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Happy Birthday, _Perry Rhodan_
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Christian Weisgerber
Sep 8, 2021, 1:30:07 PM9/8/21
to
Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
since.
"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
written." (Wikipedia)
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
since.
"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
written." (Wikipedia)
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Sep 8, 2021, 2:21:08 PM9/8/21
to
In article <slrnsjhqio...@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>,
SF-ish comics, but it's not quite the same thing.
I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
>published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
>since.
>
>"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
>written." (Wikipedia)
>
That's quite an accomplishment! Of course there are longer running
>Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
>published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
>since.
>
>"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
>written." (Wikipedia)
>
SF-ish comics, but it's not quite the same thing.
I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Don
Sep 8, 2021, 6:14:53 PM9/8/21
to
Ted Nolan wrote:
started around "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis" / "Ace #56 Prisoner Of Time."
(Purchased to "test the waters.")
My current read's "Nr. 48 Rotes Auge Beteigeuze" / "Ace #40 Red Eye
of Betelgeuse." Some days it feels as though "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis"
will never be reached again, let alone "Nr. 74 Das Grauen" / "Ace #66
The Horror," apparently Vlotz's first credited story, although isfdb
lists Vlotz as an author uncredited in earlier stories.
A fork in the road appears after my first read of Die Dritte Macht
comes to a close. One path leads to Atlan und Arkon, while the other
leads to a re-read with scrupulously published reviews along the way.
The latter path beckons, if for nothing else than to catalog all of
the many worlds and alien life forms.
Danke,
--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
>>published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
>>since.
>>
>>"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
>>written." (Wikipedia)
>>
>
> That's quite an accomplishment! Of course there are longer running
> SF-ish comics, but it's not quite the same thing.
>
> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
Perry Rhodan's been my summer reading staple for years now. It all
>>Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
>>published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
>>since.
>>
>>"[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
>>written." (Wikipedia)
>>
>
> That's quite an accomplishment! Of course there are longer running
> SF-ish comics, but it's not quite the same thing.
>
> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
started around "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis" / "Ace #56 Prisoner Of Time."
(Purchased to "test the waters.")
My current read's "Nr. 48 Rotes Auge Beteigeuze" / "Ace #40 Red Eye
of Betelgeuse." Some days it feels as though "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis"
will never be reached again, let alone "Nr. 74 Das Grauen" / "Ace #66
The Horror," apparently Vlotz's first credited story, although isfdb
lists Vlotz as an author uncredited in earlier stories.
A fork in the road appears after my first read of Die Dritte Macht
comes to a close. One path leads to Atlan und Arkon, while the other
leads to a re-read with scrupulously published reviews along the way.
The latter path beckons, if for nothing else than to catalog all of
the many worlds and alien life forms.
Danke,
--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 9, 2021, 2:30:08 PM9/9/21
to
On 2021-09-08, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
name.
I think the Ackerman translations only covered what I think of as
the dire early days. Remember, the series was initially expected
to run for maybe 30 installments. The writers didn't exactly think
far ahead. The series really got going starting with #200 when
stretches of 50 or 100 installments were planned out and the writers
hit on a winning formula already used by Doc Smith to great success:
Have you protagonists fight through layer after layer of enemies
until they encounter the unknown big bad. #200..299 exemplified
that with Perry Rhodan going to Andromeda and running into the
Masters of the Isle, who ruled that galaxy with an iron fist,
genocide being their standard measure to instill obedience. The
MoI were so charismatic that they kept being referenced long after
their demise and would occasionally still appear from beyond the
grave.
That approach was repeated with diminishing returns for #300..399
and #400..499 and then the ride became really bumpy. I forgot the
behind-the-scenes details, if they were ever made public, but I
think William Voltz had to take over the series in an emergency,
it was this >< close to getting canceled. He took a while to get
his footing and then greatly remade the series. His first, drawn-out
step was to get rid of the Solar Empire. Instead of ever new waves
of invading baddies, Voltz took the series in a new direction,
infused it with a sense of mysticism and cosmic secrets.
For a while things became very, very big. Where previously the
history from 50,000 or 200,000 years ago had weighed on the present,
suddenly we were talking about events from millions of years ago.
You think the Ringworld is big? There was an extra-universal
construct, a flat world one light year in diameter. Now that's a
lot of territory to cross. Fittingly the long-gone builders were
only known as the Space Time Engineers. You think a mere
superintelligence like IT is a powerful being? Just a minor player
in the game between Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs. Weird entities
appeared. The Seven Mighty Ones, whose task was to seed the universe
with life and intelligence. Laire, the robot whose eye was the key
to the realm beyond the Well of Matter. Somewhat memorably, there
was Si Kitu, the Guardian/Embodiment of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
who took the form of, well, a slutty woman, and who promiscuously
sided with whoever would preserve her law. In what became an ironic
pattern, everybody who had served the Cosmocrats as the nominal
forces of good tended to suffer a poor fate as a person or species.
Not everything worked. The Cosmocrats sent Perry Rhodan on a quest
to find the answers to the Three Ultimate Questions, which in the
end proved extremely underwhelming, and the writers tripped over
their own convoluted continuity, so it turned out that the Cosmocrats
had to have known the answers to the first two questions all along.
Oops.
Voltz of course died far too early at the age of 46. His successors
dialed things back to more manageable, merely galactic sizes.
I eventually gave up on the series somewhere around #1800 or so.
The highs of the series were very high indeed, and the sheer size
of the accumulated mythology--as far as anybody could still remember
it, anyway--and the deep callbacks were amazing, but the _average_
installment was... poor... if you were used to the writing standards
of Anglo-American SF.
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 9, 2021, 3:30:08 PM9/9/21
to
On 2021-09-08, Don <g...@crcomp.net> wrote:
> My current read's "Nr. 48 Rotes Auge Beteigeuze" / "Ace #40 Red Eye
> of Betelgeuse." Some days it feels as though "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis"
> will never be reached again, let alone "Nr. 74 Das Grauen" / "Ace #66
> The Horror," apparently Vlotz's first credited story, although isfdb
> lists Vlotz as an author uncredited in earlier stories.
I can't make heads or tails of those ISDFB entries... Oh, right,
> My current read's "Nr. 48 Rotes Auge Beteigeuze" / "Ace #40 Red Eye
> of Betelgeuse." Some days it feels as though "Nr. 64 Im Zeit-Gefängnis"
> will never be reached again, let alone "Nr. 74 Das Grauen" / "Ace #66
> The Horror," apparently Vlotz's first credited story, although isfdb
> lists Vlotz as an author uncredited in earlier stories.
now I remember: Voltz was the initial editor of the Silberbände
(silver tomes), a hardcover re-edition of the series that also
re-edited the text, dropped some poorer parts, fixed continuity
errors, cleaned up less wholesome manifestations of the original
zeitgeist, etc., etc. But that work happened well after he had
begun writing for the series with #74.
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 9, 2021, 4:30:08 PM9/9/21
to
On 2021-09-09, Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
> Laire, the robot whose eye was the key to the realm beyond the
> Well of Matter.
^^^^
> Laire, the robot whose eye was the key to the realm beyond the
> Well of Matter.
Source of Matter is the straightforward and, on further reflection,
probably better term. All those translations are ad-hoc and my
own.
Anybody remember the name for the thing Captain Future was looking
for in _Quest Beyond the Stars_? That came out the same in the
German translation as the above term from _Perry Rhodan_,
"Materiequelle".
Ahasuerus
Sep 9, 2021, 5:01:48 PM9/9/21
to
Ahasuerus
Sep 9, 2021, 5:08:14 PM9/9/21
to
the real world and the real world can be vastly more complex than any
model that bibliographers can realistically come up with. At some
point we give up on trying to capture relationships between texts in any
kind of structured manner and simply dump everything that we know in
one of our Notes fields, e.g. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?11452
Quadibloc
Sep 9, 2021, 11:53:51 PM9/9/21
to
On Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 2:30:08 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-09-09, Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>
> > Laire, the robot whose eye was the key to the realm beyond the
> > Well of Matter.
> ^^^^
> Source of Matter is the straightforward and, on further reflection,
> probably better term. All those translations are ad-hoc and my
> own.
Of course, though, to most readers in the United States, or, for that
> On 2021-09-09, Christian Weisgerber <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>
> > Laire, the robot whose eye was the key to the realm beyond the
> > Well of Matter.
> ^^^^
> Source of Matter is the straightforward and, on further reflection,
> probably better term. All those translations are ad-hoc and my
> own.
matter, Canada as well, it is as if only the English translations (or, I
suppose, for some Canadians, the French translations, if such there
be) that were published even exist.
Yes, readers will be aware that the series was originally written in
Germany and published there, but the contents of that original are
locked away behind a mysterious and recondite language.
John Savard
J. Clarke
Sep 10, 2021, 12:18:38 AM9/10/21
to
On Thu, 9 Sep 2021 18:25:33 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2021-09-08, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
>> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
>> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
>
>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>name.
