James Bond and Moonraker

James Bond Novelizations

by Christopher Wood

A very regrettable incident has occurred. A US Moonraker space shuttle, on loan to the British, has disappeared - apparently into thin air. Who has the spacecraft? The Russians? Hugo Drax, multi-millionaire supporter of the NASA space programme, thinks so. But Commander James Bond knows better.

Aided by the beautiful - and efficient - Dr Holly Goodhead, 007 embarks on his most dangerous mission yet. Objective: to prevent one of the most insane acts of human destruction ever contemplated. Destination: outer space. The stakes are high. Astronomical even. But only Bond could take the rough so smoothly. Even when he's out of this world...

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Science Fiction, Suspense, Media Tie In, Adventure

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Christopher Hovelle Wood was an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for the Confessions series of novels and films which he wrote as Timothy Lea. Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, with Richard Maibaum) and Moonraker (1979).
Wood's many novels divide into four groups: semi-autobiographical literary fiction, historical fiction, adventure novels, and pseudonymous humorous erotica.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first discovered James Bond in the cinema the movie was called "Moonraker" and while it made me an immediate fan of Roger Moore as 007 I was somewhat puzzled as the Fleming "Moonraker" novel which I rate fairly high had very little in common with the book. Remember this was pre-internet era of globalization as we know it today.

Then I found this novelization by Christopher Wood and was pleased to read some more about James Bond as I already had read the Fleming and Markham novels various times, and something new is always welcome.

This book is closer to the movie with quite a few more Flemingesque moments written in the book as the movie has. Some of the big plot holes cannot be solved but are comfortable steered clear from. The story is more down to earth than the movie but of course we get into space which is somewhat different from the movie, I admit I liked the events of the movies less than the book offered. But it might have stretched the budget of 'Moonraker" too far.

It is a well written novel which together with 'The spy who loved me" is actually the best novelization written in the 007-verse. It does surpasses some continuation books easily as well. For a fun 007 adventure recognizable for movie fans you cannot go wrong. The so-called Fleming purist will pull up his nose in horror, but then there are fans and fans.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much like James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me, a gorier, sexier, harder, more sexist and more misogynistic take on the movie(s) with slightly altered details, making you think you are in a parallel universe.

It was fun (therefore 3 stars), but if you are not a Bond fan, stay far away. The endgame with the space battle is even sillier in print form.

[David Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard to find book. Printed in 1979 and it looks like it. Faded paper and small font.

But I enjoyed reading this adaptation. I then plugged in my Blu-ray of Moonraker and watched it again for the 50th time. love the James Bond movies.

Would love to read Christopher Wood's adaptation of "The Spy Who Loved Me". But the used paperback of that book is selling for $42+. I am not that crazy.

I can see where the movie cut a few corners from this book, but not too many.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very regrettable incident has occurred. A US Moonraker space shuttle, on loan to the British, has disappeared - apparently into thin air. Who has the spacecraft? The Russians? Hugo Drax, multi-millionaire support of the NASA space programme, thinks so. But Commander James Bond knows better.

Aided by the beautiful - and efficient - Dr Holly Goodhead, 007 embars on his most dangerous mission yet. Obective: to prevent one of the most insane acts of human destruction ever contemplated. Destination: outer space. The stakes a high. Astronomical even. But only Bond could take the rough so smoothly. Even when he’s out of this world…


