This is an incredible treat for any fan of Space 1999. The first part is an expanded retelling of the pilot episode, Breakaway, which introduces a few new characters (a visiting schoolgirl, her mother and her teacher) and even works in the character Tony Verdeschi (who hadn't appeared until the second season). We're also given a history lesson, of how the space program took off during Kennedy's Presidency and that by 1984 construction had begun on a large-scale moonbase. There was World War III in the mid-80's. Moonbase Alpha is completed, not only a nuclear waste monitoring station for Earth but a replacement for the aging international space station, a staging ground or interplanetary exploration.
We're introduced to characters on the international space station, which is destroyed when the Moon gets blasted out of Earth's orbit and hurled into space. Koenig's fiance, who he left in order to take command of Alpha, is on vacation in the Fiji islands when it's obliterated by a massive tsunami. And there's the story of Admiral Robert Walker, who has secretly been storing weapons and new Hawks (the weaponized version of the Eagle transports) in a hidden cache on the moon. When the nuclear explosion happens on the far side of the moon, it ruins all his plans to take over the world. We're also shown the worldwide devastation that happens--earthquakes in London, New York City flooded, volcanoes erupting from the ocean floor. In Australia, Alan Carter's daughter is almost killed in one of the floods. In fact, one of the stories, told within the context of a PBS documentary, takes place a decade after Sept 13, 1999. The oceans have risen and the Planetary Emergency Agency has built megalithic domes to protect major cities and farmland.
This is a very cool book. I cannot wait for Volume 2.
This is an incredible treat for any fan of Space 1999. The first part is an expanded retelling of the pilot episode, Breakaway, which introduces a few new characters (a visiting schoolgirl, her mother and her teacher) and even works in the character Tony Verdeschi (who hadn't appeared until the second season). We're also given a history lesson, of how the space program took off during Kennedy's Presidency and that by 1984 construction had begun on a large-scale moonbase. There was World War III in the mid-80's. Moonbase Alpha is completed, not only a nuclear waste monitoring station for Earth but a replacement for the aging international space station, a staging ground or interplanetary exploration.