"Valcheck". I knew a Vlcek in college. I remember our German (in
<na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2021-09-08, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
>> continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
>> really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
>
>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>name.
both senses) professor working that out correctly on his own.
Paul S Person
Sep 10, 2021, 11:46:44 AM9/10/21
to
/Blood Simple/:
"The theatrical re-release and the DVD contain a mock introduction of
the film by "Mortimer Young of Forever Young Film Preservation."
He promises not only a /technical/ restoration, but that all the dull
bits have been removed and new stuff added.
Thus keeping the film "forever young".
He, himself, looks to be about 80. A very healthy 80, to be sure.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."
Paul S Person
Sep 10, 2021, 11:48:25 AM9/10/21
to
On Thu, 9 Sep 2021 20:53:48 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:
Oh, I don't know.
I still have my 25+ issues of /Asterix und Obelix/, which I enjoyed in
German way back when.
Had I been aware of Rhodan, I might have collected and read that as
well.
wrote:
I still have my 25+ issues of /Asterix und Obelix/, which I enjoyed in
German way back when.
Had I been aware of Rhodan, I might have collected and read that as
well.
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 11, 2021, 3:30:09 PM9/11/21
to
On 2021-09-10, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> Of course, though, to most readers in the United States, or, for that
> matter, Canada as well, it is as if only the English translations (or, I
> suppose, for some Canadians, the French translations, if such there
The French translations ran a lot longer.
> Of course, though, to most readers in the United States, or, for that
> matter, Canada as well, it is as if only the English translations (or, I
> suppose, for some Canadians, the French translations, if such there
> be) that were published even exist.
limited to the forgettable part of the series, which is why I
occasionally drop some hints about the larger picture.
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 11, 2021, 4:30:09 PM9/11/21
to
On 2021-09-10, J Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>>name.
>
> "Valcheck". I knew a Vlcek in college. I remember our German (in
> both senses) professor working that out correctly on his own.
The name is originally Czech, Vlček, 'little wolf', which is
>>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>>name.
>
> "Valcheck". I knew a Vlcek in college. I remember our German (in
> both senses) professor working that out correctly on his own.
pronounced [ˈvl̩tʃɛk], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
vowel in those languages.
For Ernst Vlcek, the German pronunciation was given as Wültschek,
[ˈvʏltʃɛk], with the supporting vowel a short ü as in "Glück".
J. Clarke
Sep 11, 2021, 5:28:40 PM9/11/21
to
On Sat, 11 Sep 2021 19:41:26 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2021-09-10, J Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>>>name.
>>
>> "Valcheck". I knew a Vlcek in college. I remember our German (in
>> both senses) professor working that out correctly on his own.
>
>The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
<na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2021-09-10, J Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
>>>name.
>>
>> "Valcheck". I knew a Vlcek in college. I remember our German (in
>> both senses) professor working that out correctly on his own.
>
>pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
>like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
>but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
>vowel in those languages.
>
>For Ernst Vlcek, the German pronunciation was given as Wültschek,
>[?v?lt??k], with the supporting vowel a short ü as in "Glück".
>but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
>vowel in those languages.
>
>For Ernst Vlcek, the German pronunciation was given as Wültschek,
Hey, I got the pronunciation from Vlcek, not some technical manual.
Lynn McGuire
Sep 11, 2021, 7:56:48 PM9/11/21
to
ago for $75 or something like that. It was missing books 29 and 100 but
also had the Atlan books and some of the pamplets. Here is a small
collection for $62 at the moment.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/114980839637
Lynn
Paul S Person
Sep 12, 2021, 11:47:16 AM9/12/21
to
Quadibloc
Sep 12, 2021, 8:28:35 PM9/12/21
to
On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> The name is originally Czech, Vlček, 'little wolf', which is
> pronounced [ˈvl̩tʃɛk], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> vowel in those languages.
I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
> The name is originally Czech, Vlček, 'little wolf', which is
> pronounced [ˈvl̩tʃɛk], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> vowel in those languages.
vowel is also inserted in that case.
John Savard
Quadibloc
Sep 12, 2021, 8:35:54 PM9/12/21
to
On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 1:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> I'm well aware that the American perception of _Perry Rhodan_ is
> limited to the forgettable part of the series, which is why I
> occasionally drop some hints about the larger picture.
Nothing wrong with that. If the later Perry Rhodan novels that didn't get
> I'm well aware that the American perception of _Perry Rhodan_ is
> limited to the forgettable part of the series, which is why I
> occasionally drop some hints about the larger picture.
translated into English, because of the reception the earlier ones got, were
better, that's good to know.
German SF suffers from a very negative stereotype in the English-speaking
world, due to some accounts of it. Basically on account of two things:
1) The German-language dubbed versions, shown in both Germany and
Austria, of Star Trek (that is, the original series) were terrible. That, however,
is the fault of whoever purchased the rights, not German SF fans in general.
2) It is also sometimes claimed that the Perry Rhodan series basicall _is_
science fiction in the German-speaking world. Compare that with science
fiction in the English language, where there certainly is a lot of trash, but
there is also serious and profound science fiction of every kind.
While (1) is an undoubted fact, (2) is doubtless an exaggeration - and,
if Perry Rhodan is of better quality than we realize, it would lead to an unfair
view even if it was true.
John Savard
Paul S Person
Sep 13, 2021, 11:36:50 AM9/13/21
to
On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>> The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>> pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
>> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
>> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
>> vowel in those languages.
>
>I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
>vowel is also inserted in that case.
He says "potahto", you say "potayto".
>> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
>> vowel in those languages.
>
>I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
>vowel is also inserted in that case.
It comes to the same thing, in practice.
Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
First none will come and then a lot'll
Lynn McGuire
Sep 13, 2021, 6:28:06 PM9/13/21
to
On 9/8/2021 11:52 AM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
> published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
> since.
>
> "[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
> written." (Wikipedia)
In celebration, I dug out my box of a hundred and some Perry Rhodans and
> Sixty years ago today, the first issue of _Perry Rhodan_ was
> published. Weekly installments have continuously appeared ever
> since.
>
> "[I]t is the most successful science fiction book series ever
> written." (Wikipedia)
am considering them for my next series read. I thought that I had some
of the pamphlets and Atlans also, but apparently not.
https://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Stardust-Perry-Rhodan-Scheer/dp/B0007I83EU/
From my 2011 4 out of 5 stars review of book #1, "Perry Rhodan is the
classic tale of boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy gets girl. Except it
extends to somewhere around 2600 volumes in the original German. This
book is the English translation that was started in 1969 and ran out of
steam in the USA in volume #117/118.
I believe that the original premise of Perry Rhodan was fairly original.
A spaceship takes off from the USA and finds a crashed alien spaceship
on the moon. This premise has been copied a few times, most notably in
David Weber's _Mutineers_Moon_, a work of five star excellence in my
humble opinion.
I also am a big fan of the technology in the first issue of PR. The
space ship that PR flies to the moon is a chemical first stage and
nuclear second and third stages. I am in total belief that the lack of
nuclear rocket engines is one of the failures of our current space program."
Lynn
Don
Sep 13, 2021, 9:03:04 PM9/13/21
to
„Eine tolle Frau, diese Thora. Schlank und groß. Die weißen
Haare und die goldenen Augen würden mich kaum stören. Sie
ist nicht eigentlich schön, aber von ihr geht ein seltsamer
Reiz aus, dem ich nicht widerstehen ...“
„Nr. 48 Rotes Auge Beteigeuze“
"That Thora is really way out. She's thin and she's tall
and her white hair and red eyes don't send me very much.
You know, she isn't actually beautiful-but there's a
certain fascination about her that's hard to resist...”
"#40 The Red Eye of Betelguese"
Quadibloc
Sep 13, 2021, 9:18:18 PM9/13/21
to
On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 4:28:06 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> I believe that the original premise of Perry Rhodan was fairly original.
> A spaceship takes off from the USA and finds a crashed alien spaceship
> on the moon. This premise has been copied a few times, most notably in
> David Weber's _Mutineers_Moon_, a work of five star excellence in my
> humble opinion.
It could well have been original, but of course the ancient predecessor of
> I believe that the original premise of Perry Rhodan was fairly original.
> A spaceship takes off from the USA and finds a crashed alien spaceship
> on the moon. This premise has been copied a few times, most notably in
> David Weber's _Mutineers_Moon_, a work of five star excellence in my
> humble opinion.
it would be an astronaut on _Mars_ finding the secrets of super-science
from the ancient civilization there.
John Savard
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Sep 13, 2021, 10:03:53 PM9/13/21
to
I guess.
Lynn McGuire
Sep 13, 2021, 10:15:26 PM9/13/21
to
movie that meets that description.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_on_Mars
Lynn
Quadibloc
Sep 14, 2021, 1:09:24 AM9/14/21
to
On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 8:15:26 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> And what book is that ?