Not to be confused with the Fleming original, this is the novelisation of the screenplay (which Wood also wrote) - hence the title - and follows the film closely, though it does include some interesting tangents. The James Bond portrayed here is closer to the novels than Sir Roger Moore ever played him and even though this includes the same wit and one-liners as the film, there’s a more gritty atmosphere to it all. The gondola chase is shorter (and has a much more abrupt ending than the bit in St Marks Square and so misses the bloody double-taking pigeon), the boat chase in the Amazon is preceeded by the fact that Bond has endured three days on the boat and we don’t get the scene where Corinne is chased by the dogs (Holly tells Bond about it when they get together in Venice). In fact, the book was written before the filming was shifted to France, since Corinne Dufour (the helicopter pilot who helps Bond and then pays for it) is Trudi Parker here, a Californian Valley-girl (when the production shifted to France, it necessitated the casting of a French actress). Jaws is very differently portrayed, with little of the slapstick - he’s not on the plane at the beginning or the boat in the Amazon, though he’s wet when he pulls Bond from the pool - and a nice touch of melancholy at the end (when he’s finally joined by a girl in the part of the space station that drifts off). Hugo Drax is as good a character as the film would suggest, though he’s clearly not Michael Lonsdale - the novelisation Drax “is a large man with shoulders like an American football player”, a “red head, with plastic surgery scarring on his right temple”, his right ear is badly mangled and his face has a “lopsided look because one eye was larger than the other”. Bond assumes this is because he was injured in the war but it made me wonder why a multi-millionaire hadn’t paid for the plastic surgery to sort it out.

I liked the book (I like Wood’s writing, generally), it has a good pace and a nice sensibility about it, but I can see how that might be influenced by my liking the film. As it stands, I enjoyed it and for a fan of the film, I’d say it was very much recommended. Fleming purists, however, might well disagree.

[Fred Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another surprisingly good novelization, although it's unusual to have a novel based on a movie that's based on a novel, but the movie hardly followed the original Fleming novel.

Christopher Wood cuts out a lot of the silliness from the movie. Jaws falling in love with a bespectacled blonde is omitted, along with some other things that Bond fans have complained about the movie.

Wood does not portray Hugo Drax as he is in the movie, but, instead, borrows the Drax from the original Ian Fleming novel: Redheaded with a scarred face and a mustache. The back cover even says that Drax "cheats at cards", but that's in the original Fleming novel and appears nowhere in this novelization.

The battle on the space station is a bit hard to follow, but I presume that most people who read this will have seen the movie anyway.

[Michael Fricker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow better and more like an Ian Fleming story than the actual movie it’s based on; Moonraker.

Christopher Wood does a great job capturing the tone of a down to earth era world James Bond even if he’s going into space during this story.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Bond is back for another mission and this time, he is blasting off into space. A spaceship travelling through space is mysteriously hijacked and Bond must work quickly to find out who was behind it all. He starts with the rockets creators, Drax Industries and the man behind the organization, Hugo Drax. On his journey he ends up meeting Dr. Holly Goodhead and encounters the metal-toothed Jaws once again.

First and foremost, this is basically a rehash of The Spy Who Loved Me, which also borrowed elements from You Only Live Twice: from the villains motivation to destroy the world in order to form his own utopia to an important millitary vessel mysterously disappearing; even Jaws returns as the villain's henchman. The idea of a billionaire with access to the finances and resources to go to space for their own purposes was considered a rather silly concept for a Bond film, but with billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos competing to go to space, it's not all that silly anymore. Also, how is it that no one was able to notice something as big as the Moonraker space station?

The main villain, Hugo Drax, is exactly the same as Stromberg, only worse. Both being billionaires who wish to destroy the world in order to create a new world with them at the top. Except, Drax's plan is easily worse: Drax's plan to repopulate the world with his chosen ones would simply not work and is incredibly idiotic the minute you realize that there are simply not nearly enough of them to rebuild or sustain any kind of civilization. His numbers alone would put humanity into a population bottleneck far more severe than that proposed by the Toba catastrophe theory, in which it is estimated the total number of humans on the entire Earth, at 10,000, or less even. His entire harem would be roughly equivalent to the population of a small village. There's also the fact that his group at no point is shown to have the skills, numbers, and resilience to survive in a de-populated world much less a world that would be ravaged by massive pollution from abandoned nuclear, industrial, and chemical sites, among other threats and dangers. The end result would likely lead to the total extinction of the human race, not a rebirth. Drax's right hand man, Chang, lacks any kind of personality and is killed halfway...only to be replaced by Jaws soon thereafter.

