Christopher Wood's Moonraker novel question:

chrisisall

I'm currently reading his SWLM novel, and I'm liking it immensely! Is his MR novel any near as good?

Hardyboy

I like it--it's far more serious and Flemingesque than is the movie. . .though it's odd that at the start Bond is reading the exact same health report he was given in the novel Thunderball!

chrisisall

Hardyboy wrote:

I like it--it's far more serious and Flemingesque than is the movie. . .though it's odd that at the start Bond is reading the exact same health report he was given in the novel Thunderball!

Sounds good, should I pursue a copy?

Hardyboy

chrisisall wrote:

Sounds good, should I pursue a copy?

Yes--I think both Wood novels are well-written and interesting; "must" reading for the serious Flemingist!

Napoleon Plural

Yeah, Wood is closest to Fleming imo and others' opinions too, ironically as the films were pretty way out and criticised for not being like Fleming. Yeah, get James Bond and Moonraker as I think it's officially called.

superado

Yep, these two novelizations impress me as the closest approximations to Fleming had he written Bond in the 1970s. I believe that MR, because it was heavily derived from the screenplay that Wood wrote, has a scene or two that didn't make it to the movie. What I liked about these novelizations is how Wood was able to make the fantastic elements seem reasonably plausible on the page, at least to the level of fantasy of Fleming's style.

Thunderpussy

I too enjoyed C wood's Bond novels. As others have pointed out He gets very close to
Fleming's style of writting and IMHO is better than many who followed him.
Still remember the excitement of getting this Book from the school Book club, having
to wait till I got home to read it.

BIG TAM

I remember reading JAMES BOND & MOONRAKER back in 1979. I couldn't understand why the silliness of the film was missing from the book. Just goes to prove that you don't have to drill your tongue into your cheek to present an OTT storyline.