Gerry Anderson's UFO: Technical Manual Hardcover – October 1, 2009

The media could not be loaded.  As the other reviewer mentions, the pictures are basically a 2D illustration, made to look a bit 3D. But with few books dedicated to the UFO series, and to the gear / ships used, it can be useful for your reference library. The illustrations could have been a lot worse. Also, Each section (almost each page) has small, color thumbnail photos from the series. The hardware covered are SID, Interceptors, Skydiver / Sky One, the ground Mobiles, Lunar Carrier (the red space ship), the Moonmobile, and the Shadair Mobile Transporter air craft, Shadair Seagull supersonic passenger jet, and of course, the UFO ship. Moonbase and SHADO (Harlington-Straker Studios) are represented in photos. typically by books like these because I am a model builder, and I find them good reference, for the tech end and for painting guides. The book I received was 14 x 11, so it's a bit large, which is a bonus I feel. To show my age, I remember watching this series as a kid, and have always been a fan.

I won't call this a definitive technical manual for Gerry Anderson's UFO television series. Not by a long shot. What I will say is this book is a good reference for the various ships and bases of SHADO along with some sparse, but useful info about the alien invaders. However that's about all the technical info you get. Nothing on weapons, equipment, personal vehicles like Straker's car, why moon girls have purple wigs, etc. Because of this I cannot really call this a real technical manual. More like a guide to the vehicles and locales of the show.The ship information is pretty good, at least for one or two page profiles per ship. You get info on functionality, weaponry, armor, propulsion, and more. Sorry... no cut out views of the inner workings of the vehicles (and I know some exist from seeing them in previously published items). Also while you get a good amount of details it is in no way complete. This irks me because I know those additional details that were left out do exist (again from earlier materials). So while this book has some cool info for UFO fans it's not a single source for the material.Also for a large "coffee table" book it's pretty short on useful pages. Like I said each vehicles gets maybe a page or two of info. Then you get a "case study", which is essentially a single episode guide that references the vehicle. In other words filler. It's aggravating to see pages that could have been used to add more established details on the show's technology used as such a waste.One other thing to note. This tech manual has an entry for the alien UFO. The very thought of getting a chance to peek inside what makes those ships tick got me excited... until I got the book. You know how those secretive aliens never let SHADO get a good assessment of their technology? Well after 30+ years it seems we still don't. You would figure after all this time they could at least let the cat out of the bag and give us some real meat on the UFO's. That would be been enough to forgive all the other shortcomings. As it stands it just further's my belief that this is an incomplete book.I also want to say the graphics on this book are nowhere near as bad as other reviewers may say. Yes they are computer generated graphics, but they look like they could have been photographs of models. Nothing polygonal about the curves in the book I have.So the big question you are probably asking would be, "is it worth it?" I think that depends on what you have already. If you have next to nothing regarding the show then this is a really nice book to have. It does give a lot of cool info, even if it's not everything. Now if you are somebody who has been collecting all the lost and forgotten lore from the series I don't think you will find much more on this book you don't already know or have (in other words maybe get it on the cheap). Personally I'm glad I have in spite of the shortcomings.

This is one awesome book. With the huge color drawings it is very useful for modelers or just people who want to know some of the details that you would not have known by just watching the show alone. Also it is a great book for the coffee table, very attention grabbing. It has been criticized as being sparce on info. No its not an encyclopedia on the subject. What it is , is a wonderful color illustrated book that you can be proud of. Very well done. Its a keeper!

This is a fairly good reference with 3-D pics of the actual items. Unfortunately it is not a technical manual in details. This would be a fair buy, only to the interest on those who watch the show or have the DVD collection would appreciate. While the images are clear and quite large, there is very little to explain how or why things work in the manual.

