Lunar Attack

Space: 1999 #5

by John Rankine

FORMER LIBRARY BOOK STAMPED WITHDRAWN INSIDE COVER AND ON FIRST PAGE. NO OTHER MARKS OR WRITING ON PAGES.

Genres: Science Fiction

157 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

John Rankine (born Douglas Rankine Mason) is a British science fiction author, who has written books both as John Rankine and as Douglas R. Mason.

Rankine was born in Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales and first attended Chester Grammar School and in 1937 went to study English Literature and Experimental Psychology at the University of Manchester, where he was a friend of Anthony Burgess (as mentioned in Little Wilson and Big God: The First Part of the Confession, AB's autobiography).

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space 1999 was a not-really-very-good television series fifty or so years ago; it was on for two years, and the first season was better than the first. We watched it because there was little other sf on television then, and it often looked cool, even if it was silly at times. The Moon takes off on a cosmic pinball jaunt through the cosmos, hi-ho! A variety of authors of the time did novelizations of the first season in ten volumes, and Michael Butterworth wrote adaptations for 23 of the 24 second season episodes in a six-volume series. There's nothing especially noteworthy about most of them; they vary in quality as did the scripts upon which they were based. The first season seemed to borrow heavily from Star Trek ideas. This fifth book from the first season was written by John Rankine, a science fiction writer who was also sometimes known as Douglas R. Mason. I wonder if the authors got to choose what episodes they wanted, or if they were assigned? These four were some of the weakest, but he adapted them faithfully and competently. The episodes in this one were War Games from a screenplay by Christopher Penfold, The Last Enemy by Bob Kellett, Space Brain, which was also by Penfold, and The Troubled Spirit, which was written by Johnny Bryne. (No, not -that- Byrne, the English one.) Anyway, Space 1999... a brief nostalgic visit to near-forgotten television.

[Valerie]

My copy's an ordinary paperback--with the cover off, which means I probably got it from one of my kin who worked in a bookstore. (No, I found the cover: It'd become detached. My mend is fairly basic--I just taped it back on).

The best thing about these versions is that they have photos in the middle from the tv show. Not all novelizations of tv shows have such a bonus. Fair warning, however: If you haven't seen the episodes or read the book before, the picture captions do contain spoilers.

Rankine's a little better than Tubbs as a novelizer, but there's still too much Sturm und Drang for my tastes--one of the things I always liked about the Andersons' (?Andersens'--no I checked, it's Andersons') ? Anyway, Gerry & Sylvia's)shows was their flair for understatement (how's that for an oxymoron?).

I also found the stamp: I picked this up in Oklahoma, which means that it was probably about 10 years old when I got it.

There's no table of contents, but there are five stories:

I A demonstration about the power of expectations. (Note that the implication is that Dr Russell has a wide variety of superhuman powers--most of which she has no conscious access to.)

II A séance involving plants. This is more than a bit odd. The plants don't seem to have much volition in the matter. The haunted protagonist seems to be caught in an inescapable trap--but if he hadn't been so obsessive, his doppelganger probably wouldn't've been so dangerous.

III A story of counterpolar (? I mean they're on opposite sides of their sun) planets, perennially at futile war (since they can't get at each other for some reason. Query--they've never heard of satellites?), who see an opportunity in a vagrant planetoid. It's not very rational. Why WOULD people on inaccessible planets be at war? What's the pretext? Why not call it a day, and make peace?

IV A Space Brain tries to deal with the fact that the Moon is unable to steer--and is on a collision course with the Brain. The problem is complicated by the lack of a common technical language.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good entry into the Space 1999 novel series. This volume is an adaptation of four episodes: "War Games", "The Troubled Spirit", "The Last Enemy" and "Space Brain". They're all pretty good episodes to begin with, and the fairly seamless linking of them is excellent. Good characterization and well-written by John Rankine. This is a novel you don't have to be all that knowledgeable of Space 1999 beforehand, as you'll learn pretty much all you need to in the telling of the tale itself.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Novelization of episodes of the series. Rather bland and uninteresting.