Goodhead, while not nearly as hated or poorly written compared to other Bond Girls, is a boring character and is considered one of the dullest and least interesting Bond Girls in the entire series. Her dynamic is just less interesting than Bond's dynamic with Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. This is made worse by the fact that her original counterpart, Gala Brand, is a much better character and she isn't even in this.

Ass Pull:
-The US military and Drax himself are able to launch fully-crewed and fully-fueled space shuttles into orbit in only a matter of hours. In reality, space shuttles from 1962 take an average six months of preparation before they could be launched.
-Drax is somehow able to deploy an entire space station, larger than anything to have existed in reality, without attracting the attention of anyone on Earth. Such a feat would have required perhaps dozens of launches in seeing all the components eventually assembled, and the station's radar jamming system would not help with this since it's so big that you should be able to see it with the naked eye.

The only reason why this came before For Your Eyes Only is very lazy and unneeded: to cash in on Star Wars, a huge success at the box office. Additionally, much like the other Bond films of this era, the film is incredibly campy and silly and syrupy: the film's premise was (and still is) pretty silly for a Bond movie, the scene where Bond gets away from hitmen in a "hover-gondola" (the overly peppy music and the loud grating motor doesn't help), and Bond fighting in zero-g with laserguns might be the most craziest thing (in a bad way and not in a good way) that's ever befallen the franchise. The pacing can be very slow at points thanks to the disappointing direction by Lewis Gilbert.

Despite the atrocious and abysmal execution, it's still amazing to see James Bond go to outer space. Though Bond does get tortured a bit throughout, we still get amazing action scenes and great acting, like always, though probably not the best. This film has impressive production and set design; the Moonraker space station in particular is astonishing. The special effects are very incredible for the time: the sky-diving scene in the opening had to be done 70 times to accomplish and it still looks great to this day; all the shots of the astronauts floating in zero-g is especially wicked given how many people are "floating". In fact, this film holds the record for the largest number of invisible hanging wires to be used in a single scene! And the acting, of course, is still decent from everyone.

To top it all off, this was too decisive for my tastes. This is a rather poor adaptation of Ian Fleming's original Moonraker...though, reading this was a headache. While it wasn't the best, it certainly wasn't the worst, either. It's like, go here, this happens, go there, that happens. And the ending doesn't make any sense. It ends in a way considered that they didn't know how to end it. This sequel was rather somewhat disappointing overall. Certainly nothing like The Spy Who Loved Me, which isn't what's expected in the first place.

[Blake Plummer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Interesting how violent this is compared to the movie and how often Bond is beaten to a pulp or burned within an inch of his life. Also loved that Bond was terrified the entire time he was in space. I like the movie, the book was good, no major differences. We get a lot more Bond in the jungle than I remember in the movie. Worst omission is that this is no longer at the very end of the story.

*upon seeing live footage of Bond and Holly being intimate in zero gravity*
M: "What is Bond DOING?"
Q: "Attempting Re-Entry, sir"

Classic.

[Marius Müller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sloopy novelisation of the movie. Do yourself a favor and read either the novel or watch the movie.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disjointed action lacking cohesion. Characters akin to crash test dummies with Bond the catalyst for carnage. True to form conceptually but this novelisation feels like it missed the mark.

Story: 2.5
Plausibility: 0.5
Sex: 3

Overall: 2

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

First things first; I am a massive fan of all things Bond. Moonraker is - in my sincere opinion - the worst of the Eon produced Bond films by quite a way. Ian Fleming's book of the same name is actually one of the better Bond novels and is badly let down by a film that jumped on the bandwagon that was created by Star Wars. As with the previous Bond film - The Spy Who Loved Me - the film is so different from Fleming's novel that a film tie in was written. It does serve one really good function; it highlights just how bad Moonraker was that only the 1967 version of Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again are actually not as good.
What we have here is a poor book of a poor film that shares a title with a very good book. My honest opinion is that unless you are a massive Bond fan, stick to Fleming's novel and give this a miss.

