2003 Archive 
THE COMPLETE BOOK OF THUNDERBIRDS
by Chris Bentley
softcover, 128 pages, bound, A4 sized, 13 pounds sterling
A softcover book which was originally intended as coffee table book. Cost of production prevented this from happening. It now fits well in with its predecessors of the '90s: "Century 21 Vision" (on special effects by Derek Meddings) and "Thunderbirds Are Go" (concept, episode guide).
The book is almost completely in colour and most pictures have a high quality - it makes you wish some of them were printed larger than the average 3" size. The layout is attractive, paper and print quality excellent. And a pages are properly bound - not glued together.
The foreword is written by Gerry Anderson - dated 14th April 2000 - this year's birthday. He states he's best known for Thunderbirds and that's OK with him. Curious, since for the last few years he is frequently quoted to say "I hate those puppets".
The book itself is composed of two parts. The main body of text and sideliners. The main text contains the usual topics like how did Thunderbirds come about, descriptions of the machines and their Tracy owners, voice artists and an inevitable episode guide - things that belong to a "complete" guide. The sideliners are quotes or remarks made by people involved in the series and give a more personal touch to the book as well as different points of view to the topic.
The book is not a completely original work, I think most of it is not. Many parts of the text are copied or freely quoted from articles published earlier in Fanderson's FAB magazine, published or broadcasted interviews and inspiration from other books on Thunderbirds. Anyone collecting Thunderbirds books will have the "haven't I read this somewhere before" experience. It is difficult to prevent this, since the number of topics is limited and once the truth is told, others can only repeat it in one form or another.
The presentation of the book is well done, and even if a large part of the text as well as many of the pictures are old hat to the senior Thunderbirds fan, it is a nice compilation for anyone else who wants to come up to speed on the subject of Thunderbirds. If you would chose only one book on Thunderbirds this year, this book may well be it. However, it does leave me hoping for a "Definite Guide" - one that spells the fewer seen pictures (ever tried to search the local press photo libraries on the Slough studios or the scrapbooks of the studio personnel?), less known stories or even new discoveries.
Well... we can always dream.
Some remarks on the various sections.
The Making of the Thunderbirds
Information largely identical to the FAB magazine articles of the same name.
Machines
All five Thunderbirds are covered on their own page, illustrated with some mostly well known pictures. The top/bottom/side views of these machines would have been nice - to make it "complete". FAB1 is also mentioned and, disappointingly, all Pod machines have to share a single page with only the Mole and Domo as well known illustration.
People
All main characters have their own page too. Little text, many pictures. The Tracy brothers are shown head-to-toe and reveal they are really puppets: the body of Scott, Virgil and John is one and the same, just another head screwed on and the sash coloured modified. After a short lived attempt by FAB magazine to make John the eldest, the "complete" guide stays with the official studio line of the sixties where Scott is the eldest, although one can keep quarreling about their age. Scott is supposedly 26 though the oldest texts state he's 31.
Episode guides
Yet another one, yawn, yawn, yawn. One page for each. With four to ten small 1" screen captures of the episode, the entire episode is summarized, not ending with a cliffhanger. The one thing that makes this episode guide different from others, are the additional notes on continuity errors, cross appearances of side characters, broadcasting dates and voice artists. But that's only one third of the information and much taken again from the episode guides of FAB magazine. The other two third, well, unless you know absolutely nothing about Thunderbirds, it's a bit of waste: "deja vu all over again". And to add oil to the fire: why no mention about the production order versus ITC order versus broadcasting order.
Additional adventures
Included in the list of Thunderbirds episodes are also the two feature films. Remarkably without any pictures at all. All the more remarkable because in the "Making of" section, several shots from both films are seen.
The crew of International Rescue also played a part in four mini-EP stories. The text claims that characters and machines introduced in these stories reappeared in comics and novels. What characters and what machines? The mini-EPs not based on a television adventure, only featured the regular Thunderbirds and FAB1.
The next set of additional stories are the first six stories of Thunderbirds in TV21. The reason - written by Alan Fennell - is a feeble one. All other stories have equal right, as do the Lady Penelope stories if this book wants to be "Complete". The stories included are nicely summarized.
The novels for Armada paperbacks and World Distributors complete the section. These suddenly do include the Lady Penelope stories.
What's missing is the Armada paperback on Thunderbirds Are Go - if only because it contains the missing scenes that were shot but never made it to the screen (another article from the dutch TV20 magazine, later redone in FAB magazine was ready to inclusion).
Another obvious missing adventure, in 3D no less, is the View Master story on the Hood cornering a giant transporter aircraft.
Beyond
The book ends with a small section on the mistreatment of Thunderbirds by the American Polygram division changing it into "Turbocharged Thunderbirds". The less said about this the better.
The section also refers to the successful mime show based on Thunderbirds and the stage show of the series with larger puppets.
