Space: 1999 Catacombs Essays
Michael Butterworth

When ITC Television first approached Wyndham Books (then Star Books) to negotiate to have the new series novelised, filming on the episodes had only just commenced, with about two actually filmed. I was then approached to write the books, but in order to ensure publication at the precise time of screening in this country, they had to be written very fast- one per three weeks in fact.

When the time came to start I discovered that I only had four scripts- Pinewood Studios where the programmes were shot were not prepared to release all the scripts because all the scripts weren't written; indeed, as I have already said, the programmes weren't even filmed. I had to fit four scripts to a book and somehow make a novel out of them (my brief from the publisher) so I set to with the first four scripts (they weren't in chronological order) and did the best I could with them.

By the time I'd got to the next book (Mind Breaks Of Space) I had to wait for more scripts to be written. In many cases, the preliminary scripts were sent to me (ie not the final drafts), thus, as many of the cast were not then hired, I had to work with names like Simon Hayes, and got to thinking that Sahn and Sandra were two different people. I had to invent dates and many technical details. I had to do all the visuallising because the scripts offer very little of this: therefore my descriptive details will often (mostly) vary from the actual films themselves. I got to see a few of the actual programmes at odd moments throughout the writing of the books but nothing like the number I should have seen, as most hadn't been shot. I got the first one (The Metamorph) mostly right because this was the first one they shot and I got a chance to see a prescreening.

In short, I did everything possible to do as good a job as I could, because I knew that fans of the programme would not be satisfied unless I did. But it was impossible, and the end result is that the books are really quite different and should be read as such. They have more than 50% of my own invention in them and often, in order to make the stories fit into a "novel" (which I'd been told to do), I had to bend the stories and alter what the characters said, and have them do things they didn't do or else do them in the wrong order, and so on.

As regards the characters: I had little to go on save the scripts and as many of them were new I had to invent them to a certain extent. I didn't actually realise, for instance, that Tony is supposed to be tough. I realised he was probably Italian or at least looked Italian so I tried to give him a fiery temper and an emotional mind.

I tried to put as much as I could into them in the time limit I had, and not just hack out rubbish like I think many a writer would have done.

Michael Butterworth