Omnilingual, by H. Beam Piper, could be said to be an example, but I
> And what book is that ?
would have thought the idea is older.
John Savard
Robert Carnegie
Sep 14, 2021, 3:55:29 AM9/14/21
to
young human colonists - male and female I think,
mostly two guys - try to get a Martian electrical device
to work, but for all I know, _Across the Zodiac_
(1880, set in 1830!) may qualify.
<https://kitbashed.com/blog/across-the-zodiac>
But there is near consensus that it's terribly dull,
being mainly a tract on the insufficiency of women,
communism, and atheism.
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17930935-across-the-zodiac>
And the Martians disbelieve life on other planets
even when our protagonist comes to visit.
So they can't be all that bright.
And there's <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story>
visiting the Moon, published in the second century AD, and
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_History_of_the_States_and_Empires_of_the_Moon>
of 1657. Apparently more interesting than the visit to the
Sun, which - the book - seems to not have its own page.
But in which stories did the voyagers return in possession
of alien super-science?
Quadibloc
Sep 14, 2021, 3:07:09 PM9/14/21
to
On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 1:55:29 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> But in which stories did the voyagers return in possession
> of alien super-science?
I haven't read every science-fiction story published in the 1930s.
> But in which stories did the voyagers return in possession
> of alien super-science?
But given the typical stories of that time, I would be surprised if there
had not been not just one, but several, where an intrepid human explorer
comes to Mars, finds the primitive and degraded remnant of a once-mighty
race, has some kind of adventure involving them, and ends up discovering
a buried ancient library...
John Savard
Quadibloc
Sep 14, 2021, 11:59:30 PM9/14/21
to
even have been common, this does not mean I'm claiming they were _good_
or that they were _memorable_.
John Savard
Robert Carnegie
Sep 15, 2021, 6:51:15 AM9/15/21
to
extraterrestrial alien technology and reforming or
conquering Earth and/or becoming very rich, is a cliche.
We have to hold on to the "technology" part of this,
because just finding lots of gold or diamonds in space
is covered in _The First Men in the Moon_. Changing the
world technologically and socially and getting super-rich
also is covered, but that will be with Professor Cavor's
own invention. And money.
It's possible that the alien science world conqueror
is usually an antagonist. Marc Duquesne comes to mind.
Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
Quadibloc
Sep 15, 2021, 10:34:45 AM9/15/21
to
On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 4:51:15 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
No doubt a part of the initial popularity of the Perry Rhodan series
> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
comes from someone from Germany ending the Cold War, bringing
world peace, and assuming world leadership, after the crushing
defeat and humiliation Germany endured in World War II.
John Savard
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Sep 15, 2021, 10:55:06 AM9/15/21
to
In article <95e36c6d-cf6b-4d0f...@googlegroups.com>,
Except Perry Rhodan was an American. A treasonous American, but an American.
Don
Sep 15, 2021, 6:52:32 PM9/15/21
to
Ted Nolan wrote:
an autosuggestive associative assessment?
>>No doubt a part of the initial popularity of the Perry Rhodan series
>>comes from someone from Germany ending the Cold War, bringing
>>world peace, and assuming world leadership, after the crushing
>>defeat and humiliation Germany endured in World War II.
>>
>>John Savard
>
> Except Perry Rhodan was an American. A treasonous American, but an American.
Careful there, Perry's sensitive about the T-word.
... Augenblicklich versuchte Flipper, mit einer verzweifelten
Anstrengung den hinter ihm eingebauten Waffenschrank zu
erreichen.
„Lass es sein, Flipp“, mahnte Rhodan, „lass es sein!
Wir sind wieder zu Hause. Ich würde an deiner Stelle nicht noch
mehr riskieren.“
Flipper stierte ihn blass an. Seine Lippen zitterten.
„Zu Hause?“, wiederholte er schrill. „Hast du zu Hause
gesagt?“
Er lachte gellend auf. Sinnloser Zorn verzerrte sein
Gesicht.
„Du schmutziger Verräter hast das Schiff mitten in Asien
gelandet. Du musst es längst geplant haben, sonst hättest du
nicht so zielstrebig diese einsame Gegend angeflogen. Ganz
genau hattest du den Kurs festgelegt. So sieht das also aus!
Du willst die STARDUST an die Chinesen ausliefern. Wie lange
existiert der saubere Plan schon? Was bekommt der Starpilot
der US-Space-Force für die erledigte Arbeit? Ich ...“
„Halte die Luft an, Flipp, ganz schnell“, unterbrach ihn
Rhodan. Er war blass geworden. In seinen grauen Augen war ein
gefährliches Flimmern aufgekommen.
„Flipp, du wirst jederzeit gehen können. Niemand wird dich
hindern. Du wirst dein Baby sehen, und Eric wird seinen Kindern
allerlei zu erzählen haben. Wenn ihr aber sprecht, so sagt niemals,
dass ihr mich für einen fahnenflüchtigen Landesverräter haltet.“
„Nr. 1 Unternehmen „Stardust““
... Now, with a last rash effort, Fletcher tried to reach the
weapon shelves built into the wall behind his couch.
"Forget. it, Fletch," Rhodan cautioned. "Just hold on. We're
back home again. If I were you, I wouldn't try anything else."
Fletcher stared at him. He was shock white, with trembling
lips. "Home!" he repeated loudly. "Did you say home?" He
laughed furiously his face was misshapen with a maniacal
rage. "Damn you, traitor! You've landed the ship in the
middle of Asia! You must have had it planned all along;
otherwise, you wouldn't have flown straight to this barren
waste. You charted our course long ago. So that's it! You
want to hand the Stardust over to the Chinese. Since when
did you hatch such a treacherous plot? What reward will
the ace astronaut of the United States Space Force receive
for a job well done? How much-"
Rhodan interrupted him. "Shut up, Fletcher! Right now!"
He had turned pale. A flicker of warning sparkled in his
gray eyes. "Fletch, you can leave any time you want. No one
will prevent you from leaving. You will see your baby, and
Eric will have quite a lot to tell his grandchildren. But
whatever you say, I never want to hear you suggest that I
am a deserter or a traitor."
"#1 Enterprise Stardust"
> Quadibloc wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>
>>> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
>>> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
>>> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
Do specific story elements make you think this way? Or, is this more of
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>
>>> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
>>> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
>>> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
an autosuggestive associative assessment?
>>No doubt a part of the initial popularity of the Perry Rhodan series
>>comes from someone from Germany ending the Cold War, bringing
>>world peace, and assuming world leadership, after the crushing
>>defeat and humiliation Germany endured in World War II.
>>
>>John Savard
>
> Except Perry Rhodan was an American. A treasonous American, but an American.
... Augenblicklich versuchte Flipper, mit einer verzweifelten
Anstrengung den hinter ihm eingebauten Waffenschrank zu
erreichen.
„Lass es sein, Flipp“, mahnte Rhodan, „lass es sein!
Wir sind wieder zu Hause. Ich würde an deiner Stelle nicht noch
mehr riskieren.“
Flipper stierte ihn blass an. Seine Lippen zitterten.
„Zu Hause?“, wiederholte er schrill. „Hast du zu Hause
gesagt?“
Er lachte gellend auf. Sinnloser Zorn verzerrte sein
Gesicht.
„Du schmutziger Verräter hast das Schiff mitten in Asien
gelandet. Du musst es längst geplant haben, sonst hättest du
nicht so zielstrebig diese einsame Gegend angeflogen. Ganz
genau hattest du den Kurs festgelegt. So sieht das also aus!
Du willst die STARDUST an die Chinesen ausliefern. Wie lange
existiert der saubere Plan schon? Was bekommt der Starpilot
der US-Space-Force für die erledigte Arbeit? Ich ...“
„Halte die Luft an, Flipp, ganz schnell“, unterbrach ihn
Rhodan. Er war blass geworden. In seinen grauen Augen war ein
gefährliches Flimmern aufgekommen.
„Flipp, du wirst jederzeit gehen können. Niemand wird dich
hindern. Du wirst dein Baby sehen, und Eric wird seinen Kindern
allerlei zu erzählen haben. Wenn ihr aber sprecht, so sagt niemals,
dass ihr mich für einen fahnenflüchtigen Landesverräter haltet.“
„Nr. 1 Unternehmen „Stardust““
... Now, with a last rash effort, Fletcher tried to reach the
weapon shelves built into the wall behind his couch.
"Forget. it, Fletch," Rhodan cautioned. "Just hold on. We're
back home again. If I were you, I wouldn't try anything else."
Fletcher stared at him. He was shock white, with trembling
lips. "Home!" he repeated loudly. "Did you say home?" He
laughed furiously his face was misshapen with a maniacal
rage. "Damn you, traitor! You've landed the ship in the
middle of Asia! You must have had it planned all along;
otherwise, you wouldn't have flown straight to this barren
waste. You charted our course long ago. So that's it! You
want to hand the Stardust over to the Chinese. Since when
did you hatch such a treacherous plot? What reward will
the ace astronaut of the United States Space Force receive
for a job well done? How much-"
Rhodan interrupted him. "Shut up, Fletcher! Right now!"