[Tony Drummond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the other novelisations have simply been a condensed version of the film and have added very little extra if you have watched the movie. This benefits from taking out some of the sillier bits of the film with the character of Bond being in the Fleming mode rather than Roger Moore. Some of the minor characters are given back stories which feel a little irrelevant but overall this was an enjoyable version of the story.

This was by first audio book and I think this added to my enjoyment. Perhaps a book version would have got 3 stars.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is the same as the movie, but Wood somehow makes it believable. Added bonus is the fact that the novel describes Bond as Fleming did, and not as Roger Moore.

[Richard Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally appeared on The Reel Bits as part of my 007 Case Files series.

Here’s a strange little anomaly. A novelisation that’s not only better than the film that it’s based on, but an improvement over the original novel from which both derive their name.

When you break it down to its component parts, Christopher Wood’s screenplay to the film of Moonraker uses a similar plot device (of disappearing craft) to You Only Live Twice and his own screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. (All three were also directed by Lewis Gilbert). Throw in a weird romance between Jaws and a pigtailed girl, a Bond Girl named Holly Goodhead, and one of the cheesiest closing entendres to date (“I think he’s attempting re-entry”) and you have the least of the Bond films. Until Die Another Day, anyway.

Like Wood’s James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me, his screenplay was sufficiently different from Ian Fleming’s original novel that Eon Productions authorised an officially novelisation. Unlike The Spy Who Loved Me, this book is an almost direct adaptation of the screenplay with few additions and extra detail. Yet even while maintaining the qualities of one of the lesser films, Wood’s writing not only grounds the high-concept narrative but gives us a fresh perspective on its central characters.

Moonraker is not one of my favourite Flemings, featuring a semi-nihilistic Bond going up against a quintessential villain intent on domination and building a master race. Being one of Fleming’s earlier novels (published in 1955), the two decades that had passed meant that the space race had moved on significantly in that time. Despite The Spy Who Loved Me’s end-credits promise that “James Bond will return…in For Your Eyes Only,” the popularity of Star Wars prompted producers to bump Moonraker up in the production cycle.

So, it’s odd that Moonraker, both the film and zthe novel, spends much of its time on the ground, such as a lengthy sequence in Rio De Janeiro that includes a prominent use of Sugarloaf Mountain on both page and screen. In the latter, there’s a pervasive silliness that had followed the series at least since the latter days of Connery, replacing tangible threats with puns, Funniest Home Video sound effects, and sight gags than an entire Tim Conway comedy special.

Yet the novelisation is a slightly different beast, grounding 007 in ways that Eon Productions wasn’t willing to do at that stage. Yes, there’s still a character names Holly Goodhead and a metal chomping henchman – not to mention Felming’s penchant for casual homophobic and racial slurs – but there’s some knowing literary winks as well. Unshackled from his obsession with nipples in his previous novelisation, Wood spends a lot of time establishing an interiority to his minor characters, from a one-night stand “ashamed of her carnality” to the buffoonish character of Gray. (Never have I felt more seen and insulted at the same time).

Bond himself gets the same interior treatment, rounding out his character more than either Fleming or the film managed to do. In the original Moonraker novel, one of my primary complaints was that Bond doesn’t really do anything, failing to anticipate Drax’s plan and kind of giving up at the end. The suave Moore Bond doesn’t have this issue, commanding a fear that’s tangibly written (rather than just being nihilistic) and being launched into space amidst a laser battle.

Perhaps the perfect balance for this story is a mixture of all three of the sources, taking Fleming’s version of Bond, Wood’s penchant for writing large-scale action films, and a maybe a dash of that cheekiness. I must admit, while the puns were laid on a little too thick in the final film, I was a little disappointed to find that one of my favourite double entendres was absent from the novelisation. Caught out by his higher-ups canoodling in a capsule with Holly, Q’s unforgettable line (“I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir”) – delivered on-screen by the legendary Desmond Llewelyn – is sadly missing in action.

