3, 2, 1...

Forget the movie. Ian Fleming's Moonraker - the third Bond novel, published in 1955 - shares a villain named Drax and not much else with the film. No space stations. No laser battles. We hadn't even made it to the lunar surface yet.

What you get instead is a slow burn, with a sentimental ending that caught us completely off guard. That's the real out-of-this-world moment.

Inside Tip 📌

The US paperback was first published as Too Hot to Handle - and it's become something of a collector's item on eBay.

Lead-in Image

Moonraker, Ian Fleming, Signet Books, 1960