He had turned pale. A flicker of warning sparkled in his
gray eyes. "Fletch, you can leave any time you want. No one
will prevent you from leaving. You will see your baby, and
Eric will have quite a lot to tell his grandchildren. But
whatever you say, I never want to hear you suggest that I
am a deserter or a traitor."
"#1 Enterprise Stardust"
Lynn McGuire
Sep 15, 2021, 6:58:58 PM9/15/21
to
against the wall, between its 8 point type, weird acronyms, and weird
genetics.
Lynn
Robert Carnegie
Sep 15, 2021, 9:46:49 PM9/15/21
to
On Wednesday, 15 September 2021 at 23:52:32 UTC+1, Don wrote:
> Ted Nolan wrote:
> > Quadibloc wrote:
> >> Robert Carnegie wrote:
> >>
> >>> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
> >>> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
> >>> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
>
> Do specific story elements make you think this way? Or, is this more of
> an autosuggestive associative assessment?
>
> >>No doubt a part of the initial popularity of the Perry Rhodan series
> >>comes from someone from Germany ending the Cold War, bringing
> >>world peace, and assuming world leadership, after the crushing
> >>defeat and humiliation Germany endured in World War II.
> >>
> >>John Savard
> >
> > Except Perry Rhodan was an American. A treasonous American, but an American.
Referring to the American translation and read some
> Ted Nolan wrote:
> > Quadibloc wrote:
> >> Robert Carnegie wrote:
> >>
> >>> Indeed, I was not sure for a while whether Perry Rhodan
> >>> is an antagonist. I also had the thought "Is all this possibly
> >>> a bit Nazi". Here and there...?
>
> Do specific story elements make you think this way? Or, is this more of
> an autosuggestive associative assessment?
>
> >>No doubt a part of the initial popularity of the Perry Rhodan series
> >>comes from someone from Germany ending the Cold War, bringing
> >>world peace, and assuming world leadership, after the crushing
> >>defeat and humiliation Germany endured in World War II.
> >>
> >>John Savard
> >
> > Except Perry Rhodan was an American. A treasonous American, but an American.
time ago... besides following a strongman founder of a
"New Power" - I think I felt that the degenerate race of
Arkonides in their spaceship crashed on the Moon, idly
spending their time watching abstract computer art
instead of actually fixing the ship, were meant to
represent decadent Germans fascinated by television
screens at home instead of going out and, well, being
Nazis? But it was against the law to say /that/.
...Just me then??
I'm British. /We/ had an empire. It was broadly horrific.
Don
Sep 16, 2021, 11:26:20 AM9/16/21
to
device. Remember when corporate media busted "Bhagdad Bob" for the
American tanks in the background of his colorful television appearance?
"television is at its heart a totalitarian medium. Because
television signals originate at a single station and are
sent top-down to the masses, tyrants everywhere push TV
sets onto their people."
_Life After Television_ (Gilder, 1990)
Peer pressure plays a role with television. Sometimes Britons and
Americans make me feel awkward about avoidance of television (or its
modern equivalent). Back in the day, do you suppose a German become
suspect for failure to know enough intimate details about the Nazi's
showcased, televised Olympics?
_1984_ (Orwell) uses two-way telescreens to smoke out dissidents.
The television authority in "Faith of Our Fathers" (PKD) takes citizens
to task for failure to keep their eyes glued to their television screen.
The Third Reich was too ephemeral and too tenuous to become allegorized
as Arkon, where the sun never sets, so to speak. Excessive Circuses, as
in Bread & Circuses, better allude to Arkon's degeneracy.
Perry Rhodan's more showman than strongman. He makes friends out of
enemies.
Hinter dem Schreibtisch saß ein unscheinbar wirkender Mann.
... Friedfertig blickten die Augen in die Welt.
Im Moment bestand diese Welt nur aus einem technisch perfekt
eingerichteten Büroraum 3000 Meter unter der Erde, tief unter
dem Festlandeis von Grönland. Hier befand sich das Hauptquartier
des bestorganisierten Geheimdienstes der Welt, der Intelligence
Agency. Diese Spezialtruppe war während der Zeit des kalten
Krieges entstanden und unterstand der NATO. Der harmlose Mann
hinter dem Schreibtisch war ihr Chef, Allan D. Mercant, einer
der gefürchtetsten Männer des 20. Jahrhunderts
„... Er sieht genau wie wir, dass Rhodan richtig handelte, als
er die Macht der Arkoniden nicht in die Hände eines Staates gab,
sondern sie über alle stellte. Nur darf er es nicht zugeben.
Eines Tages wird auch Mercant die Wahrheit sagen dürfen.“
„Nr. 4 Götterdämmerung“
An unobtrusive looking man sat behind the desk.
... His eyes regarded the world around him with a beatific
expression.
For the time being, this world consisted solely of a
technically perfectly arranged office, almost two miles
underground, deep below the permanent ice of Greenland. This
was the headquarters of the best organized secret service of
the world, the Intelligence Agency. This special organization
had been formed during the Cold War and was under the command
of NATO. The harmless man behind the desk was the head of this
organization, Allan D. Mercant, one of the most feared men of
the twentieth century.
"... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
tell the truth about his own convictions."
"#4 Twilight of the Gods"
Kevrob
Sep 18, 2021, 4:29:15 AM9/18/21
to
On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 11:26:20 AM UTC-4, Don wrote:
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
[snip]
> "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
> thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
> Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
> can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
> tell the truth about his own convictions."
>
> "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
> Danke,
>
> --
Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
borrow from Chabon. Still:
[quote]
Rhodan and the other occupants of the US spaceship Stardust land on their return
to Earth, provided with the "achievements of Arkonide supertechnology," in the Gobi
Desert (China) — among the "yellow men." (p.5) There Rhodan appropriates a
territory, which he designates the "power-base of a neutral force," since "the yellow
men . . . don't need the desert." (p.ll) From there he pursues the goal of "bringing
peace to the world —peace by force." (p.30) Because of his interference, the cold
war becomes an atomic war. Thanks to the "Arkonide super-technology," however,
the atomic warheads are all prevented from exploding. The world unites around
Rhodan's "Third Force."
[/quote]
{Compare to Grand Fenwick's "Q-Bomb" - kjr}
[quote continued]
Tendencies: a) dishonesty ("bringing peace by force"); b) justifying the violation
of boundaries and the sovereignty of states, the theft of land, the use of force,
and blackmail; c) excusing the political adventurism; d) racism (the "yellow men").
[/quote] - Sylvia Pukallus, Ronald M. Hahn and Horst Pukallus
"Science Fiction Studies" #18 (Vol 6 | Part 2) July 1979
"Perry Rhodan" as a Social and Ideological Phenomenon
https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/18/pukallus18art.htm
I haven't read much PR at all, though I knew a fellow fan who
collected all the Ace releases. I almost put together a full set
which contained the COSMOS serial:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(serial_novel)
I was buying the books for the back matter.
--
Kevin R
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
[snip]
> "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
> thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
> Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
> can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
> tell the truth about his own convictions."
>
> "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
> Danke,
>
> --
the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
borrow from Chabon. Still:
[quote]
Rhodan and the other occupants of the US spaceship Stardust land on their return
to Earth, provided with the "achievements of Arkonide supertechnology," in the Gobi
Desert (China) — among the "yellow men." (p.5) There Rhodan appropriates a
territory, which he designates the "power-base of a neutral force," since "the yellow
men . . . don't need the desert." (p.ll) From there he pursues the goal of "bringing
peace to the world —peace by force." (p.30) Because of his interference, the cold
war becomes an atomic war. Thanks to the "Arkonide super-technology," however,
the atomic warheads are all prevented from exploding. The world unites around
Rhodan's "Third Force."
[/quote]
{Compare to Grand Fenwick's "Q-Bomb" - kjr}
[quote continued]
Tendencies: a) dishonesty ("bringing peace by force"); b) justifying the violation
of boundaries and the sovereignty of states, the theft of land, the use of force,
and blackmail; c) excusing the political adventurism; d) racism (the "yellow men").
[/quote] - Sylvia Pukallus, Ronald M. Hahn and Horst Pukallus
"Science Fiction Studies" #18 (Vol 6 | Part 2) July 1979
"Perry Rhodan" as a Social and Ideological Phenomenon
https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/18/pukallus18art.htm
I haven't read much PR at all, though I knew a fellow fan who
collected all the Ace releases. I almost put together a full set
which contained the COSMOS serial:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(serial_novel)
I was buying the books for the back matter.
--
Kevin R
Robert Carnegie
Sep 18, 2021, 12:45:27 PM9/18/21
to
On Saturday, 18 September 2021 at 09:29:15 UTC+1, Kevrob wrote:
> On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 11:26:20 AM UTC-4, Don wrote:
> > Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
> > thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
> > Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
> > can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
> > tell the truth about his own convictions."