Perhaps my expectations were too high? I was expecting something along the lines of Graham Bleathman's illustrations, whereas this book is quite different. The computer generated models of the various craft are variable in quality and, whilst the detail and rendering of weathered surfaces is good, many of the images suffer from a common, irritating problem in that the graphics software used has difficulty in producing natural looking curved lines. Instead of curved edges the illustrations often break up into an angular, polygonal lines - rather like a join the dots puzzle. This seems to have been addressed to a degree on the outer edges of the illustrations where they have been scribed to lay on a white background, but internal curved lines are typically wonky. The Mobile, Interceptor and Lunar Carrier/Module are the most affected sections. The first subject, SID and the last, a UFO, are modelled far better than the rest of the illustrations. If the images were amateur, fan-produced computer models on the Internet then that would be one thing, but I expect somehting rather more professional in a publication. Once you are aware of the angular snag your eye gets drawn to it all the time - rather like when you first notice motion blur on LCD televisions. A pity, as the text, labelling and frame grabs that accompany the illustrations are fine.So, as per the title of this review, the thunbnails and other images on web sites like Amazon aren't large enough to reveal the flaws. I recommend that you handle a copy of the book and take a closer look before parting with your money. Frankly, I wish that I hadn't bothered ordering it.

rapport qualite prix excellent

Great book, been after it for ages but always alluded me

I've been waiting over a year for this product and the only good thing I can say about it is that any material produced on this subject is welcome, plus the book's quite big, colourful and cheap.What I was expecting from a technical manual was some, er, technical stuff: some vehicle dimensions, some performance figures, some (speculative) cross sections... anything like that. Sadly there's all to little of that sort of material and as for the idea of anything as enlightening as a cross section (like those in the excellent Graham Bleathman books on other Anderson TV series)... well: forget it.What I got for just under a tenner was lots and lots (and lots and lots!) of CGI renderings of a few vehicles. 'Lots and lots' on the basis of, once you've built a CGI model you can (obviously) rotate it and re-render the model to your heart's content and fill up page after page after page.The problem is that this is what has been done... and not even done very well. Compared to extant - and easy to obtain photographs - the images aren't even particularly accurate. I could go into a big list of errors for some of the illustrations by my 'anorak warning light' has just lit up so I wont do that. And to cap it all, the renderings aren't even all that pretty: often sharp and angular where the original models were (from photographs) rather less so. Lacking in detail in close up where the rendering process is - after all - just a 2D image stretched over a 3D wire-frame.Added to that are a few potted examples of when the vehicles appeared - like a stripped down episode guide which were largely a waste of space. These were - presumably - there to add some text to the pages and pages of CGI renderings. What a shame they didn't contain any worthwhile (and not very easily available elsewhere) information.In conclusion? Buy it if your a fan. In a very worst case scenario it might persuade publishers that theirs a market for similar products and - with luck - the next one off the presses will be better.

Perhaps my expectations were too high? I was expecting something along the lines of Graham Bleathman's illustrations, whereas this book is quite different. The computer generated models of the various craft are variable in quality and, whilst the detail and rendering of weathered surfaces is good, many of the images suffer from a common, irritating problem in that the graphics software used has difficulty in producing natural looking curved lines. Instead of curved edges the illustrations often break up into an angular, polygonal lines - rather like a join the dots puzzle. This seems to have been addressed to a degree on the outer edges of the illustrations where they have been scribed to lay on a white background, but internal curved lines are typically wonky. The Mobile, Interceptor and Lunar Carrier/Module are the most affected sections. If the images were amateur, fan-produced computer models on the Internet then that would be one thing, but I expect somehting rather more professional in a publication. Once you are aware of the angular snag your eye gets drawn to it all the time - rather like when you first notice motion blur on LCD televisions. A pity, as the text, labelling and frame grabs that accompany the illustrations are fine.So, as per the title of this review, the thunbnails and other images on web sites like Amazon aren't large enough to reveal the flaws. I recommend that you handle a copy of the book and take a closer look before parting with your money. Frankly, I wish that I hadn't bothered ordering it.

Love this book because I offered this one to my brother who is a big fan of those things. He was very happy. Thank you!