Perry Rhodan

Did You Know?

• Matthias Rust, who landed his Cessna 172 on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow in 1987, cited Perry Rhodan's adventures as his main inspiration for penetrating Soviet airspace.
• Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers was inspired to become an astronaut by Perry Rhodan albums his grandmother bought him; he brought his first booklet, number ten in the red series, into space on 18 April 2004.
• As of February 2019, 3000 booklet novels of the original series, 850 spinoff novels of Atlan, and over 400 paperbacks and 200 hardcover editions had been published, totaling over 300,000 pages.

History

Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums was created by K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting and launched in 1961 by Arthur Moewig Verlag. Originally planned as a 30 to 50 volume series, it has been published continuously every week since, with the 3000th issue released in 2019. The series is written by an ever-changing team of authors, many of whom remained with it for decades or life. It is issued in weekly novella-size installments in the traditional German Heftroman format. Unlike most German Heftromane, Perry Rhodan has a continuous, increasingly complex plotline with frequent back references. The series now also appears in hardcovers, paperbacks, e-books, comics, and audiobooks. It has spawned comic strips, collectibles, encyclopedias, audio plays, and inspired music. Partial translations into several languages exist. A 1967 movie Mission Stardust was produced but is widely considered terrible by many fans. On 30 September 2011, Perry Rhodan Neo began publication, rebooting the story starting in 2036. On 2 April 2021, J-Novel Club announced Perry Rhodan NEO as a launch title for its J-Novel Pulp imprint, marking the first ongoing English release of new Perry Rhodan serials in over 20 years.

Overview

The story begins in 1971 with the first human Moon landing by US Space Force Major Perry Rhodan and his crew, who discover a marooned extraterrestrial spaceship from the fictional planet Arkon in the M13 cluster. They appropriate Arkonide technology to unify Earth and carve a place for humanity in the galaxy. Key accomplishments include positronic brains and starship drives for near-instantaneous hyperspatial translation, borrowed from Isaac Asimov's science fiction. Major characters, including the title character, are granted relative immortality, immune to age and disease but not violent death. The story spans millennia and includes flashbacks thousands and millions of years into the past. The scope widens to other galaxies, remote regions of space, parallel universes, time travel, paranormal powers, various aliens, and bodiless entities with godlike powers. The main plot takes place in the Einstein Universe, whose laws mostly match late 20th century science; newer theories about dark matter and dark energy are not used. The laws follow older disproven theories to protect continuity. Many other universes exist, each with different properties, such as one where time runs slower, an anti-matter universe, and a shrinking universe. The Einstein Universe is embedded in a high-dimensional manifold called Hyperspace, consisting of several subspaces used for faster-than-light travel. The border of the universe is a dimension called the deep, once used for constructing the disc-shaped world Deepland. The Psionic Web crosses the universe, emitting vital and psionic energy to sustain life.

Critical reaction

In the introduction to the first English-language edition in 1969, editor Forrest J Ackerman noted that in Germany, all serious SF buffs claim to hate Perry Rhodan, but someone in unprecedented numbers reads it. Many American SF fans agreed, feeling the series was an embarrassment and too juvenile. Tom Doherty, head of Ace Books in the mid-to-late 1970s, ended the series in the US even though it was profitable, meaning that by 1980, when the German versions became more sophisticated, the series was no longer available in English. Critic Robert Reginald described the series as the ultimate soap opera of science fiction and standard pulp science fiction with minimal characterization, awful dialog, but relatively complex plot development, emphasizing man's expanding horizons. The series' beginnings were criticized for expansionist humanity and frequent space battles; after William Voltz became storyline planner in 1975, the series developed a broader ethical scope. While some Anglophone critics dismiss the series, others praise it. Editor John O'Neill called Perry Rhodan one of the richest space operas ever written.

Publication

In the 1960s, Forrest J Ackerman organized English translation publication in the US, with his wife Wendayne handling translation. Number 1, containing German issues 1 and 2, was published by Ace Books starting in 1969. Ackerman incorporated elements like unrelated short stories, serialized novels, and a film review section. The series was a commercial success, published three times per month. Ace ended its regular run in August 1977 with double issue 117/118, followed by three novellas from earlier in the series and three from the spinoff Atlan. Ace concluded with two more Atlan novels and a novel-length In the Center of the Galaxy by Clark Darlton. In the 1990s, Vector Enterprises restarted an American version, lasting four printed issues and one electronic issue translating 1800 to 1804. In 2006, Pabel-Moewig Verlag licensed FanPro to publish an English translation of Perry Rhodan: Lemuria, but only the first volume was released. In 2015–16, Perry Rhodan Digital published English translations of the full six-volume Lemuria story arc in ebook format. In April 2021, J-Novel Club announced Perry Rhodan NEO as a launch title for its J-Novel Pulp imprint, with eight volumes announced, using cover art by toi8 created for Hayakawa Publishing's 2017 release.