> >
> > "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
> > Danke,
> >
> > --
> Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
> the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
> StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
> all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
> failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
> but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
> NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
> over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
> borrow from Chabon.
That's his sub-title in English, but I'm hazy on what he's
> On Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 11:26:20 AM UTC-4, Don wrote:
> > Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
> > thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
> > Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
> > can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
> > tell the truth about his own convictions."
> >
> > "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
> > Danke,
> >
> > --
> Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
> the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
> StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
> all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
> failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
> but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
> NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
> over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
> borrow from Chabon.
called in stories. Of course, he does forestall and/or cause
destructive nuclear war on Earth. Which is nice.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Sep 18, 2021, 1:22:44 PM9/18/21
to
In article <4b4a4a61-f55c-439c...@googlegroups.com>,
The Rhodan books, at least as translated by Mrs. Ackerman, were
very racially inclusive on the Terran side, and Asians were important
members of Rhodan's team. In fact, I remember Ackerman published
a letter from a German fan once who claimed PR had de-nazified him.
On the other hand, they tended to project racial stereotypes onto whole
alien species.
very racially inclusive on the Terran side, and Asians were important
members of Rhodan's team. In fact, I remember Ackerman published
a letter from a German fan once who claimed PR had de-nazified him.
On the other hand, they tended to project racial stereotypes onto whole
alien species.
Don
Sep 18, 2021, 1:26:09 PM9/18/21
to
Kevrob wrote:
> Don wrote:
> I haven't read much PR at all, though I knew a fellow fan who
> collected all the Ace releases. I almost put together a full set
> which contained the COSMOS serial:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(serial_novel)
>
> I was buying the books for the back matter.
DePaw's study no longer carries any weight with me. It's a rather silly
rabbit (mousebeaver) hole. Among other dubious arguments, it tries to
tie Moewig's body builder ads to a psychological defect. It attempts to
psychoanalyze people, sight unseen, based upon those ads. (Many
magazines throughout the world carried nearly identical body builder ads
at the time.)
On to items of greater import.
An earlier post by me described Perry as a showman. He's a magician.
Although he uses sleight-of-hand all of the time, his core competency is
to comprehend the future first, before anyone else.
Only Rhodan sees the danger endemic in the Arkon ship when he first
gazes upon it. Everyone else wants to grab Arkon's advanced alien
armament to make their own government the sole power on Earth.
In my excerpt above, a Russian named Kosnow voices his opinion of
Mercant's true convictions. By this point in the story, one and a half
of the two and a half (NATO, China, Russia) powers on Earth realize an
all out nuclear war would ensue as soon as one of the powers acquired
Arkon's weapons for itself. Pyrrhic? Yes. Suicidal? Yes. Mutually
Assured Destruction? Yes.
Rhodan forces the Earth's two and a half powers to unite in order to
use their nuclear arsenals to exterminate him.
To my own detriment, the back matter you speak of above, has been
skipped, in pursuit of the PR story proper. Nonetheless, the back
matter's a science fictional treasure trove.
> Don wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
>> thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
>> Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
>> can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
>> tell the truth about his own convictions."
>>
>> "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
>
>
> [snip]
>
>> "... He is just as convinced as we are that Rhodan did the right
>> thing when he refused to surrender the power potential of the
>> Arkonides into the hands of one government alone. But Mercant
>> can't admit this yet. Perhaps someday soon he will be able to
>> tell the truth about his own convictions."
>>
>> "#4 Twilight of the Gods"
>
> Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
> the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
> StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
> all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
> failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
> but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
> NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
> over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
> borrow from Chabon. Still:
<snip>
> the early PR stories? It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
> StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
> all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types. Post-WWII, with the
> failure of the League of Nations, some modest successes for the UN,
> but the Cold War divide including two re-armed Germanies, (one in
> NATO, the other in the Warsaw Pact, facing off against each other
> over barbed wire and constrained by the superpowers from uniting,
> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
> borrow from Chabon. Still:
> I haven't read much PR at all, though I knew a fellow fan who
> collected all the Ace releases. I almost put together a full set
> which contained the COSMOS serial:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(serial_novel)
>
> I was buying the books for the back matter.
rabbit (mousebeaver) hole. Among other dubious arguments, it tries to
tie Moewig's body builder ads to a psychological defect. It attempts to
psychoanalyze people, sight unseen, based upon those ads. (Many
magazines throughout the world carried nearly identical body builder ads
at the time.)
On to items of greater import.
An earlier post by me described Perry as a showman. He's a magician.
Although he uses sleight-of-hand all of the time, his core competency is
to comprehend the future first, before anyone else.
Only Rhodan sees the danger endemic in the Arkon ship when he first
gazes upon it. Everyone else wants to grab Arkon's advanced alien
armament to make their own government the sole power on Earth.
In my excerpt above, a Russian named Kosnow voices his opinion of
Mercant's true convictions. By this point in the story, one and a half
of the two and a half (NATO, China, Russia) powers on Earth realize an
all out nuclear war would ensue as soon as one of the powers acquired
Arkon's weapons for itself. Pyrrhic? Yes. Suicidal? Yes. Mutually
Assured Destruction? Yes.
Rhodan forces the Earth's two and a half powers to unite in order to
use their nuclear arsenals to exterminate him.
To my own detriment, the back matter you speak of above, has been
skipped, in pursuit of the PR story proper. Nonetheless, the back
matter's a science fictional treasure trove.
Lynn McGuire
Sep 18, 2021, 1:50:33 PM9/18/21
to
Lynn
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 18, 2021, 3:30:09 PM9/18/21
to
On 2021-09-18, Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
>> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
>> borrow from Chabon.
>
> That's his sub-title in English, but I'm hazy on what he's
> called in stories. Of course, he does forestall and/or cause
> destructive nuclear war on Earth. Which is nice.
_Perry Rhodan_'s famous sub-title was "Der Erbe des Universums"
>> declaring neutrality and beating their tanks into Volkswagens ) I'd
>> suppose having a "Peacelord" an appealing "wishful figment," to
>> borrow from Chabon.
>
> That's his sub-title in English, but I'm hazy on what he's
> called in stories. Of course, he does forestall and/or cause
> destructive nuclear war on Earth. Which is nice.
(heir to the universe). This was eventually dropped sometime after
#1000 as people became increasingly uneasy about a possible
imperialistic undertone.
Personally, I always thought it felt evocative but didn't really
mean anything.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Quadibloc
Sep 18, 2021, 3:46:01 PM9/18/21
to
On Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 11:26:09 AM UTC-6, Don wrote:
> it tries to
> tie Moewig's body builder ads to a psychological defect. It attempts to
> psychoanalyze people, sight unseen, based upon those ads. (Many
> magazines throughout the world carried nearly identical body builder ads
> at the time.)
Oh, indeed. Many American magazines carried advertisements on
> it tries to
> tie Moewig's body builder ads to a psychological defect. It attempts to
> psychoanalyze people, sight unseen, based upon those ads. (Many
> magazines throughout the world carried nearly identical body builder ads
> at the time.)
behalf of Charles Atlas.
John Savard
Christian Weisgerber
Sep 18, 2021, 4:30:09 PM9/18/21
to
On 2021-09-18, Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
> the early PR stories?
No idea. PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
> Does anyone know the political proclivities of those wrote and edited
> the early PR stories?
> It was certainly a popular trope of Gernsbeck-era
> StF to have World Government and peace among Terrans, even if we
> all had to fight off nasty alien conqueror types.
as Grand Administrator of the Solar Empire for something like a
milliennium. I suspect the authors didn't really think about it
and eventually, oops. When William Voltz re-tooled the series,
Perry Rhodan & company were removed from government roles and moved
into some sort of para-state entity with little in the way of
oversight or accountability... wait, that doesn't sound much better,
does it?
Look, it's clear that nobody wanted to think too hard about it.
It's a space adventure series.
Quadibloc
Sep 19, 2021, 2:23:47 AM9/19/21
to
On Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> No idea. PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
Explicitly, perhaps, but implicitly?
> No idea. PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
> Look, it's clear that nobody wanted to think too hard about it.
> It's a space adventure series.
At this point, without the intention of giving offense, I must point out a
work by an American author which was in reference to a lot of that "Gernsback-era
SF"... and not, in any way, Perry Rhodan.
It was set in an alternate history, where an unsuccessful painter, with ambitions
to become an architect, emigrated to the United States and ended up as a
science-fiction writer. With, of course, very positive consequences for the world
as a whole, but the irony of the work was how well he just fitted right in.
I refer, of course, to "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad.
John Savard
Kevrob
Sep 19, 2021, 4:49:55 AM9/19/21
to
That's no fun!
--
Kevin R
Paul S Person
Sep 19, 2021, 11:12:54 AM9/19/21
to
magazine cover illustrations.
