forefront of the Cold War arms race--with the Moonraker, the British will be able to target any European capital with a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. When the novel begins--on Monday--the Moonraker is set to be tested in just a few days--Friday, when a missile carrying a dummy warhead will be fired into the North Sea. Security is tight on the project--British prestige is at stake.

But 007's boss has other things on his mind. Drax is a fellow member of Blades, a gambling club, and M is convinced that Drax cheats. At bridge. Since Bond is between missions at the time, M drags him along to a late-night game of bridge, where Bond outfoxes Drax to the tune of £15,000. Unbeknowst to them, the same night one of Drax's subordinates was killed by a German engineer in a murder-suicide.

Mere hours after fleecing Drax at the cardtable, Bond is sent to him as a replacement. It seems the murdered man had misgivings about the security of Drax's project, and with so much at stake and so little time on hand, the Ministry of Defense wants no mistakes. Things are not, of course, what they seem, and it soon becomes apparent that the Moonraker is in the hands of madmen.

Like the Bond film, there is a certain measure of predictability about the whole proceeding; of course Bond will live, of course he will save Britain. Unlike the film, Fleming's novel has Bond make all-too-human mistakes, get battered and bruised, and even--spoiler alert--get rejected by the girl. And the novel moves so briskly, investing each and every point of the plot with tension and suspense, that even the mystifying bridge game at the beginning is exciting. Moonraker is pure entertainment.

Highly recommended.