This would also represent the last Bond novelisation for another decade, when Bond continuation author John Gardner adapted Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum’s Licence to Kill in 1989. In that time, the screen Bond would transition from Moore to Timothy Dalton and Gardner would begin a run of Fleming continuation novels that would ultimately outnumber the creator. So, if nothing else, JAMES BOND AND MOONRAKER is a totem at the crossroads of Eon Productions and Ian Fleming Publications. Beyond it, the world of Bond radically changed.

James Bond will return…in Licence Renewed.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 3 out of 5]

There came a point where the James Bond films, which had begun by being adaptations of the novels of Ian Fleming, began to simply take character names and maybe a couple of elements and create who new stories out of cloth from them. So much so that screenwriter Christopher Wood was able to novelize the two late 1970s Roger Moore Bond outings The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker with publishers simply putting “James Bond And...” at the front of the title to separate them from the earlier Fleming works. While Wood's novelization of The Spy Who Loved Me stands out as one of the better Bond novelizations, his adaptation of his own Moonraker script does not.

That is something that is due in large part to the lack of depth in this volume. One of the great things about Wood's The Spy Who Loved Me was that it delved into the backgrounds and back stories of many of the characters including villain Stromberg and the henchman Jaws (who readers discovered actually had a real name). Moonraker here lacks that depth with almost everyone involved being rather two dimensional and cardboard, not too different then the way they were written for the film. The one exception to that might be 007 himself though the characterization of him is almost schizophrenic at times with him being described like Fleming's original character and sometimes even coming across like him but spouting Roger Moore one liners and acting like Moore's Bond at other times. It's something that hampers the book considerably.

As does Wood's prose. With the previous novelization, Wood showed he was capable of doing some strong Bond writing and even pastiching Fleming himself at times. Here though the prose feels flat, workman like, often lacking in details. Worse, it often comes across as rushed and forced with lengthy paragraphs that feel like that might never stop. Far more than before, Wood feels like he is almost copying and pasting the script onto the page with little thought for filling things in for the reader. Neither of which is a good sign given that this runs a mere 220 pages.

Which isn't to say that it is one hundred percent identical to the film. Where Wood does makes changes, is when the novelization has moments of interest. If like me you've ever wondered why in the world a Space Shuttle was being loaned to the British government, Wood answers the question just a couple of chapters in which helps to fill in one of the big plot holes in the Bond franchise. In an interesting callback to the original (and essentially discarded) Moonraker novel, Hugo Drax here is described like Fleming's original character right down to the red hair, scarred face, and a couple of knowing moments where Wood hints at a potential Nazi background. The character of French pilot Corinne Dufour is replaced by a California blond named Trudi Parker in a callback to what Wood originally intended before practical considerations led to a change in character (plus a certain line of dialogue that Wood later rewrote for the final film is left intact here). Even during the final battle sequence, there is an entirely new sequence involving Bond which comes across rather well.

Perhaps the most notable thing about the novelization is its tone. While the one liners are by and large intact and characters like Jaws still make appearances, much of the more cringe-worthy elements of the film have been toned down. The Gondola chase in Venice for example is presented in and ends with a far more straightforward note for example, avoiding the ridiculousness of the film. The same is true throughout with Jaws appearing far later in the narrative then he did in the film and being presented in a more threatening light as well (though Wood can't make what the character does in the final act any more believable). Even the battle sequence at the end, being about as sci-fi as Bond has ever done, comes across far better than it did on screen. It's things like this and the changes he makes elsewhere that make this work as well as it does.