>I refer, of course, to "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad.
The awfulness of the novel is, of course, part of the fun!
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."
Quadibloc
Sep 19, 2021, 2:07:23 PM9/19/21
to
On Sunday, September 19, 2021 at 9:12:54 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
> The awfulness of the novel is, of course, part of the fun!
My point wasn't that Norman Spinrad portrayed him to be
> The awfulness of the novel is, of course, part of the fun!
a particularly good author, but that a horrendous political
subtext can lurk within superficially non-political works
of science-fiction.
John Savard
Paul S Person
Sep 20, 2021, 12:01:53 PM9/20/21
to
Iron Dream/ (as opposed to Spinrad's, which is satire). It is
political from start to finish. IMHO, of course.
As with /Venus On The Half Shell/, I bought it, read it, and
eventually donated it to the Base Library.
Jack Bohn
Sep 20, 2021, 1:08:26 PM9/20/21
to
Paul S Person wrote:
>
> There is /nothing/ "superficially non-political" about Adolf's /The
> Iron Dream/ (as opposed to Spinrad's, which is satire). It is
> political from start to finish. IMHO, of course.
Ok, I gather you find Adolf's _Iron Dream_ political, even on the surface, and Spinrad's construction of _The Iron Dream_ as an outlet for someone not in a position to take over a nation to be satirical, but tying the two together with an "as opposed to" is throwing me.
>
> There is /nothing/ "superficially non-political" about Adolf's /The
> Iron Dream/ (as opposed to Spinrad's, which is satire). It is
> political from start to finish. IMHO, of course.
--
-Jack
Quadibloc
Sep 21, 2021, 12:55:51 AM9/21/21
to
The fictional alternate-history Adolf Hitler didn't intend his novel
Lord of the Swastika to be satire.
I hadn't re-read Norman Spinrad's book before my original posting,
and thus my memory of it was fuzzy. The book parallels Hitler's
actual career to a sufficient extent that clearly the fictional Hitler
was putting his political dreams into it.
However, from the viewpoint of the _readers_ in that alternate
universe... the book addressed Cold War fears of a nuclear war.
But otherwise it was about a far-future world after a nuclear war
with mutants in it, clearly having nothing to do with present-day
realities.
None the less, the additional matter does speak of its political
subtext striking a responsive chord with some people.
John Savard
Don
Oct 1, 2021, 9:26:20 AM10/1/21
to
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
<snip>
> PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
Thus far, this is about as racy as it gets in the story proper:
... Rhodan trat in die Halle, von seinen drei Begleitern
gefolgt. Thoras Gesicht überzog sich mit einem Schimmer
freudiger Erleichterung, als sie auf Rhodan zueilte und
seine beiden Hände ergriff.
„Perry – ich bin so froh ... ich ...“
Rhodan gab den Druck der Hände zurück.
„Ich danke Ihnen, Thora. Sie haben mir jetzt eine sehr
große Freude gemacht. ...“
„Nr. 45 Seuchenherd Aralon“
... Rhodan stepped into the hall, followed by his 3
companions.
Thora's face beamed in joyous relief as she hurried
to the leader and grasped both of his hands. "Perry, I-I'm
so happy, I-!"
Rhodan returned the pressure of her hands. "Thank you,
Thora. That means more to me than you think. You've made me
very happy. ..."
"#37 Epidemic Center Aralon"
Then there's the bedroom scene between Pucky and Betty, who, regardless
of her true age, remains a gifted child in my mind's eye. A six year old
patricidal girl subsequently recruited by Rhodan at the age of twelve.
... Betty Toufry erschrak nicht einmal.
Sie saß auf dem Bett. Über dem sicherlich sehr zarten
Nachtgewand trug sie einen Morgenmantel.
... das Mädchen zu, das dem Aussehen nach genau so gut
achtzehn wie auch dreißig sein konnte. In Wirklichkeit war
Betty Toufry über sechzig Jahre alt.
... Sie zog den Morgenmantel zurecht und bedeckte die
Knie, obwohl bei Gucky nicht die geringste Gefahr bestand,
dass er weibliche Beine irgendwie mit Erotik in Verbindung
brachte.
... Gucky zeigte seinen Nagezahn und sah sich interessiert
um.
„Darf ich hier bei dir schlafen?“, erkundigte er sich
scheinheilig und warf einen sehnsüchtigen Blick auf Bettys
Bett. Aber Betty schien keine Lust zu haben, den Mausbiber
in den Schlaf zu kraulen. Sie warf den Morgenmantel ab,
schlüpfte unter die Daunendecke und schüttelte energisch
den Kopf.
„Nebenan steht eine Couch. Gute Nacht.“
„Nr. 52 Der falsche Inspekteur“
... Betty Toufry didn't so much as blink an eye. She sat
on her bed. She had modestly put on a house robe to cover a
quite diaphanous nightie.
... In outward appearance she might as well have been 18
or 30 but in actuality Betty Toufry was more than 60 years old.
... In a subconscious gesture of propriety, she pulled
her robe together and covered her knees, although this was
wasted on Pucky, who might have responded more readily to a
brace of fresh carrots.
... Pucky revealed his incisor tooth and looked about him
interestedly. "May I sleep here with you?" he inquired
sanctimoniously and cast a yearning glance at Betty's bed.
But Betty appeared to have no desire to scratch the mouse-
beaver in his sleep. She discarded her robe, slipped under
the downy quilt and shook her head energetically. "There's a
couch in the next room. Good night!"
"#44 The Pseudo One"
###
Moewig's back cover's a whole nother story. There, body builder ads,
apparently antecedentally American, appear in the early issues. One
such ad is a tightly cropped image from the topmost photo in #3:
https://www.tigerfitness.com/blogs/motivation/31-old-school-bodybuilding-magazine-ads
The smirking snickering sheila shown in #22 - "Either That Bulge Goes or
I Do!" may never grace the back cover of PR, but she makes me ROTFLMAO.
The pose in #22's bottom photo seems subliminally sexually suggestive.
(Speaking of savvy slimming tricks, my homemade vanilla bean frappe,
with lots of crushed ice and a water chaser, keeps the pounds off.)
Moewig's muscle men were dropped in „Nr. 53 Verdammten von Isan“ to make
room for something a little more provocative. You need to cover your
eyes and not peek, if you're a Puritanical busybody, because a banned in
Boston back cover appears at the link:
https://postimg.cc/3ygm67w9
<snip>
> PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
... Rhodan trat in die Halle, von seinen drei Begleitern
gefolgt. Thoras Gesicht überzog sich mit einem Schimmer
freudiger Erleichterung, als sie auf Rhodan zueilte und
seine beiden Hände ergriff.
„Perry – ich bin so froh ... ich ...“
Rhodan gab den Druck der Hände zurück.
„Ich danke Ihnen, Thora. Sie haben mir jetzt eine sehr
große Freude gemacht. ...“
„Nr. 45 Seuchenherd Aralon“
... Rhodan stepped into the hall, followed by his 3
companions.
Thora's face beamed in joyous relief as she hurried
to the leader and grasped both of his hands. "Perry, I-I'm
so happy, I-!"
Rhodan returned the pressure of her hands. "Thank you,
Thora. That means more to me than you think. You've made me
very happy. ..."
"#37 Epidemic Center Aralon"
Then there's the bedroom scene between Pucky and Betty, who, regardless
of her true age, remains a gifted child in my mind's eye. A six year old
patricidal girl subsequently recruited by Rhodan at the age of twelve.
... Betty Toufry erschrak nicht einmal.
Sie saß auf dem Bett. Über dem sicherlich sehr zarten
Nachtgewand trug sie einen Morgenmantel.
... das Mädchen zu, das dem Aussehen nach genau so gut
achtzehn wie auch dreißig sein konnte. In Wirklichkeit war
Betty Toufry über sechzig Jahre alt.
... Sie zog den Morgenmantel zurecht und bedeckte die
Knie, obwohl bei Gucky nicht die geringste Gefahr bestand,
dass er weibliche Beine irgendwie mit Erotik in Verbindung
brachte.
... Gucky zeigte seinen Nagezahn und sah sich interessiert
um.
„Darf ich hier bei dir schlafen?“, erkundigte er sich
scheinheilig und warf einen sehnsüchtigen Blick auf Bettys
Bett. Aber Betty schien keine Lust zu haben, den Mausbiber
in den Schlaf zu kraulen. Sie warf den Morgenmantel ab,
schlüpfte unter die Daunendecke und schüttelte energisch
den Kopf.
„Nebenan steht eine Couch. Gute Nacht.“
„Nr. 52 Der falsche Inspekteur“
... Betty Toufry didn't so much as blink an eye. She sat
on her bed. She had modestly put on a house robe to cover a
quite diaphanous nightie.
... In outward appearance she might as well have been 18
or 30 but in actuality Betty Toufry was more than 60 years old.
