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Title:
Moonraker
Series: James Bond #3
Author:
Ian Fleming
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Thriller
Pages: 211
Words:
74K
Publish: 1955
Matt
reviewed the movie version of Moonraker last year, and while I
knew from his review that the movie and book shared almost nothing, I
still had this idea of Bond going into space and doing something.
Not
in this book.
A
Nazi, who has hidden his old allegiances, has built a super missile
that can reach anywhere in Europe from England. This is supposed to
give England the upper edge and the government is just wild about it.
Everything seems to be going smoothly until one of their two
operatives dies. Bond replaces him and tries to find out what “might”
be going on. Agent Girl and Bond bond over an almost successful
assassination attempt on them both and realize the German guy and his
50-100 “scyenzetists” are nazis in disguise who are hellbent on
sending a nuclear tipped missile into the center of London with help
from the Russkies.
While
this was fun, it was also the most ridiculuous thing I have read in a
very long time. The English government is sinking tons of money into
this military project and they only have 2 agents looking out for
their interests? There was no oversite, no military presence double
and triple checking everything? Bond and Agent Girl survive the
rocket taking off and the superheated steam it produces by dunking
themselves in cold water 10minutes before it happens? Plus some other
things. I don’t mind ridiculous in many stories if it doesn’t
take me out of the story, but those two things I mentioned just felt
like hitting a brickwall while going 60mph.
I
still enjoyed the adventure and it didn’t make me want to stop, but
it did make me glad that I’m switching this series and Discworld
every three to four books. I don’t think I could read more than
three of these in one rotation.
★★★☆☆
From
Wikipedia
The
British Secret Service agent James Bond is asked
by his superior, M, to join him at M's club, Blades. A club
member, the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, is
winning considerable money playing bridge, seemingly against the
odds. M suspects Drax is cheating, and while claiming indifference,
is concerned as to why a multi-millionaire and national hero would
cheat. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to turn the
tables—aided by a stacked deck of cards—and wins
£15,000 (about seven times his own annual salary).
Drax
is the product of a mysterious background, purportedly unknown even
to himself. Presumed to have been a British Army soldier during the
Second World War, he was badly injured and stricken with amnesia in
the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at a British
field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army
hospital, he returned home to become a wealthy industrialist. After
building his fortune and establishing himself in business and
society, Drax started building the "Moonraker", Britain's
first nuclear missile project, intended to defend Britain
against its Cold War enemies. The Moonraker rocket is an
upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid
hydrogen and fluorine as propellants; to
withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures of its engine, it
uses columbite, in which Drax had a monopoly. Because the
rocket's engine can withstand high heat, the Moonraker is able to use
these powerful fuels, expanding its range across Europe.
After
a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the
project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him and also to
investigate what has been going on at the missile-building base,
located between Dover and Deal on the south coast
of England. All the rocket scientists working on the project are
German. At his post on the complex, Bond meets Gala Brand, a
beautiful police Special Branch officer working undercover
as Drax's personal assistant. Bond also uncovers clues concerning his
predecessor's death, concluding that the man may have been killed for
witnessing a submarine off the coast.
Bond
catches Drax's henchman Krebs snooping through his room. Later, an
attempted assassination by triggering a landslide nearly kills Bond
and Brand, as they sunbathe beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes
Brand to London, where she discovers the truth about the Moonraker by
comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook
picked from Drax's pocket. She is captured by Krebs, and finds
herself captive in a secret radio homing station—intended to serve
as a beacon for the missile's guidance system—in the heart of
London. While Brand is being taken back to the Moonraker facility by
Drax, Bond gives chase, but is also captured by Drax and Krebs.
Drax
tells Bond that he was never a British soldier and has never suffered
from amnesia: his real name is Graf Hugo von der Drache,
the German commander of a Werwolf commando unit. Disguised
in an Allied uniform, he was the saboteur whose team placed the car
bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured himself in
the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while
recovering in hospital to avoid recognition, although it would lead
to a whole new British identity. Drax remains a dedicated Nazi, bent
on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his Fatherland
and his prior history of social slights suffered as a youth growing
up in an English boarding school before the war. He explains that he
now means to destroy London, with a Soviet-supplied nuclear
warhead that has been secretly fitted to the Moonraker. His company
is also selling the British pound short in order to make a
huge profit from the disaster.
Brand
and Bond are imprisoned where the blast from the Moonraker's engines
will incinerate them, to leave no trace of them once the missile is
launched. Before the launch, the couple escape. Brand gives Bond the
coordinates he needs to redirect the gyros and send the Moonraker
into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence
all along, Drax and his henchmen escape by Soviet submarine—only to
be killed as the vessel makes its escape through the waters onto
which the Moonraker has been re-targeted. After their debriefing at
headquarters, Bond meets up with Brand, expecting her company—but
they part ways after she reveals that she is engaged to a fellow
Special Branch officer.
