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I bought this book for one simple reason: I like Gerry Anderson and his Thunderbirds! I grew up with the series (and many more of Gerry's productions), following the adventures of the Tracy brothers as they jumped into their fantastic craft and zoomed off to rescue some unfortunate person or other. The one thing though, that the series never really showed you was the insides of those fantastic craft and equipment - what made them tick. Of course I was too young to appreciate the engineering that might have created them, but eventually I might have wondered: what was inside those fantastic craft that made them so unique? (you can't really count the episode in which Thunderbird 2 was shot down - I'm thinking of the shots of the holes poked in the machine!) and of course there's Jeff Tracy's statement that the parts of the machines are ordered from companies across the world, and no one manufacturer knows what their making. So by implication, neither The Hood nor you the viewer are going to know either! And then along comes this book - a big, glossy, colourful hard back, printed on thick, quality paper, which claims to "expose the secrets of the craft, machinery and headquarters of international rescue". This description is not quite accurate for included in the book are the Sun Probe space rocket that gave Alan, Scott and Tin-Tin a few sweaty moments, Sidewinder, the hapless army four-footed fiend and the Crablogger, which you wouldn't want to meet on a foggy night! These, of course are not international rescue machines, but... who cares! The book is stuffed full of interesting technical descriptions with cutaway sections of the craft throughout, much in the style of Mike Bradrocke or Bill Gunston. The one main difference from these fine artists, however, is that Graham Bleathman has rendered the full-colour illustrations in a way that gives them a drawn-by-hand feel and which is definitely one of the books' main strengths (the book could so easily have gained a certain coldness or formalism, which might appeal to The Nerd but would be totally boring to the rest of us). Also, the illustrations are very attractive and a pleasure to look at and one can imagine that they would easily fire up the imagination of any young person reading the book - in a nut shell, Graham Bleathman's renderings elevates him to his rightful place in the Gerry Anderson pantheon of artists to which Trim, Noble, and Bellamy belong. Page after page, details are abundant and although much of the drawings' technical data remains firmly in the imagination, much of it also retains an air of "believeability", (especially the flying machines) by borrowing from established aeronautical and engineering practices. If I have one niggle about the book it's that the Fireflash is nowhere to be seen which seems odd as in the series, the Fireflash made more appearances of significance than Crablogger, Sun Probe or Sidewinder put together. But no worries. This is a very enjoyable book and a treasure for any Gerry Anderson/Thunderbirds/Graham Bleathman fan and one thing's for sure, if The Hood had managed to get a copy, he would have abandoned his amateurish attempts to learn International Rescue's secrets and given Jeff and the boys many sleepless nights into the bargain!Read full review
Great book, fantastic details. Would recommend it to anyone interested in Thunderbirds. :) Bought for my dad as a present, so he can scratch build some resign models of the ships/vehicles.
"my son has just got into thunderbirds, he is 5years old..he loved this book,the only problem is so does his 44year old dad...great book..
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