Moonraker (novel)

The third James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, released in 1955.

The novel involves a revenge seeking invidual named Hugo Drax developing a ballistic missile for the British Government, with the intention of nuking London with Soviet help. Try not to think about that too much and note the brilliant New Era Speech instead.

The eleventh Bond film has very little to do with the book, only sharing its title and the Big Bad's name.


 * Ate His Gun: Egon Bartsch, the technician who killed the original chief of security of Drax's base.
 * Bedsheet Ladder: Bond fakes one up to cover the fact that he and Gala are still in the base.
 * Bottle Episode: This is the only novel to be set entirely inside the United Kingdom; in fact the action never leaves London and Kent.
 * Commie Nazis: Drax turns out to be in league with the Soviets, more out of convenience than ideology however.
 * Cool Car: Drax drives a Mercedes 300 S, which Bond describes as "ruthless and majestic". 007 himself owns a 1930 Bentley Coupé, in which he chases Drax towards the end of the book.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Drax chooses to dispose of Bond and Gala Brand by leaving them to be incinerated by the Moonraker's exhaust on lift-off. Incidentally, this is one of the few bits that made it into the 1979 film.
 * Damsel in Distress: Gala Brand is a notable aversion; she proves to be as important to foiling Drax's plot as Bond and while she does get captured, Bond also does shortly afterwards.
 * Did Not Get the Girl: Because as it turns out, . This results in a Bittersweet Ending.
 * The Dragon: Willy Krebs.
 * Gratuitous German: A lot of dubious German is (naturally) used, as ex-Nazi villains play a prominent part. Most memorably, Krebs and Drax's other henchmen will frequently address their boss as "Herr Kapitän," or "Captain." The problem is that Drax was an infantry captain in the Heer, and later Waffen-SS in his glory days, while Kapitän specifically denotes a naval captain in German. Better researched Nazis would have addressed Drax either as Herr Hauptmann (an army captain) or Hauptsturmführer (an SS captain).
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * Literal Ass-Kicking: When Bond finds Krebs rummaging through his stuff, he gives a swift kick to the arse.
 * Mad Scientist: Dr. Walter.
 * Motive Rant: Drax gives Bond an epic one when he has him tied up and defenceless. Bond responds by taunting Drax into a Villainous Breakdown, which gives him the opportunity he needs to free himself and Gala.
 * New Era Speech
 * Revealing Coverup: The violent death of Major Tallon, the original security chief, ultimately served only to bring the far more talented James Bond onto the scene just in time to find and reveal the entire plot. While Tallon had stumbled across a clue to what was going on and had started his own investigation, and thus needed to be dealt with in some way, Drax would have been better served to either take the time to stage a less suspicious death, or else leave Tallon alive and keep diverting him down false trails long enough to run out the clock.
 * Those Wacky Nazis
 * Torture Technician: Krebs and possibly Dr. Walter, as described by Drax. Fortunately, we never get to see them exercising their talents.
 * Ultimate Defence of the Realm
 * Villain with Good Publicity: Drax is revered by the British public as a great patriot, who is using his enormous wealth to gift Britain her own nuclear defence system. In fact, he is a Nazi in the guise of a British citizen who plans to use the missile to destroy London.
 * Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Blades sequence has no impact on the main rocket missile plot, although it does serve as an extended intro for Sir Hugo Drax, as well as giving M some much-needed characterisation.
 * It also provides Bond with several of the clues that later on will help him deduce the plot; first, that Drax is not entirely mentally stable, second, that despite his favorable public image he is actually a liar and a cheat, and finally, that Drax is anticipating some major event in the near future that will render all of his losses to date irrelevant.
 * Weaponized Exhaust: One of the few scenes from the novel to make it into the movie.
 * World War II: The background for many of the novel's events.