After the success of the first season of UFO it was decided that the second, provisionally titled UFO: 1999, would be set on a moonbase.

Over time (and hastened by the rapid decline in ratings in the US), the planned series eventually evolved into Space: 1999, the first episode of which saw the moon blasted from its orbit by an atomic explosion. Thrown into deep space by the blast, the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, under the command of Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau), swiftly found themselves thrown up against aliens and space creatures beyond their wildest imaginings. Other characters of note included Dr Helen Russell (Barbara Bain), Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) who was the resident brainbox with an artificial heart, and Alan Carter (Nick Tate) who piloted the Eagle spaceships.

As may be expected from a Gerry Anderson production, the model effects were outstanding, with intricate models being build of the lunar surface and Moonbase Alpha, as well as for the Eagle spaceships which seemed to crash or explode with alarming regularity. Not so impressive was the characterisation and scripting, which many would describe as dodgy, and many more would call laughably bad. Not unjustly, fingers were pointed at Landau and Bain for producing two of the most wooden performances ever committed to celluloid.

In the UK the novelisations of the episodes from Season One were released by Orbit and Arthur Barker, with the US editions being picked up by Pocket Books. By the end of 1975 all of the Season One episodes had been novelised apart from Earthbound. 1976 and 1977 saw the release of five original novels based on Season One, the first three of which were published in both the UK and US, with the UK hardbacks moving to Dobson Books. Phoenix of Megaron and Earthfall were the other original novels and were released in the US and UK respectively.

Season Two of the television series saw a number of changes as the series was revamped slightly. Out went Victor Bergman and Paul Morrow (Prentis Hancock), and in came Tony Verdeschi (Tony Anholt) and the shape-shifter Maya played by Catherine Schell. Behind the scenes the now infamous Fred Freiberger had taken over the reins as producer, and the series which could previously have been described as "dumb but well-meaning" suddenly became "awful and insulting". For the benefit of anyone interested, the Freiberger influence can also be seen on a number of other notable lowpoints in sci-fi TV history such as the dismal Season Three of the original Star Trek and Beyond Westworld which was mercifully cancelled after just three of its five episodes had aired...

1977 saw the release of six novelisations based on episodes from Season Two of Space: 1999. However, Star Books in the UK only released the first five titles, with Warner Books in the US releasing all six. As with the novelisations of Season One, one of the episodes was not novelised, in this case The Taybor.

Translations of many of the novelisations were released in Japan, Germany and Hungary, with Germany also getting six completely original novels after the Season Two novelisations were released, all of which featured the characters from Season Two of the television programme. In Italy a totally seperate set of novelisations were written and released by AMZ Editrice, and these were illustrated with photos from the episodes in question.

Recently, with the advent of DVD and the issuing of all forty-eight episodes, interest in the show has grown and a number of new items have appeared. Powys Media in the USA have commenced publication of a series of original novels, and Eagle-One Media have released a new edition of Alien Seed. The Gerry Anderson fan club, FANDERSON, have released a revised (and corrected) version of Earthfall and have also issued Earthbound, which contains a novelisation of the only Season One episode not to be novelised in the 1970s, as well as novelisations of the draft scripts to The Exiles and The Immunity Syndrome.