Ian Fleming’s “Thunderball” is an adventurous Bond novel of conspiracy at sea, with an unusual history behind it. It grew out of a screenplay written with collaborators, and after a court case later editions credit Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham alongside Fleming. Some readers find its villains genuinely menacing and the comic opening chapters oddly detached from the rest.

The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.

About the book

Thunderball is the ninth book and the eighth novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. It was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 27 March 1961. The first novelisation of an unfilmed James Bond screenplay, it was born from a collaboration by five people: Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ivar Bryce and Ernest Cuneo. The first edition was published under Fleming's name, after which a legal case brought against him by McClory and Whittingham led to the court decision that it was "based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and the Author", with subsequent editions being credited accordingly.

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On screen

This book has been adapted for the screen 2 times — from 1965 to 1983.

FilmThunderball1965dir. Terence YoungIMDb
FilmNever Say Never Again1983dir. Irvin KershnerIMDb

Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →

Where the score comes from

The sources average 7.4 across 75 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 34% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Spy & espionage average of 7.6. That is how 7.5 comes out.