It’s a well-known fact in my household that, like many of my age, the programmes of Gerry Anderson in the 1960s were my first experience of science fiction. In fact, one of my first and earliest memories is of sitting in a chair aged about 3, watching an episode of Thunderbirds. Along with Stingray and later Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, they were with Doctor Who and Star Trek an important part of my early life as I’m sure they were to many.
So, it was with this in mind that I was pleased to receive for review two novellas based on two later Gerry Anderson television series being published by Anderson Entertainment, the company founded by Gerry Anderson, and continuing today, even though Gerry passed away in 2012.
Both novellas are published on 13 September 2024 for ‘Breakaway Day’, which is a significant day in the Space: 1999 universe and a milestone for fans – the date that Earth’s moon was blown out of orbit by a massive nuclear explosion in the first episode of the series. The books will be published in a limited-edition hardback and paperback, with eBooks to follow at a later date.
With that in mind it seems appropriate to review the Space:1999 novella first. (The UFO review will appear in the next few days.)
Context, then, for those who don’t know. Space: 1999 entered production in 1973 and would run for 48 episodes over the next two years, in two seasons.
If I remember right at the time, it was one of the most expensive television series made in the UK up to that point. And it showed it. Lavish sets and models made the programme look expensive, even if the scripts were not always scientifically accurate. Even the initial premise was a tad dodgy, as the series followed the adventures of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, a human colony stranded on the Moon after it gets blown out of Earth’s orbit by a massive nuclear explosion.
Despite this dodgy science, the series was initially popular. Even when it became a series that seemed to be little more than ‘alien of the week’, as a young boy I loved it.
In The Armageddon Engine, Commander John Koenig and the people of Moonbase Alpha face an uncertain fate when a planet-killing alien weapon at the heart of a sinister cloud diverts their lost Moon on to a fatal trajectory.
As each moment brings the Moon closer to total obliteration, Koenig leads a desperate mission into the unknown to save all life on Alpha. Does hope lie within a rag-tag colony of refugees hiding in the shadow of devastation? Or can the Alphans find a path into the heart of the war machine and end its destructive rampage? With time running out, the answer will mean the difference between survival… or annihilation.
So: big stakes here, as was normal for the series. The story is not particularly new – see Star Trek’s The Doomsday Machine for a similar theme – but the good news here is that James Swallow, author of many books in other franchises such as Warhammer 40000 and Doctor Who, has captured that feel that the series had.
James manages also to do that tricky thing of reminding readers of things and people they may not have read about or seen in about 50 years, whilst keeping the plot (such as it is) going. New readers should be able to pick up the plot without difficulty, whilst fans, who this book is really aimed at, will pick up the details quickly and easily.
As you might expect, there’s not a lot of space for detail in less than 150 pages, but even so the main personnel feel like they did in the TV series – Koenig grappling with moral and ethical issues whilst trying to stoically look after his crew, doctor Helena Russell his quiet support. There is no drastic reimagining of the characters here.
I particularly liked the fact that because this story appears to be set some time in Season One, we also have the calm and meditative manner of chief scientist Victor Bergman (played by Barry Morse in the original series) and not any of the characters introduced in the rather different Season Two. This is to me an advantage. Bergman is Space: 1999’s Spock to Koenig’s Kirk, providing the objective voice of logic and reason here, as he did in the series, and this provides a counterpoint to all of the action elements in the story.
The aliens by comparison are rather simple but do the job intended – even if their outcome is not given in detail!
However, fans of the original, like me, I suspect will enjoy this a great deal. For them the important thing is that this feels like an episode that was never filmed. Anyone wanting to read further the adventures of Moonbase Alpha will enjoy this one.
SPACE 1999: THE ARMAGEDDON ENGINE by James Swallow
Published by Anderson Entertainment, 13th September 2024
145 pages
ISBN: 978-191 4522 833
Review by Mark Yon