Terra (German science fiction)

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Terra was the name of some science fiction series published by Arthur Moewig Verlag, Munich. Together with the Utopia series of the rival publisher Erich Pabel Verlag, Rastatt the Terra series were the most important science fiction work in the early years of West Germany.

Contents

[edit] dime novels

In 1957 Moewig started the weekly series Terra - Utopische Romane / Science Fiction, shortly named Terra SF or only Terra. For this purpose some people were poached from competitor Pabel, e.g. the editor and author Walter Ernsting, the corrector Günther M. Schelwokat and the cover painter Johny Bruck.

In September 1962 Terra SF was supplemented by the reprint series Terra Extra, from that time Terra SF and Terra Extra were published in weekly rotation.

In 1968 both series were united to the new weekly series Terra Nova which later was replaced by Terra Astra.

Summary:
Terra SF      1957-68   555 issues
Terra Extra   1962-68   182 issues
Terra Nova    1968-71   190 issues
Terra Astra   1971-86   643 issues

[edit] Sonderband / Taschenbuch

In 1958 Moewig started the series Terra Sonderband ("special issue"). Every volume of Sonderband had 100 pages so there was the possibility to publish more challenging novels than within the dime novel format.

With issue #99 Sonderband was renamed to Terra Taschenbuch ("paperback"), the format was changed to paperback format (1965).

[edit] Subseries, spin-offs and more

The Terra series included some subseries of different German and international authors, e.g. Der 1000 Jahres Plan (The 1000 Year Plan = Foundation, Sonderband #22/24/26/28 ) by Isaac Asimov and Lensmen (6 volumes within Terra SF #199-222) by E. E. Smith.

In 1968/69 the seven episodes of the television series Raumpatrouille and five additionally stories were published within Terra Taschenbuch, afterwards some more episodes (#13-35) were printed as separate paperback series.
Since 1972 the episodes were reprinted and continued within Terra Astra, outsourced to a separate dime novel series and finally again reintegrated into Terra Astra (145 volumes in total).

From March 1958 until May 1959 Moewig published 15 issues of the magazine Galaxis-Magazin, the German version of Galaxy.

In 1961 Moewig started the space opera series Perry Rhodan which originally was written by K. H. Scheer, Walter Ernsting and other Terra related authors.

[edit] External links and book