From November 1976: a book that seldom seems to surface today: THE MAKING OF SPACE:1999.
I spend a fair amount of time perusing secondhand book stores and comic book stores whenever I'm visiting a new town or city but this one had, up until recently, eluded me. I hadn't made it my life's work to find it... it's just the sort of paperback I would buy without a second thought if I ever saw it. Which I never did.
So I eventually took the plunge and ordered a copy (for a lot more than the 85p cover price) from Amazon.
I've not had a chance to look at it in detail (and, in truth, I'm worried that the ancient binding might not respond to well to too much love at this advanced age) but I'm (once again) struck that it is not the sort of book that would ever appear nowadays. It's a text-heavy paperback which is dense with information but not a great format for stills, artwork etc. Today, it would be a studio-scrutinized coffee table tome with an abundance of images and a lot less text. And none of it critical.
This seems to have been published in the States and then shipped to the UK. This may explain why copies are few-and-far between.
Via YouTube I've watched the entire first season of Space: 1999 which is as good as ever in my opinion. But I didn't bother with the second season which was never shown in my ITV region and judging by the few second season episodes which I've seen I'm rather glad it wasn't shown. In 1976 you could buy Space: 1999 ice lollies too - just the thing for us kids in the infamous '76 drought :)
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ReplyDeleteagreed that season one was superb on all levels. I recently re-watched ' earthbound ' in memory of the late chris lee but the acting honours go to roy dotrice as the treacherous Simmonds. His freakout in the episode's closing scene is Oscar worthy.
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