Hijacked Spaceships, Asteroids and Secret Bases

 

When Thunderbirds were king--when the original "Supermarionation" show was on TV in 1965 and 1966--there was a slew of paperback novels featuring original Thunderbirds stories. This was, of course, inherently awesome.  A half-dozen of these books were written by John W. Jennison, sometimes under his own name and sometimes using the pen name John Theydon. Jennison was a prolific author during the 1950s and 1960s, turning out over 100 books under various pen names. Because he often did use other names, I had a bit of trouble finding a complete list of his work. He did do a lot of media tie-in work, especially for Gerry Anderson shows such as Thunderbirds, and I think that tie-ins might represent the bulk of his work.

The third Thunderbirds novel, published in 1966, was one of Jennison's best. There's a disaster at a moon base, with a worker buried alive with a limited oxygen supply. Thunderbird 3--the craft capable of space travel--takes off with Alan and Scott Tracy to mount a rescue.

It turns out the trapped guy managed to find his own way out, which is a good thing because the Thunderbirds crew never get around to mounting a rescue. Their arch enemy--a power mad villain called The Hood--uses his hypnotic powers to hijack a space freighter carrying special equipment to the moon to help with the rescue. He also captures another of the Tracy brothers, the scientist "Brains" and superspy Lady Penelope. 

Thunderbird 3 gives chase. The action moves to the asteroid belt. Several of the Tracy brothers end up stranded on the asteroid Ceres while the Hood escapes with three hostages after taking over Thunderbird 3. Back on Earth, Jeff Tracy--the father of the group--gets some time in the air taking over Thunderbird 2 as they search for the Hood.

Eventually, the action moves to a secret base in Tibet, with the Tracy brothers planning a raid to rescue the hostages and stop the Hood from carrying out a plan to take over the world.

It's all great fun. In the show, Jeff Tracy is a strong character (in one episode, giving a speech about the whole point of their operation being to simply save lives that is absolutely wonderful), but its great to see the former astronaut in a pilot's seat. Several of the Thunderbird vehicles play a part in the action. Parker, the reformed burglar who works as a chauffer to Lady Penelope, gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome when he volunteers to parachute into the Tibetan mountains to find the Hood's base.  Lady Penelope herself pulls off a daring escape from that base.

The ending, I think, was a little abrupt, but the novel as a whole is glorious. It accurately captures the personality of the various characters; and it is fast-paced, with the action moving from Earth to deep space and back to Earth in a way that makes sense in context. If you are a fan of Thunderbirds (and if you aren't, there's something wrong with you*), then this is a must-read novel.

*just kidding, of course. differences in personal tastes should always be respected.