At the end of the day, James Bond And Moonraker feels like a bit of a letdown. It has moments of interest and difference that will make it of interest to the die-hard 007 fan. Yet comparing it even with Wood's other novelization, it feels like a flat and lifeless work much of the time. 007 may have gone out of this world but Wood's novelization feels like it never quite leaves the launchpad, something that feels like a shame given what might have been an even better version of that ill-regard Bond film outing.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

"His name is Jaws. He kills people."
The Roger Moore movie adaptation. A space shuttle has gone missing and James Bond is sent to find it. He meets billionaire Hugo Drax, the book version with the facial scars and red hair, not the movie version with the Chairman Mao suit and evil villain goatee. He meets Dr. Holly Goodhead and has some encounters with Drax's rotund Chinese henchman Chang. Bond has adventures in California, Venice, and Rio de Janeiro, but not Alaska. And once again he fights Jaws, and a giant snake.

Everything is going along nicely for most of the book. There are a bunch of gadgets involved, some of which could save Bond a great deal of trouble if he remembered to use them. Then he comes to the shuttle launch pad and it all falls apart. Everything after that is nonsense. The exhaust venting system is nonsense. Bond's escape from the pit is nonsense. The launch procedure is nonsense. The space station, the lasers, the quick-change space suits, all nonsense. Nothing about launching a space shuttle, how they operate, how they dock, nothing about them is even close to accurate. In a movie I can overlook this stuff, but in a book I have just too much time to pick it apart.

Now that I have eviscerated the novel let me speak in its defense. This book is based upon a movie so it has to stay close to the movie plot. It does and actually improves on it. The actual Ian Fleming book Moonraker is universally panned as Fleming's most ridiculous story, even more so than the voodoo one, so this is a better book of the same name. This movie came out right after "Star Wars" and every studio was trying to get out a space based movie to take advantage of the craze that came with it. So James Bond gets shot into space. Incidentally, this space craze led to dozens of movies like "The Black Hole" and TV shows like "Buck Rogers", continuing until they finally reached the be all and end all of all space movies, the Mount Everest of cosmic filmdom, the Greatest Space Movie of All Time. I am speaking, of course, of "Spaceballs".

It's a decent book. The plot is sufficiently evil, the villain so iconic that Dr. Evil mimics his clothes, and Bond actually gets physically injured like he used to in every Ian Fleming book. The science is crap. It is true that when the book was written the space shuttle was brand new and it was even conceivable that in the near future we would have a Stanly Kubrick space station. But that someone could build one without anyone noticing is unreasonable. It's not like building a hidden lair in a hollowed out volcano. Still, as a kid this was one of my favorite Bond movies.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not of the opinion that Moonraker is the worst of the Bond films...not by a long shot...but I will admit that I loathe the idiotic slapstick, lame/juvenile comedy, etc. I found an inexpensive copy of Christopher Wood's adaptation, and purchased it with only the lowest of expectations. Was I ever surprised! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It removed everything I hated about the movie, changed a few of the scenes from the film version, and what is left is a serious spy thriller, with humor in it, rather than low-brow attempts at comedy that miss the mark every time. I was so taken with the book that I intend to seek out Mr. Wood's other works, which will hopefully match the quality of this novel.

[Myles Parish · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that somehow manages to use the narrative voice of Ian Fleming to make the incredible credible, and the ridiculous enjoyable. Wood’s adaptation of his own script for the film adheres much more closely to said script, unlike his superior adaptation of his script for The Spy Who Loved Me, and so his Moonraker suffers. However, it’s still an enjoyable read, and it moves along at a swift pace. Wood’s aping of Fleming’s prose style is very effective and at times it feels like the original author has returned from beyond the grave to try and bring the crazy Moonraker film back down to earth. It’s a noble attempt, and it definitely bears up to repeat reads.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novelization of the 1979 movie made to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars adapted from his own script by screenwriter Christopher Wood. A combination of the movies plot (which shares pretty much just a name with the Fleming book) but with a Bond that acted more like Fleming's book Bond than Roger Moore from the movies. An entertaining read for a fan of all things Bond. (A fun read but my copy of this book had a misprint that replaced some earlier pages with later ones)

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

First time reading a novelization of the James Bond film, it does add a little extra information but besides that its a decent book. I think there is only one minor change from the movie to the book and that's the scene with Bond and Drax shooting together when Bond is investigating Drax and is own his property, that's not in the book at all.
The book is very descriptive and the chapters are very short. So its an easy read.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hugo Drax, billionnaire philanthropist, has donated the Moonraker shuttle to NASA. When the shuttle is lost on its way to Britain, M orders James Bond to investigate.

