Can somebody explain the ending of Moonraker to me?

raptors_887

I have horrible reading comprehension. Where did the missile land and what happened to Drax?

Barbel

In the sea (Bond and Gala had changed the co-ordinates) right on top of the submarine carrying Drax & his men, who all therefore died.

Thunderpussy

Yes, The Moonraker destroyed the submarine. B-)

Miken Ayers

Thunderpussy wrote:

Yes, The Moonraker destroyed the submarine. B-)

Didn't it also wipe out several members of the media in attendance? Which I believe made this the one occasion Fleming's Bond was responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Thunderpussy

Welcome Miken Ayers.
You could be right, it's.a long time dince I Read it. Still
to lose a couple of media types to save the population of london
seems a fair trade.
After all the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.

Miken Ayers

Thunderpussy wrote:

Welcome Miken Ayers.
You could be right, it's.a long time dince I Read it. Still
to lose a couple of media types to save the population of london
seems a fair trade.
After all the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.

Thanks for the welcome. But yeah I read all the Flemings from January to this month. (now on Colonel Sun) and this book stuck with me a bit with everything from the weird off putting henchmen to the chalk cave. I also found the ending hilarious as well as ridiculous since he could've made Moonraker land any other number of spots considering he had an entire ocean, yet he dropped it on the sub to show off.

Thunderpussy

I think Col Sun is one of the best follow on novels. Are you going to
press on with the Gardner and Benson books ?

Miken Ayers

Thunderpussy wrote:

I think Col Sun is one of the best follow on novels. Are you going to
press on with the Gardner and Benson books ?

I will. Hit enough used book stores in my area that I was able to get all the Gardners, two of the Bensons, Devil May Care and Carte Blanche. The only ones I'm skipping are the Gardner and Benson adaptations.

Thunderpussy

-{ Good luck with your reading.
Just my Opinion, The Gardner Books are Good especially the early ones. The
Bensons are a lot poorer, Infact a couple are Really Bad. Still it will be
fun to find out for yourself.
Then you can come back and post how wrong I was. )
Most of my Bond Book collection was Bought in used Book shops, It's a great
way to pass an hour or two and sometimes you find the odd reference Book on
the Bond films. ) which is a bonus.

Miken Ayers

Thunderpussy wrote:

-{ Good luck with your reading.
Just my Opinion, The Gardner Books are Good especially the early ones. The
Bensons are a lot poorer, Infact a couple are Really Bad. Still it will be
fun to find out for yourself.
Then you can come back and post how wrong I was. )
Most of my Bond Book collection was Bought in used Book shops, It's a great
way to pass an hour or two and sometimes you find the odd reference Book on
the Bond films. ) which is a bonus.

I also understand that Gardner tries to maintain continuity with Fleming, but moved his timeline up ten years to avoid aging Bond too much. He also made his adaptation of Licence to Kill canon to his stories, but with the following book pretended he never did that. (I guess Felix getting eaten by sharks twice in his life was a bit of a stretch) However I could never find out if he ignores Colonel Sun or not.

And I know Benson wrote his books more in the spirit of the films with little continuity to anything before he wrote, Faulks wrote Devil May Care pretending to be Fleming, and Carte Blanche is a clean slate reboot like the Casino Royale film.

I'm hoping that realizing this ahead of time will help my enjoyment.

Jamesbondjr

I've just been rereading the Fleming books and carried on into the continuation novels as I've never read them before.

Colonel Sun is fantastic and Devil May Care is ok in parts.

I managed about 10 chapters of Licence renewed before giving up. I really disliked it, it felt like reading a novel written by someone who had only seen the worst Roger Moore Bond films. It really put me off reading any more of Gardner's books.

The tipping point was Bond sexualising the act of stripping down a pistol while trying to seduce a co-worker nicknamed Q'ute. That's the level the book descends too. It was terrible. Fleming must have been rolling in his grave.

I may go back and try Gardner again in the future but the first attempt left a bitter taste in my mouth.

You may enjoy them though, just throwing my 2 cents in

Asp9mm

Miken Ayers wrote:

And I know Benson wrote his books more in the spirit of the films with little continuity to anything before he wrote, Faulks wrote Devil May Care pretending to be Fleming, and Carte Blanche is a clean slate reboot like the Casino Royale film.

I'm hoping that realizing this ahead of time will help my enjoyment.

In a word, yes. Although Bensons cinematic Bond acts just like that and interacts with other chracters as he does in teh films, Benson tries to shoehorn the cinematic Bond into the literary world.

Carte Blanche is a reboot, but it is a reboot of Bond into the real world and not the real/fantasy borderland world that Fleming created. That grates with some fans, but I loved it.

Barbel

Miken Ayers wrote:

I could never find out if he [Gardner] ignores Colonel Sun or not.

In CS, M's servants the Hammonds are killed. Gardner gives M (Sir Miles Messervy, as opposed to Barbara Mawdsley/Judi Dench/Olivia Mansfield) new servants, the Davidsons- thus implicitly acknowledging the events of CS.

Miken Ayers

Barbel wrote:

Miken Ayers wrote:

I could never find out if he [Gardner] ignores Colonel Sun or not.

In CS, M's servants the Hammonds are killed. Gardner gives M (Sir Miles Messervy, as opposed to Barbara Mawdsley/Judi Dench/Olivia Mansfield) new servants, the Davidsons- thus implicitly acknowledging the events of CS.

Works for me!

0073

Miken Ayers wrote:

I also found the ending hilarious as well as ridiculous since he could've made Moonraker land any other number of spots considering he had an entire ocean, yet he dropped it on the sub to show off.

Well not really; the reason for the Moonraker to land where it did, was because Bond and Brand were in a hurry to reprogram the gyro settings. The only settings readily available for this were the original settings Brand had calculated everyday and could therefore remember there and then.

So that is why the Moonraker landed in the original target area. Only reason for the casualties was of course the fact that no one expected the missile to contain a live payload, or to head to the original target.

Miken Ayers

0073 wrote:

Miken Ayers wrote:

I also found the ending hilarious as well as ridiculous since he could've made Moonraker land any other number of spots considering he had an entire ocean, yet he dropped it on the sub to show off.

Well not really; the reason for the Moonraker to land where it did, was because Bond and Brand were in a hurry to reprogram the gyro settings. The only settings readily available for this were the original settings Brand had calculated everyday and could therefore remember there and then.

So that is why the Moonraker landed in the original target area. Only reason for the casualties was of course the fact that no one expected the missile to contain a live payload, or to head to the original target.

You're right. Forgot all about that.