Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 5, 2016
Moonraker is the third novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature the Secret Service agent James Bond. It was published by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1955 with a cover design conceived by Fleming. The only Bond novel set entirely in Britain, it features Drax, an ex-Nazi working for the Russians, who plans to build a rocket, arm it with a nuclear warhead, and fire it at London. Moonraker, like Fleming's previous novels, was well received by critics. It plays on fears common in the 1950s, including rocket attacks (following the V-2 strikes of the Second World War), Soviet communism, the re-emergence of Nazism and the "threat from within" posed by both ideologies. Fleming examines Englishness, and the novel shows the virtues and strength of England. Adaptations include a broadcast on South African radio in 1956 starring Bob Holness and a 1958 Daily Express comic strip. The novel's title was used in 1979 for the eleventh official film in the Eon Productions Bond series and the fourth to star Roger Moore as Bond; the plot was significantly changed from the novel to include excursions into space. (Full article...)