Just finished Forsaken (spoilers)

[John]

Space:1999 – The Forsaken (caution: raving review ahead)

This haunting novel helps to underline why Space:1999 out does all the Star Trek spin-offs put together! Space:1999 – both the TV show and the Powys novel line – seem to really boldy go to strange new worlds. It’s nice to see gritty emotional drama of alien contact not being derailed by Trek’s prime directive. Space:1999 in general and The Forsaken in particular drives home that meeting and interacting with another culture/species will likely follow the ‘Old World-meets-New World’ models of Earth’s history – in short it’ll be a messy business with many ethical pitfalls. Muir gives his Space:1999 story a sociological angst one might expect from a Rod Serling style parable. Strange, but true – while reading The Forsaken I was reminded of Paul Simon’s song American Tune. It just seemed to fit the mood of the novel.

[Mateo Latosa]

The Forsaken is full of ethical dilemmas, often conflicting. In the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke, Muir tells us a story where multiple parties are at odds with each other–and all with good reasons for doing what they do. There are no evil characters, just desperate ones, driven on by overwhelming needs. Koenig, Morrow, Hurum, the Alphans, the Cryptodira, the Slath-Zar…with factions and divisions among each of these groups.

JKM structured his novel like a symphony, complementing his creation: the Cryptodira, a race of blind, upright, sea turtle-like intelligent beings who communicate musically. He included examples of their poetry–basing it on the poetry of the Aztecs. Someone mentioned an Old World/New World collision?

The Forsaken presents Koenig as a man unwilling to settle on a planet which, he suspects, may have had its indigenous people decimated to make way for humanity. He struggles with the needs of his people, the uncertainty of the sun’s stability and therefore the planet’s long-term viability, and with humanity being the beneficiary of genocide. Heavy stuff!

Survival is the companion novel. In it, Brian Ball, shows Koenig as a man with grave doubts about his earlier decision in The Forsaken. He is faced with the genocide of his own people and comes to the conclusion, inevitably though somewhat reluctantly, that survival trumps morality. He realizes he has a duty to ensure humanity’s future by any means necessary.

JKM and I met in 1999. Who brought us together? Johnny Byrne, of course. We saw each other again in 2000 in NYC at the Main Mission convention. Johnny Byrne, William Latham, John Kenneth Muir and myself together at the same table for the first (and last) time. The future would turn out better than we could have hoped for. But right then…who knew?

[Glenn McCrabb]

I always felt that both Survival and The Forsaken fit beautifully into the 1999 timeline represented by the other existing 1999 novels. They have the same feel as the other stand alone novels, Alien Seed, Rogue Planet etc. Those two novels gave the series of books and the TV series, up to that point a feeling of completion as they answered some of our loudest questions, What happened to…? and Why did they…? I still find it amazing that Powys continues to do that with each and every book. Even the year two omnibus had some beautiful new surprises included. I just know that with each and every new book you guys will deliver us all of the action, adventure and mystery that we crave and have loved in Space 1999 up to now.

Thanks again guys. B)

[Author]

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