A diverting couple of hours, which is a fairly good novelisation of the film, making this another book of the film of the book.

[Druss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook created by the James Bond Radio podcast. A good listen. Different to the movie. Written by the man who wrote the Confessionsbooks in the 70s. Descriptive and gives context to aspects of the movie.

[Donavon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Wood does fantastic job writing the story in Fleming's style. Bond is a man in the novel and not a super hero as he comes across in the movie.

Most of the cheese from the film is gone, which is a very welcome change.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Bond Radio audiobook alert. The narrators were top notch, as always. Cheers to Dan Gale and Tom.

[John Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christopher Wood novelizes his own movie script and tones down many of the absurdities in it, but still leaves us with a rather flat tale.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10

[Irwin Fletcher · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my opinion "Moonraker" by Ian Fleming is probably the best James Bond novel while "Moonraker" by Christopher Wood is probably the worst. I say this as somebody who very much enjoys the film "Moonraker" in spite of its problems and poor reputation. It at least doesn't take itself too seriously and is a pretty fun ride. Christopher Wood seems like he's trying to re-create the seriousness of the literary Bond using one of the campiest Bond films as its source material. It just doesn't work. The source material isn't really to fault though because I thought Wood's "The Spy Who Loved Me" novelization was pretty terrible as well. That was probably my least favorite Bond novel by Fleming (like "Moonraker" the film doesn't follow the novel at all, hence the novelization) but I'd gladly read it again before I'd dive back into Wood's adaptation of TSWLM. Both books are just terribly written in my opinion and manage to strip away all the fun/excitement of the films while failing to capture the magic of a Bond novel. I can't imagine why this book currently has a 3.61 average rating, I suspect that multiple people have mistaken this entry for that of Ian Fleming's novel.

[Ira Livingston · Rating 1 out of 5]

Christopher Wood returns to write the novel adaptation of his screenplay. And continues the storyline of his ultimate villain creation JAWS.

I really did enjoy his first book "The Spy Who Loved Me" which I liked even better than Fleming's original book. However, his version of "The Moonraker" falls short by along shot. I realized while reading this the campy one-liners appear, and although I grind my teeth in the theater during the films, reading them makes it that much more depressing.

Fleming's original book, is actually still a much better Bond tale. I plan on continuing my reading of Bond - the next one being turned over to John Gardner. Although this is part of the Bond cannon now, I would not recommend it to even diehard 007 fans.

Overall rating of book series:
1 - Casino Royale / On Her Majesty' Secret Service
2 - Goldfinger
3 - From Russia with Love
4 - Live and Let Die
5 - Diamonds are Forever / Dr. No
6 - Moonraker
7 - Colonel Sun
8 - Thunderball
9 - James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me (Wood)
10 - You Only Live Twice
11 - For Your Eyes Only / Octopussy & The Living Daylights
12 - The Man with the Golden Gun
13 - The Spy Who Loved Me
14 - James Bond and Moonraker (Wood)

[Beauregard Shagnasty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an enjoyable beach read. A lot of Bond purists turn up their noses at Moonraker but I have always enjoyed it, with one major caveat, the inclusion of Jaws, which was a terrible mistake. He should have never returned for a second outing as a Bond villain. He is popular with audiences,but the character is ridiculous.In this novelization, there is mercifully less of Jaws. Hugo Drax is a marvelous villain. He is given some wonderful lines: "See to Mr Bond. Make sure some harm comes to him." and "You defy all my attempts to plan an amusing death for you, Mr Bond." All in all, not bad.

[Kevinjwoods · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suffers from being a novelisation of Moonraker.