Moonraker (James Bond 007) Paperback Author: Visit Amazon's Ian Fleming Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1612185452 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Review
Irresistibly readable Observer
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Ian Fleming was born in London on May 28, 1908. He was educated at Eton College and later spent a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters News Agency where a Moscow posting gave him firsthand experience with what would become his literary
bete noire—the Soviet Union. During World War II he served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and played a key role in Allied espionage operations.
After the war he worked as foreign manager of the Sunday Times, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home “Goldeneye,” he wrote a book called Casino Royale—and James Bond was born. The first print run sold out within a month. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring Special Agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His travels, interests, and wartime experience lent authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler described him as “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.” Sales soared when President Kennedy named the fifth title, From Russia With Love, one of his favorite books. The Bond novels have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, boosted by the hugely successful film franchise that began in 1962 with the release of Dr. No.
He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only son Caspar, went on to become the well- loved novel and film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Fleming died of heart failure on August 12, 1964, at the age of fifty-six.
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Direct download links available for Download Moonraker (James Bond 007) Paperback
- Series: James Bond 007
- Paperback: 257 pages
- Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (October 16, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1612185452
- ISBN-13: 978-1612185453
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Bond author Ian Fleming was advised by friends to write his second Bond novel LIVE AND LET DIE before he had even tested the waters with his first 007 thriller CASINO ROYALE. Fleming's friends impressed on him that if the first novel failed he would be less inclined to write a second one. His friends need not have worried as is proved by this third 1955 entry into the James Bond literary series.
After some shaky elements in his first two novels Fleming and his characteristic Fleming-sweep, really hits its stride here and he delivers a thriller which is not only consistently ranked as one of the best by fans, but also a personal favorite of mine.
One of the great strengths of this book (as was the case with the subsequent 1979 movie adaptation) is the main villain Hugo Drax. A leading member of British society with a somewhat mysterious background, Drax is ostensibly building a weapon to help protect Britain, but all is not as it seems.
Bond's first encounter with Drax is at the behest of his superior M who is convinced the industrialist is cheating at cards at M's gentleman's club Blades. Bond uncovers the method behind Drax's remarkable winning streak but also effectively turns the tables on him.
In this novel Bond is not the superhero of the movie that would follow over two decades later. This is no clearly more evident than in his rejected advances towards Gala Brand, an undercover policewoman at Drax's plant. Brand is actually one of my favorite leading ladies of the Bond literary series, she is both independent and intelligent and one of the better drawn female characters of the Fleming books.
The plot is low-key enough, the villain suitably overblown and the heroine so irresistable as to make this compelling reading.
I've been rereading all of the 007 novels leading up to the release of the new movie of "Casino Royale" (by the way, the new movie rocks) and giving Ian Fleming another look. I'd read them as a kid 20 years ago and wondered how they read now.
"Moonraker" was the third book and I wasn't as excited as I'd been with "Casino Royale" and "Live and Let Die."
"Moonraker" plays out completely in London and the English coastline so the exotic aspect of 007's usual settings was missed, for me anyway. The first third of the novel reads too much like "Casino Royale"'s scenes at a gaming table, except that Bond isn't playing for high stakes to ruin a Russian bagman but to only expose a member at M's gentlemen's club as a card cheat.
(That Bond would later chase the villian who's kidnapped the girl, crash, and then also be captured was also reminiscent of "Casino Royale").
I also found it rather odd that a crew of Germans--not just atomic scientist Germans but an entire team of Germans handling everything--were working unmonitored on England's new missile defense system just one decade after WWII. It reminded me of the Monty Python sketch where a "Mr. Hilter" and his "school chums" are staying in a English bed and breakfast and plotting WWIII. That Bond, like everyone else in "Moonraker," wouldn't see that red flag was hard to get around.
Gala Brand, an undercover operative posing as Drax's secretary, isn't included in the first third and then she spends time ignoring Bond to keep her cover so Fleming doesn't give himself much time to turn her into a real Bond girl. By the end, you realize (as Bond did) that she had a whole unknown life before their little adventure that was greater than their "bonding" experience.
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