Fireball XL5 World Space Patrol Technical Operations Manual – Gerry Anderson’s Fireball XL5, The 1962 Sci Fi Series Preceding Star Trek and Doctor Who Hardcover – 1 Mar. 2024

Very interesting

Quality product speedily delivered. Thankyou

Hardback book. As described. Just the ticket!

Of course it's going to get a high mark. It's a pleasure to dive back into something that so enthused me as a child. But this gets 5 stars because it does the job so well. The authors have taken care to develop the mythology in a self-consistent way. The aliens called "the Invaders", for example; we're told that's "a direct translation of the name of their people from their native language". Elsewhere we learn the historical reason for the patrol ship class being called Fireball.And they incorporate details from the extended mythology of the comics. I still vividly remember the assassination of the Kaplan from TV21, a story I read nearly 60 years ago, and it was nice to see it referenced here.An autobiographical detail: I was 5 years old when Fireball XL5 started running on TV. My friend across the road, who was a year older, told me that Venus's real name was "Frenchy da Lil". I was sceptical even then, but in this book it says Venus was born "Lily Lumière". I can see how if that was mentioned in a newspaper article at the time, a 6-year-old boy might get it garbled when telling his friends. But was it part of the backstory in 1962, or was it a much later addition? If the latter, it's strange how my friend hit on the name Lil/Lily. I'll never know the truth, probably.