... In a subconscious gesture of propriety, she pulled
her robe together and covered her knees, although this was
wasted on Pucky, who might have responded more readily to a
brace of fresh carrots.
... Pucky revealed his incisor tooth and looked about him
interestedly. "May I sleep here with you?" he inquired
sanctimoniously and cast a yearning glance at Betty's bed.
But Betty appeared to have no desire to scratch the mouse-
beaver in his sleep. She discarded her robe, slipped under
the downy quilt and shook her head energetically. "There's a
couch in the next room. Good night!"
"#44 The Pseudo One"
###
Moewig's back cover's a whole nother story. There, body builder ads,
apparently antecedentally American, appear in the early issues. One
such ad is a tightly cropped image from the topmost photo in #3:
https://www.tigerfitness.com/blogs/motivation/31-old-school-bodybuilding-magazine-ads
The smirking snickering sheila shown in #22 - "Either That Bulge Goes or
I Do!" may never grace the back cover of PR, but she makes me ROTFLMAO.
The pose in #22's bottom photo seems subliminally sexually suggestive.
(Speaking of savvy slimming tricks, my homemade vanilla bean frappe,
with lots of crushed ice and a water chaser, keeps the pounds off.)
Moewig's muscle men were dropped in „Nr. 53 Verdammten von Isan“ to make
room for something a little more provocative. You need to cover your
eyes and not peek, if you're a Puritanical busybody, because a banned in
Boston back cover appears at the link:
https://postimg.cc/3ygm67w9
Christian Weisgerber
Oct 1, 2021, 4:30:10 PM10/1/21
to
On 2021-10-01, Don <g...@crcomp.net> wrote:
>> PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
>
> Thus far, this is about as racy as it gets in the story proper:
>> PR has avoided politics nearly as much as sex.
>
> Thus far, this is about as racy as it gets in the story proper:
> ... Sie zog den Morgenmantel zurecht und bedeckte die
> Knie, obwohl bei Gucky nicht die geringste Gefahr bestand,
> dass er weibliche Beine irgendwie mit Erotik in Verbindung
> brachte.
Apparently too racy for American readers! Because this translation...
> Knie, obwohl bei Gucky nicht die geringste Gefahr bestand,
> dass er weibliche Beine irgendwie mit Erotik in Verbindung
> brachte.
> ... In a subconscious gesture of propriety, she pulled
> her robe together and covered her knees, although this was
> wasted on Pucky, who might have responded more readily to a
> brace of fresh carrots.
slightest danger that Pucky would somehow associate a woman's legs
with eroticism".
> Moewig's back cover's a whole nother story. There, body builder ads,
> apparently antecedentally American, appear in the early issues. One
> such ad is a tightly cropped image from the topmost photo in #3:
advertisement in pulps and maybe even general magazines. E.g. I
think the automobile club's monthly also had some pages of such
ads. Apart from the muscle growth stuff, I have vague memories
about wide-spread ads for shoes to raise one's height, possibly
sexual enhancement pills (I may not have quite tweaked on to them
at my young age), and just a wide variety of highly dubious products.
Don
Oct 3, 2021, 9:28:18 PM10/3/21
to
Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> Don wrote:
Months ago, when "bicycle legs" was plugged into search engines, the
results returned little more than Anastasia with a bicycle in the
background:
https://legsemporium.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Anastasia-Sculpted-Calves-Stewardess-COVER.jpg
The guy who runs the site's purportedly a leg connoisseur. Anastasia's
legs do not look especially erotic to me. Her legs look like an
athlete's legs; they look like my legs. It's the reason a search was
performed on "bicycle legs" in the first place, to ease my mind over any
grotesque factor with my own legs. You end up with athletic legs if you
spin up Casper Mountain nearly every day:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/index.php
A woman was encountered on a recent spin up the mountain. After my newly
discovered leg knowledge was shared, she looked at me kinda funny and
said she couldn't talk and spin at the same time. ROTFLMAO.
Nowadays, "bicycle legs" went stupid viral. And everyone and his brother
wants to show off their legs. (Bicyclists can be a rather vain lot, at
times.)
This gals got great gams, if you use leg connoisseur's criteria:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n032.png
Donna's her name. And her athletic legs meet the criteria because her
calves are nearly as large in diameter as her thighs. There's a good
reason Donna's legs were in great shape back in the day, she's a world
class snow skier and also a water skier. Here's a group photo:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n033.png
If the guy on the left looks familiar, it's because he's world famous.
Here's a closeup:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n031.png
Can he pitch beer, or what? These photos came into my possession as a
volunteer digital curator for the Hogadon Basin Ski Area. The identity
of the other man's unknown. Is he a co-star? An assistant?
If anyone interacts with Clint on social media, they ought to share
those photos to get his recollection of the event.
Anyhow, the story goes Clint was making a movie in the vicinity of
Casper at the time. (?Every Which Way but Loose? Does the second man
look like one of the bikers in the movie?) And Clint wanted to learn
to water ski between takes. So, Donna volunteered to show him how.
> Don wrote:
results returned little more than Anastasia with a bicycle in the
background:
https://legsemporium.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Anastasia-Sculpted-Calves-Stewardess-COVER.jpg
The guy who runs the site's purportedly a leg connoisseur. Anastasia's
legs do not look especially erotic to me. Her legs look like an
athlete's legs; they look like my legs. It's the reason a search was
performed on "bicycle legs" in the first place, to ease my mind over any
grotesque factor with my own legs. You end up with athletic legs if you
spin up Casper Mountain nearly every day:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/index.php
A woman was encountered on a recent spin up the mountain. After my newly
discovered leg knowledge was shared, she looked at me kinda funny and
said she couldn't talk and spin at the same time. ROTFLMAO.
Nowadays, "bicycle legs" went stupid viral. And everyone and his brother
wants to show off their legs. (Bicyclists can be a rather vain lot, at
times.)
This gals got great gams, if you use leg connoisseur's criteria:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n032.png
Donna's her name. And her athletic legs meet the criteria because her
calves are nearly as large in diameter as her thighs. There's a good
reason Donna's legs were in great shape back in the day, she's a world
class snow skier and also a water skier. Here's a group photo:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n033.png
If the guy on the left looks familiar, it's because he's world famous.
Here's a closeup:
https://crcomp.net/arts/spintale/n031.png
Can he pitch beer, or what? These photos came into my possession as a
volunteer digital curator for the Hogadon Basin Ski Area. The identity
of the other man's unknown. Is he a co-star? An assistant?
If anyone interacts with Clint on social media, they ought to share
those photos to get his recollection of the event.
Anyhow, the story goes Clint was making a movie in the vicinity of
Casper at the time. (?Every Which Way but Loose? Does the second man
look like one of the bikers in the movie?) And Clint wanted to learn
to water ski between takes. So, Donna volunteered to show him how.
Will Dockery
Jan 20, 2022, 8:27:22 AM1/20/22
to
On Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 2:30:08 PM UTC-4, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2021-09-08, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> > continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> > really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
> Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
> name.
>
> I think the Ackerman translations only covered what I think of as
> the dire early days. Remember, the series was initially expected
> to run for maybe 30 installments. The writers didn't exactly think
> far ahead. The series really got going starting with #200 when
> stretches of 50 or 100 installments were planned out and the writers
> hit on a winning formula already used by Doc Smith to great success:
> Have you protagonists fight through layer after layer of enemies
> until they encounter the unknown big bad. #200..299 exemplified
> that with Perry Rhodan going to Andromeda and running into the
> Masters of the Isle, who ruled that galaxy with an iron fist,
> genocide being their standard measure to instill obedience. The
> MoI were so charismatic that they kept being referenced long after
> their demise and would occasionally still appear from beyond the
> grave.
>
> That approach was repeated with diminishing returns for #300..399
> and #400..499 and then the ride became really bumpy. I forgot the
> behind-the-scenes details, if they were ever made public, but I
> think William Voltz had to take over the series in an emergency,
> it was this >< close to getting canceled. He took a while to get
> his footing and then greatly remade the series. His first, drawn-out
> step was to get rid of the Solar Empire. Instead of ever new waves
> of invading baddies, Voltz took the series in a new direction,
> infused it with a sense of mysticism and cosmic secrets.
>
> For a while things became very, very big. Where previously the
> history from 50,000 or 200,000 years ago had weighed on the present,
> suddenly we were talking about events from millions of years ago.
> You think the Ringworld is big? There was an extra-universal
> construct, a flat world one light year in diameter. Now that's a
> lot of territory to cross. Fittingly the long-gone builders were
> only known as the Space Time Engineers. You think a mere
> superintelligence like IT is a powerful being? Just a minor player
> in the game between Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs. Weird entities
> appeared. The Seven Mighty Ones, whose task was to seed the universe
> with life and intelligence. Laire, the robot whose eye was the key
> to the realm beyond the Well of Matter. Somewhat memorably, there
> was Si Kitu, the Guardian/Embodiment of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
> who took the form of, well, a slutty woman, and who promiscuously
> sided with whoever would preserve her law. In what became an ironic
> pattern, everybody who had served the Cosmocrats as the nominal
> forces of good tended to suffer a poor fate as a person or species.
