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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The beginning of Moonraker, a full third of the book, is a high-stakes card game, very much in the style of Casino Royale. M asks to Bond to reveal millionaire Hugo Drax's cheating, which he succeeds doing. The club and the game are described in fantastic detail. Also, there's a surprising closeness and warmth in M's and Bond's relationship in the novel, compared to their chilly distance one's used to seeing in the 007 movies. One great moment in the beginning of the novel: Bond, having a bad feeling on his way to the card game, mistakenly sees a rooftop Shell ad saying "Hell is here". Bond faces Drax again after winning their card game, when he's tasked with investigating murders in the millionaire's missile program with undercover Special Branch agent Gala Brand. The rest of the novel keeps surprisingly high tempo, and turns out to have a truly great Cold War plot. Definitely worth reading. And, the novel has absolutely nothing in common with the 1979 Roger Moore 007 movie, although they share the title and the movie's villain is also named Hugo Drax. And again, I hope someday to see filmatizations of the actual Bond novels, in their original 50's/60's settings.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Forgot how different Bond is in book form. A lot sharper and certainly greater depth.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ed eccoci alla terza avventura del più famoso agente segreto britannico, ovvero Bond, James Bond! Stavolta dovrà affrontare addirittura una minaccia nucleare ad opera del cattivo di turno, Hugo Drax, il quale vuole lanciare appunto un missile nucleare proprio a Londra.
Rispetto ai precedenti due titoli che ho già letto, qua vediamo la vita ordinaria che fa Bond nel suo ufficio (e infatti nei primi capitoli potrebbe un po' annoiare), cosa mai narrata prima ma che rende il personaggio più credibile, perché mica sta sempre in missione a rischiare la vita! L'azione ci sarà, naturalmente, ma dopo la seconda parte del romanzo, quando Bond dovrà infiltrarsi nella tana del cattivo.
Anche in questo caso mi è piaciuto, praticamente amo di più il Bond dei romanzi che quello cinematografico!
Rispetto ai precedenti due titoli che ho già letto, qua vediamo la vita ordinaria che fa Bond nel suo ufficio (e infatti nei primi capitoli potrebbe un po' annoiare), cosa mai narrata prima ma che rende il personaggio più credibile, perché mica sta sempre in missione a rischiare la vita! L'azione ci sarà, naturalmente, ma dopo la seconda parte del romanzo, quando Bond dovrà infiltrarsi nella tana del cattivo.
Anche in questo caso mi è piaciuto, praticamente amo di più il Bond dei romanzi che quello cinematografico!
I definitely liked this the best of the Bond books I've read so far. It presents a more relatable character than the Bond of the first two books and, in small ways, sort of justifies some of his more extreme behaviors. Moonraker's Bond sits in an office most of the year and makes a modest salary. He blows all of his money on unnecessary things and refuses to become romantically involved because he knows his odds of living long enough to retire young are slim to none. He resents being pulled from the casual aspects of his job to go on a dangerous assignment. He's still a bit of a creep in this book, but much less so than in Casino Royale, and this one (almost) stops rewarding him for his creepy behavior.
The story was also more gripping than the other books while simultaneously seeming more commonplace. It's never clear (though it's not too difficult to guess) what's really going on until more than three quarters of the way through the story, but there's a lot of tension anyway because of Sir Drax. He's an extreme personality, and every time Bond interacts with him you have to wonder what exactly he's capable of. There's an air of mystery that wasn't really present previously because before, Bond was told exactly what he was up against in the first chapter.
But perhaps the most important factor that elevated this book for me is that the bad guys are Nazis, and who doesn't love a story about Nazis getting what's coming to them?
The story was also more gripping than the other books while simultaneously seeming more commonplace. It's never clear (though it's not too difficult to guess) what's really going on until more than three quarters of the way through the story, but there's a lot of tension anyway because of Sir Drax. He's an extreme personality, and every time Bond interacts with him you have to wonder what exactly he's capable of. There's an air of mystery that wasn't really present previously because before, Bond was told exactly what he was up against in the first chapter.
But perhaps the most important factor that elevated this book for me is that the bad guys are Nazis, and who doesn't love a story about Nazis getting what's coming to them?
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book has been the most disjointed Bond book I’ve read to date. Granted, I’ve only read three. The whole novel I was a little irritated that I knew Drax was the bad guy but the plot continued like we don’t know who the ubervillain is. Come on. I’m not that stupid. Anyway. I thought the underlying plot of revenge was a little predictable but still entertaining – and for once, it was nice that Bond didn’t get the girl. Of course, in the books, Bond rarely gets the girl. Which is unlike the movies completely. Also, the abundance of techspeak in this book kind of threw me for a loop. I don’t know enough about rockets to appreciate all the intricate details of the Moonraker missile/rocket – so I could have been spared the three or four pages on it’s workings.