THUNDERBIRDS - TOP SECRET ANNUAL 2001
by Sam Denham
hardcover, 60 pages, bound, A4 sized, 6 pounds sterling
This is the traditional hardcover annual to continue a tradition. But at the same time, breaks the tradition by using perfect print and paper as opposed to the lesser quality of the sixties annuals.
This time there are no stories and comics - the whole book is one big photo novel story on the episode of "Security Hazard". This allows all five Thunderbirds machines to be featured. The picture layout however retained its comic image in that the individual frames are oddly shaped and give a sense of drama and speed. The screen captures are from high definition video, as once or twice just the slightest of picture lines are shown. Using original 35 mm film frames would probably be too labour intensive as they might need some cleanup, whereas the video had undergone the digital cleanup already.
The four different plots in the story are interrupted by sections that explain the Thunderbirds machines and the pilots. For an annual, this treatment is very appropriate. The birthdates are consistent with the "Complete" guide, though different from the original sixties dates. Six puzzles or games make the finishing touch to the annual.
It's a nice book and if all episodes would be treated as such, we have 31 more years to look forward to (or 33 if the feature films may have similar treatment) to build a complete picture reference. Nonetheless, I do miss an original annual with new, original comics and stories. Somehow, I knew the annual's contents before I even started reading it.
THUNDERBIRDS - FAB CROSS SECTIONS
hardcover with sleeve, 32 pages, bound, 14" x 11", 13 pounds sterling
by Graham Bleathman
A book full of cutaway technical drawings of all five Thunderbirds, FAB1, FAB2, the Lady Penelope mansion, Tracy Island and trouble makers Sun Probe, Sidewinder and Crablogger.
Each cross section is a two page spread in full colour with many explanations of what's what. The captions are connected by lines to the object described. This is different from older technical drawings where there would be numbered bullets in the picture and a neat listing below the picture with all descriptions. My personal feeling is that the latter gives a more "technical" presence. The current approach however does not hide any part of the machine behind a bullet.
The presentation of the book is almost flawless. The one nitpick one may have is that due to the small page count and the hardcover treatment, it is impossible to view any page spread completely flat. Some details are always hidden in the spine. The Lady Penelope mansion looks a bit odd - the left wing of the house looks definitely compressed compared to the other wing. Running out of page space perhaps?
The Tracy Island ("impossible to build in real life" according to Derek Meddings) must have caused Graham headaches too. How to make the best of some impossible situations. Like where the sofa for TB3 crosses the launchpad of TB1 if these items really are where the tv series wants you to believe they are.
I think he did it all quite admirably. The Mole is the only pod verhicle that has been given full treatment. All other verhicles share another page spread but are not cross sections - "just" very clear drawings of these machines. In this, the Cross Sections are more "Complete" than the book with that name.
Had the two book been merged and kept the king size of the Cross Sections, this combination would have been an real winner, albeit expensive.
For anyone interested in the technical features of Thunderbirds, this is the book. Comparing it with previous drawings by Graham and his predecessor in the sixties, shows a nice evolution of increased detail (and silliness of something non-existant).
At 13 pounds it's a bargain - especially for the Hood.
BRAINS PUZZLE BOOK
by Glenn Dakin
32 pages, stapled, A4, 3 pounds
A puzzle book aimed at the younger fan, but some puzzles may take the older fan a minute or so too! All pages are black and white, bright white paper. Cloning is obviously popular in this 21st century as a puzzle on page 12 shows many cut/paste groups of identical people on an exhibition ground to hide the position of Brains.
The book is good fun, but not really for the older Thunderbirds fan - unless he needs to have one copy of every piece of merchandise.
THUNDERBIRDS COLOURING BOOK
LADY PENELOPE COLOURING BOOK
24 pages, stapled, A4, 2 pounds
Both books are what they claim to be: colouring books. And therefore completely in black and white line drawing. Not much to say about them. They're aimed at the younger fan to exercise his hand and eye motion control. I cannot help thinking that most of the full page illustrations were made using tracing paper to trace projected or blown up frames from episodes. Pictures from Terror in NY City, Pit of Peril, Day of Disaster and many others are straight from the TV episode. The same is true for the Lady Penelope book: Parker's 'Oliday, Brink of Disaster, Trapped in the Sky - whenever Lady P. was part of it, a picture can be found in this book.
CRY WOLF
MARTIAN INVASION
DAY OF DISASTER
CHAM CHAM
by Sally Byford
24 pages, stapled, 8" x 8", 3 pounds
Stories told and illustrated, based on the tv episodes by the same name. Aimed at the young and those who just learnt to read. The illustrations are very coarse and in no way resemble the ones by Steve Kyte or Graham Bleathman. But those highly detailed and accurate pictures would be a waste on the youngsters. The story books look more like already finished colouring books with added texts.
I never liked a similar set of books in the mid '90s, and I don't personally like these books either. But then they are not aimed at me but at people like Bob and Tony Williams. And they'd love it - especially because they feature in one of the books!