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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: "The Atom Hell of Grautier (Perry Rhodan #71)"
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2024 22:39:29 -0500
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On 8/25/2024 4:57 PM, Don wrote:
> 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,

I was just looking at PR #199 "Arkon's End".  As you say, looks like 
planet destroying is a often used plot in the PRverse.

Lynn