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From: Don <g@crcomp.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: "The Atom Hell of Grautier (Perry Rhodan #71)"
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2024 21:57:36 -0000 (UTC)
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Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "The Atom Hell of Grautier (Perry Rhodan #71)"
>    https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Rhodan-Atom-Hell-Grautier/dp/044166055X/
>
> Book number seventy-one of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space
> opera books in English.  The original German books, actually pamphlets,
> number in the thousands.  The English books started with two translated
> German stories per book translated by Wendayne Ackerman and transitioned
> to one story per book with the sixth book.  And then they transition
> back to two stories in book #109/110.  The Ace publisher dropped out at
> #118, so Forrest and Wendayne Ackerman published books #119 to #136 in
> pamphlets before stopping in 1978.  The German books were written from
> 1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently
> been rebooted again.  I read the well printed and well bound book
> published by Ace in 1975 that I had to be very careful with due to age.
> I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on
> ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans
> in The Great Flood of 1989.  In fact, I now own book #1 to book #106,
> plus the Atlan books, and some of the Lemuria books.
>    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
>
> BTW, this is actually book number 79 of the German pamphlets written in
> 1963.  There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on the
> Perrypedia German website of all of the PR books.  There is automatic
> Google translation available for English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese,
> French, and Portuguese.
>    https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Die_Atomh%C3%B6lle_von_Gray_Beast
>
> In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow
> astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in their
> 1971.  The first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third
> stages were nuclear.  After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio
> interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an
> aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of
> 500.  It has been over seventy years since then and the Solar Empire has
> flourished with tens of millions of people and many spaceships
> headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania.  Perry Rhodan
> has been elected by the people of Earth to be the World Administrator
> and keep them from being taken over by the robot administrator of Arkon.
>
> Perry Rhodan is building a huge fleet of 1,200 space ships around the
> hidden Terran base at the Grautier planet for attacking the Arkonide
> Robot Regent.  But the Terran battle cruiser Rigel had its FTL
> transition compensator fail and the Terran base on Grautier was exposed
> to the Arkonides.  An Arkon robot battle group shows up and bombs
> Grautier with Arkon bombs that start an unextinguishable nuclear fire
> which destroys the planet.  But, Perry Rhodan and his entire command
> staff are on the planet.
>
> Two observations:
> 1. Forrest Ackerman should have put two or three of the translated
> stories in each book.  Having two stories in the first five books worked
> out well.  Just having one story in the book is too short and would
> never allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
> 2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should
> read the totally awesome "Mutineer's Moon" Dahak series of three books
> by David Weber.
>    https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/

It was bad enough when an original, popular character named Thora was
eliminated. Now PR planetcides a popular place. The unleashed nihilism
sucker punched any readers (eg me) invested in Gray Beast. They take the
time to get to know their way around a setting, and the next thing they
know - Boom! - it's gone.
    It's one thing when an obscure planet, Beteigeuze III for instance,
is used as a setting thrice before it's Arkon bombed into a small star
by Mounder Cekztel. It's quite another thing for it to happen to
heavenly body Gray Beast, used four times as often in relatively recent
Rhoverse romps.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's  )\._.,--....,'``.     https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.    Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'    Make 1984 fiction again.