Perry Rhodan
[2] The series has spun off into many different forms of media, but originated as a serial novella published weekly since 8 September 1961 in the Romanheft (Meaning "Magazine novel") format.
These are digest-sized booklets, usually containing 66 pages, the German equivalent of the now-defunct (and generally longer) American pulp magazine.
[4] ‘Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums’ (Eng: ‘The Heir to the Universe’, though the American/British editions instead used the subtitle 'Peacelord of the Universe') was created by German science fiction authors K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting and launched in 1961 by German publishing house Arthur Moewig Verlag (now Pabel-Moewig Verlag).
[5][6] Written by an ever-changing team of authors, many of whom, however, remained with the series for decades or life, Perry Rhodan is issued in weekly novella-size installments in the traditional German Heftroman (pulp booklet) format.
Unlike most German Heftromane, Perry Rhodan consists not of unconnected novels but is a series with a continuous, increasingly complex plotline, with frequent back references to events.
It also spawned the German-Italian-Spanish 1967 movie Mission Stardust,[7] which is widely considered so terrible that many fans of the series pretend it never existed.
[8][9][10] Coinciding with the 50th-anniversary World Con, on 30 September 2011, a new series named Perry Rhodan Neo began publication, attracting new readers with a reboot of the story, starting in the year 2036 instead of 1971,[11] and a related but independent story-line.
The negative Superintelligence Koltoroc had received the answer to the last ultimate question, 69 million years BC at Negane Mountain, but it is not known if it made any use of the information.
An evolutionary schema, similar to the Great Chain of Being, called the "onion-shell model" is employed in relationship to all life.
Little more is known, except that the process is gradual and that the resulting object lacks the gravitational pull possessed if the contraction produced a black hole.
[18] This decision meant that by 1980, when the original German versions of Perry Rhodan were becoming "more sophisticated and less aimed at younger readers", the series was no longer available in English.
As Managing Editor, Ackerman soon incorporated elements reminiscent of the science fiction pulp magazines of his youth, such as unrelated short stories, serialized novels and a film review section.
J-Novel Club members who purchase the books directly receive textless versions of the cover art as a bonus.
John Marshall and his superpowered companions have escaped the nefarious Clifford Monterny, but Sid, the teleporter, is unconscious and struggling to survive.
On a remote island, Marshall and a team of similarly gifted individuals join forces to delve deep into Sid’s memories.
As she begins to explore a puzzling ancient base, she starts to realize that this might not be the first time the Arkonides have ventured to our solar system.
His crew aren’t faring much better, with teleporter Tako Kakuta leading a group that learns sanctuary in a hospital isn’t as safe as they expected.
Elsewhere, Rhodan meets an elderly Arkonide who has been waiting in a crumbling base for millennia, hoping his commander will one day return.
But with Gucky, their sardonic alien cellmate, they hit on the best possible way to pass the time and create an escape attempt: musical theater!
Stranded in the jungle, Kakuta, Morozova, and Deringhouse hatch a plan to hijack an enemy vessel and rejoin the fight.
Meanwhile, Mildred and Julian take Gucky, the alien Mousebeaver with both telepathic and telekinetic abilities, on a road trip across the USA.
Far away in the Vega system, Rhodan’s crew, lost in space and time after landing on the Ferron world of Reyan, discovers a conflict brewing between the water-dwellers and the land-dwellers, two groups descended from the original colonists.
Back home, Dr. Manoli and the historian Aescunnar have begun a space journey of their own as they attempt to learn more about the Arkonides’ prior activities in Earth’s solar system.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, Rhodan’s crew find themselves stranded in time and space on Ambur, the Vega system’s mysterious tenth planet, a hostile wasteland with pockets of civilization.
Contains Episodes: Translations of Perry Rhodan are currently available in Brazil (#1 to #536 and #650 to #847 as of August 2011), and also from 537 to 649; 1400 in before (at present, in December 2014), including the series Atlan, Planetary Novels and Perry Rhodan NEO (at present in the n. 28), all launched by the "Project Translation", Russia, China, Japan(#1 to #800 as of May 2011), France, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands (#1 to #2000 as of September 2009).
In 1965, the first four episodes appeared in Tel Aviv in a pirated translation, and which for unknown reasons ceased before publication of the fifth (it was not because it was detected by the German publishers, who only heard about it many years later).
Matthias Rust, the then-18 year old aviator who landed his Cessna 172 aircraft on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge which connects the Red Square in Moscow in 1987, cited Perry Rhodan's adventures as his main inspiration for penetrating Soviet airspace.
It was number ten in the red series, Ruimteoorlog in de Wegasector (Space War in the Vega Sector or Raumschlacht im Wega-Sektor).
Another group, Sensus, released a song "Perry Rhodan .. More Than A Million Lightyears From Home" in 1986 a presented it at the Worldcon in Saarbrücken.
Bubonicon, an annual science fiction convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, adopted as its mascot Perry Rhodent, a rat wearing only one shoe (or boot).
