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Although Gerry Anderson – the creator of such shows as Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO and Space Precinct – passed away in December 2012, his legacy lives on. Anderson was working on a different sort of project in his final years, despite suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, and his son Jamie is determined to see it completed. On the day he launched the Kickstarter appeal to fund Gemini Force One, he spoke with Paul Simpson…

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When did your father first start work on Gemini Force?

Probably around the middle of 2008. Everything to do with New Captain Scarlet had died down, and gone a bit wrong.

He was vocal on the subject at the time!

That was pretty standard Dad. He was a bit disillusioned with TV stuff and was looking for a different route, which is why he decided to go down the book route, which is an interesting decision to make at that stage of his career, but I think he thought it was worthwhile.

How far did he get in terms of creating the universe and the characters?

They were fairly well described. He had fully written around the first half of the first book, and we have a lot of stuff in note form where he would open up a Word document and type in a few ideas and bits and pieces. Dad had a very good friend, Robert Kirby, a literary agent, and was getting advice from him. He could see that Dad was struggling to write by around 2011, so he spent a lot of time with Dad continuing fleshing it out and did a series of audio recordings of it. We have several hours of audio recording describing launch sequences and stuff. The vast majority of the work is there, but it’s patchy, and we’re missing a fully written second half.

I probably could have sat down and attempted to finish it off myself, but I’m not a novel writer. I’ve got no experience of it. We had a lot of offers from people saying that they’d do it for nothing and finish it off but I’m really keen to make it the absolute best it can be, but still staying true to Dad’s legacy.

The whole point of getting MG Harris on board is so that we know it’s a professional author who loves Anderson shows, and gets the whole premise. That makes a big difference, she really understands what makes the show so different. The thing that really sold it for me was, when we said we could do this, she had an edit of the first four chapters and altered bits and pieces. I read them, turned the page of the last chapter and realised that was it.

You wanted to know what happened next…

Yes! I had a gut feeling then we had the right person: that’s how you feel in some scenes in Thunderbirds even though you’ve seen them.

For me, it’s the Fireflash landing in the pilot…

I’m the same. The gut tension you get in that sequence is exactly the same as she managed to get to produce from this first four chapters.

Is Gemini Force One in the vein of the classic Supermarionation shows?

The aim for Dad was to pick up the essential kernels of Anderson shows in general, and bring them together in a 21st century guise. Yes, you’ve got elements of the Supermarionation shows; there are small elements of UFO as well. It’s got the essentials: look at all the Anderson shows and you can find real similarities between most of them – Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, any of them. They have an essential core family unit, and that family unit, whether they’re related or not, are tasked with achieving something, espionage in Joe 90, protecting the Earth from Mysterons, or saving the world from mechanical and natural disasters as in Thunderbirds. It doesn’t matter how far you come along: there’s always the same sort of feel. I think that’s part of the reason for their success.

We’ve still got that feel, but it’s brought up to date. Dad was doing that himself: he was much more aware. But if you look back to any of the shows, there was always a slight feeling of pushing social norms: Lady Penelope being a fairly active agent in Thunderbirds, Lieutenant Green being West Indian in Captain Scarlet, and minority characters later on. It’s more difficult to do that push now in a more liberal society, but there is still a feeling of pushing forward and pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable.

So what’s the premise of Gemini Force One?

We are looking essentially at a rescue and disaster prevention organisation. The first book, Black Horizon, is written from the point of view of a sixteen year old boy called Ben Carrington, whose father is killed in an accident not long before the book starts – his father was a multi-multi billionaire hotel type. They’ve got a big opening at a new hotel due, despite the fact the father has recently been killed. Through a variety of Anderson-type circumstances, which I keep describing as  a-thousand-to-one perilous situations and a-million-to-one rescues, Ben ends up performing a rescue and impressing a chap who is developing a rescue organisation of his own. That’s the spawning of the first book.

The peril, the million-to-one rescues, cool tech, vehicles, and a secret base – all that kind of stuff fits totally with the Anderson world. What brings it into the 21st century is it’s not all, ‘Let’s do the rescue. Everything’s fine, everyone’s smiling. Let’s go home, play the piano and eat cake.’ They’re facing real loss potentially, and nobody in the team is immune from that – which is maybe the difference from the slightly twee Anderson stuff, certainly pre-1990. You never get that real fear of loss of a main character, although that’s the sort of feel you get now – that slightly dystopian, miserable feel. It’s not too far down that route.

And of course you don’t have to worry about actors contracted for a full season of stories…

Exactly. We can kill off who we want!

You’re planning for the first book to come out in August 2014, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Thunderbirds starting filming; where do you want to go from there?

I really hope that the fans get behind it and we make our goal, and maybe even exceed it, because that will make a statement to the world that people want to see and enjoy Gerry Anderson concepts. The Kickstarter total is very specific: £24,350 – we didn’t want to go for a random rounded up figure. We were really keen to go for the lowest figure possible so that if people aren’t as enthusiastic as we hope they will be, it will be easier to make. It would be a shame to round it up to £25k and end up £650 short. It’s all carefully broken down, and it’s amazing how much ends up going on Kickstarter fees and payment fees, and reward fulfilment stuff. Almost fifty per cent of the budget is going on that, and then the rest is to get MG Harris to get the first one done, and get a cover designer.

Click here to go to the Kickstarter page for Gemini Force One and keep an eye on Sci-Fi Bulletin for more updates.