Perry Rhodan

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Perry Rhodan is the world's most prolific science fiction (SF) series, published since 1961 in Germany.

Perry Rhodan is unabashed space opera, picking up (or reinventing) virtually every theme that has ever appeared in science fiction. While critics outside the genre and many within have habitually savaged the series, its multi-decade commercial success has become a literary phenomenon in itself. If nothing else, Perry Rhodan provides a mirror of the contemporary zeitgeist, reflecting concerns such as the 1960s Cold War, 1970s New Age, and 1980s peace movement in its story line. The series and its spin-offs have captured a substantial fraction of the original German science fiction output and exert an undeniable influence on German writers in the field.

Contents

[edit] History

Written by an ever-changing team of authors, Perry Rhodan is issued in weekly novella-size installments in the traditional German Heftchen (pulp booklet) format. The series was created in 1961 by K. H. Scheer and Clark Darlton. Initially conceived for thirty volumes, it became an enduring success and passed 2350 installments in 2006. There have been several reissues, including a revised edition in hardcover format. Significant spin-offs include the Atlan series and the Planetenromane ("Planet Novels") paperbacks that provide additional playgrounds for stories set in the Perry Rhodan universe but are usually not considered canonical. Over the decades there have also been comic strips, numerous collectibles, several encyclopedias, audio plays, inspired music, etc. The series has seen partial translations into several languages. It also spawned the movie Mission Stardust (1967), which is considered so appallingly bad that fans of the series playfully deny its very existence.

[edit] Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story line starts in 1971 with the first manned moon landing by U.S. Space Force Major Perry Rhodan and his crew, who discover a marooned extraterrestrial space ship. Appropriating the alien technology, they proceed to unify Terra and to carve out a place for humanity in the galaxy and the cosmos. As the series progresses major characters are granted virtual immortality and the story continues over the course of millennia, including flashbacks several thousands and even millions of years into the past, and the scope widens to encompass other galaxies, extremely remote parts of space, parallel universes, and weirder cosmic structures.

The series is told in an arc storyline structure — called a "cycle" — similar to that later used by Wiseguy, Hill Street Blues, and Babylon 5. A cycle would have anywhere from 25 to 100 issues devoted to it, some subsequent cycles are referred to as a "grand-cycle", e.g. issues 1800 – 2199 consist of 6 cycles and form the grand-cycle THOREGON.

[edit] Translations

[edit] English series

In the 1960s, science-fiction über-fan Forrest J Ackerman organized the publication in the U.S. of an English translation of the series, with his wife Wendayne ("Wendy") doing most of the translation. (Other translators on the series included Sig Wahrmann, Stuart J. Byrne, and Dwight Decker.) #1, containing German issues 1 and 2, was published by Ace Books starting in 1969. The series was a commercial success, eventually being published three times per month. Forry also incorporated elements from the SF pulp magazines, such as short stories, serialized novels and a film review section.

Ace ended their run of Perry Rhodan — double issue #117/118 was their last of the regular series — by publishing three "lost" episodes that had been skipped for not having enough action. They also published five of the Atlan "side series" stories (Atlan is a major character in the Rhodanverse) and one story from the 415-volume Planetenromane spin-off.

The Ackermans worked hard to get U.S. "Rhofans" their Perry fix (oddly paralleling the "Liquitiv" storyline recently concluded at the time in the American editions). They created Master Publications and released #119 through #136 before having to cease their subscription-only edition of the series. That was the end of an English version until the 1990s, when John Foyt founded Vector Enterprises to restart an American version. It would be published in magazine format, against the advice of some of his employees, instead of book format. This version only lasted for four printed issues and one electronic issue — #1800 to #1804.

The German publishers, Pabel-Moewig Verlag (VPM), have currently licensed FanPro to publish a translation of their recent Lemuria mini-series in the summer of 2006. At the time of this writing - January 2007 - the first volume of the Lemuria story is available for purchase from Amazon.com and the second can be reserved. FanPro's American site has only recently released informations on the novels and has yet to provide book artwork to Amazon.com for the second volume of Lemuria (however, the first volume has the same artwork as the German original).

[edit] English publication history

  • Ace Books
    • #1 to #5 — Double issues. Each volume contains two episodes, but edited to be a single novel.
    • #6 to #108 — Single issues. "Maga-book" format, or the format of a magazine in the style of a book. Letter and film review in #6. Would later include short stories — old and new — and reprints of classic serialized novels such as Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss (reprinted as Pursuit to Mars). Of special note is a lost chapter of the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine that was published in this manner.
    • #109 to #118 — double issues again, but each one set apart.
    • Perry Rhodan Specials #1 to #5 — Double issues. #1 to #3 are lost episodes published with an Atlan episode. #4 are two Atlan episodes and #5 (unnumbered) is a Planetenroman.
  • Master Publications
    • #119 to #135 — Magazine size and format.
    • #136 — Book format. To fill out remaining subscription orders, the book format also printed Stuart J. Byrne's Star Man series. #136 was published with the first five episodes of Star Man in one volume. The remaining Star Man episodes were published as a separate volume.
  • Vector Enterprises
    • #1800 to #1803 — Magazine format. #1800 is published in a manner similar to the German series. 1801 to 1803 are large-sized magazine format.
    • #1804 — Electronic format only.

Copies of the Ace books and the rarer magazine versions can be found in online auction sites like eBay and fixed-price online stores like Amazon.com. Used bookstores often have some of the Ace books, but rarely the magazine versions.

[edit] PR in other countries

Translations of Perry Rhodan are currently available in Brazil (#1 to #536 and #650 to #833 as of August 2006), Russia, China, Japan（#1 to #638 (1,2006)） France, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. Apart from the US version, there were also editions in Canada, Great Britain, Italy and Finland. However, the latter have been discontinued.

Rhodan was so popular in the Spanish-speaking world that the Flash Gordon comic strip was called "Rodan el Temerario" (Rhodan the Fearless) in a somewhat misleading attempt to identify Flash with Perry.

The first language to which PR was translated was Hebrew, though it was a very short-lived effort. 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 for being found out by the German publishers, who only heard of it many years later). Thus, Israeli SF fans having no access to the original got only a tantalising glimpse, and in their consciousness Rhodan remained forever stuck in the very initial stages of his career, fighting the Chinese in the Gobi Desert and hankering for the cold and aloof Arkonide Thora. The few surviving copies of this 1965 translation are highly valued by Israeli collectors (see Eli Eshed on Perry Rhodan in Israel).

[edit] Cultural impact

[edit] In space

The Perry Rhodan issue that went into space. Credit: ESA/André Kuipers
The Perry Rhodan issue that went into space. Credit: ESA/André Kuipers

Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers was inspired to become an astronaut from an early age by the Perry Rhodan albums his grandmother bought for him (and that he eventually started buying himself from his allowance).

When he finally launched into space on April 18, 2004, he brought his very first booklet along with him. It was number ten in the red series, Ruimteoorlog in de Wegasector ("Space War in the Vega Sector").

[edit] In music

Christopher Franke, former member of German electronica group Tangerine Dream and soundtrack composer for U.S. science-fiction TV series Babylon 5, released Perry Rhodan Pax Terra in 1996, comprised of music inspired by the Perry Rhodan epic.

[edit] External links

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