>
> Not everything worked. The Cosmocrats sent Perry Rhodan on a quest
> to find the answers to the Three Ultimate Questions, which in the
> end proved extremely underwhelming, and the writers tripped over
> their own convoluted continuity, so it turned out that the Cosmocrats
> had to have known the answers to the first two questions all along.
> Oops.
>
> Voltz of course died far too early at the age of 46. His successors
> dialed things back to more manageable, merely galactic sizes.
> I eventually gave up on the series somewhere around #1800 or so.
> The highs of the series were very high indeed, and the sheer size
> of the accumulated mythology--as far as anybody could still remember
> it, anyway--and the deep callbacks were amazing, but the _average_
> installment was... poor... if you were used to the writing standards
> of Anglo-American SF.
The vastness of the Perry Rhodan mythos is amazingly complex, definitely when compared to the closest American equivalents, such as Star Wars or the combined Star Trek mythos, which is just now progressing a thousand years into the future with Star Trek: Discovery.
> On 2021-09-08, Ted Nolan <tednolan> <t...@loft.tnolan.com> wrote:
>
> > I wonder if I would have burned out on it had the Ackerman's
> > continued. I always thought of Vlotz as "the guy who writes the
> > really strange ones" and I undestand he eventually became show-runner.
> Voltz. Ernst Vlcek was the one with the how-do-you-pronounce-that
> name.
>
> I think the Ackerman translations only covered what I think of as
> the dire early days. Remember, the series was initially expected
> to run for maybe 30 installments. The writers didn't exactly think
> far ahead. The series really got going starting with #200 when
> stretches of 50 or 100 installments were planned out and the writers
> hit on a winning formula already used by Doc Smith to great success:
> Have you protagonists fight through layer after layer of enemies
> until they encounter the unknown big bad. #200..299 exemplified
> that with Perry Rhodan going to Andromeda and running into the
> Masters of the Isle, who ruled that galaxy with an iron fist,
> genocide being their standard measure to instill obedience. The
> MoI were so charismatic that they kept being referenced long after
> their demise and would occasionally still appear from beyond the
> grave.
>
> That approach was repeated with diminishing returns for #300..399
> and #400..499 and then the ride became really bumpy. I forgot the
> behind-the-scenes details, if they were ever made public, but I
> think William Voltz had to take over the series in an emergency,
> it was this >< close to getting canceled. He took a while to get
> his footing and then greatly remade the series. His first, drawn-out
> step was to get rid of the Solar Empire. Instead of ever new waves
> of invading baddies, Voltz took the series in a new direction,
> infused it with a sense of mysticism and cosmic secrets.
>
> For a while things became very, very big. Where previously the
> history from 50,000 or 200,000 years ago had weighed on the present,
> suddenly we were talking about events from millions of years ago.
> You think the Ringworld is big? There was an extra-universal
> construct, a flat world one light year in diameter. Now that's a
> lot of territory to cross. Fittingly the long-gone builders were
> only known as the Space Time Engineers. You think a mere
> superintelligence like IT is a powerful being? Just a minor player
> in the game between Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs. Weird entities
> appeared. The Seven Mighty Ones, whose task was to seed the universe
> with life and intelligence. Laire, the robot whose eye was the key
> to the realm beyond the Well of Matter. Somewhat memorably, there
> was Si Kitu, the Guardian/Embodiment of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,
> who took the form of, well, a slutty woman, and who promiscuously
> sided with whoever would preserve her law. In what became an ironic
> pattern, everybody who had served the Cosmocrats as the nominal
> forces of good tended to suffer a poor fate as a person or species.
>
> Not everything worked. The Cosmocrats sent Perry Rhodan on a quest
> to find the answers to the Three Ultimate Questions, which in the
> end proved extremely underwhelming, and the writers tripped over
> their own convoluted continuity, so it turned out that the Cosmocrats
> had to have known the answers to the first two questions all along.
> Oops.
>
> Voltz of course died far too early at the age of 46. His successors
> dialed things back to more manageable, merely galactic sizes.
> I eventually gave up on the series somewhere around #1800 or so.
> The highs of the series were very high indeed, and the sheer size
> of the accumulated mythology--as far as anybody could still remember
> it, anyway--and the deep callbacks were amazing, but the _average_
> installment was... poor... if you were used to the writing standards
> of Anglo-American SF.
The vastness of the Perry Rhodan mythos is amazingly complex, definitely when compared to the closest American equivalents, such as Star Wars or the combined Star Trek mythos, which is just now progressing a thousand years into the future with Star Trek: Discovery.
Kevrob
Jan 22, 2022, 3:07:37 AM1/22/22
to
On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 11:36:50 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >
> >> The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
> >> pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> >> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> >> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> >> vowel in those languages.
> >
> >I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
> >vowel is also inserted in that case.
> He says "potahto", you say "potayto".
>
> It comes to the same thing, in practice.
>
> Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
> First none will come and then a lot'll
> --
Then there are those dialects where the word sounds
something like [ bah ' ull ] . :)
--
Kevin R
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >
> >> The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
> >> pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> >> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> >> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> >> vowel in those languages.
> >
> >I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
> >vowel is also inserted in that case.
> He says "potahto", you say "potayto".
>
> It comes to the same thing, in practice.
>
> Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
> First none will come and then a lot'll
> --
Then there are those dialects where the word sounds
something like [ bah ' ull ] . :)
--
Kevin R
peterw...@hotmail.com
Jan 23, 2022, 3:14:12 PM1/23/22
to
On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 2:55:29 AM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 02:18:18 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> > it would be an astronaut on _Mars_ finding the secrets of super-science
> > from the ancient civilization there.
> I thought of George O. Smith's "Lost Art" where some
> young human colonists - male and female I think,
> mostly two guys - try to get a Martian electrical device
> to work, but for all I know, _Across the Zodiac_
> (1880, set in 1830!) may qualify.
> <https://kitbashed.com/blog/across-the-zodiac>
>
> But there is near consensus that it's terribly dull,
> being mainly a tract on the insufficiency of women,
> communism, and atheism.
> <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17930935-across-the-zodiac>
>
> And the Martians disbelieve life on other planets
> even when our protagonist comes to visit.
> So they can't be all that bright.
>
> And there's <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story>
> visiting the Moon, published in the second century AD, and
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_History_of_the_States_and_Empires_of_the_Moon>
> of 1657. Apparently more interesting than the visit to the
> Sun, which - the book - seems to not have its own page.
>
> But in which stories did the voyagers return in possession
> of alien super-science?
In _Skylark Three_, Edward E. Smith's 1930 sequel to _The Skylark of Space_, Seaton and Crane find
themselves at war with the advanced alien species the Fenechrone. As it happens the duo have
recently created an impenetrable "zone of force" that is a nearly perfect defense, but once it is
activated the ship that deploys it cannot observe or maneuver. They have historical evidence that
advanced beings once visited the planet Osnome, to which Earth is allied. Seaton and Crane search
the star cluster which contains Osnome for these advanced aliens, hoping that they know how to work
through a zone of force. Seaton and party find the planet Norlamin, home to the advanced aliens, who
give them mastery of "fifth order" forces which allows them to defeat the Fenechrone.
Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist
> On Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 02:18:18 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 4:28:06 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >
> > > I believe that the original premise of Perry Rhodan was fairly original.
> > > A spaceship takes off from the USA and finds a crashed alien spaceship
> > > on the moon. This premise has been copied a few times, most notably in
> > > David Weber's _Mutineers_Moon_, a work of five star excellence in my
> > > humble opinion.
> > It could well have been original, but of course the ancient predecessor of
> >
> > > I believe that the original premise of Perry Rhodan was fairly original.
> > > A spaceship takes off from the USA and finds a crashed alien spaceship
> > > on the moon. This premise has been copied a few times, most notably in
> > > David Weber's _Mutineers_Moon_, a work of five star excellence in my
> > > humble opinion.
> > it would be an astronaut on _Mars_ finding the secrets of super-science
> > from the ancient civilization there.
> I thought of George O. Smith's "Lost Art" where some
> young human colonists - male and female I think,
> mostly two guys - try to get a Martian electrical device
> to work, but for all I know, _Across the Zodiac_
> (1880, set in 1830!) may qualify.
> <https://kitbashed.com/blog/across-the-zodiac>
>
> But there is near consensus that it's terribly dull,
> being mainly a tract on the insufficiency of women,
> communism, and atheism.
> <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17930935-across-the-zodiac>
>
> And the Martians disbelieve life on other planets
> even when our protagonist comes to visit.
> So they can't be all that bright.
>
> And there's <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_True_Story>
> visiting the Moon, published in the second century AD, and
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_History_of_the_States_and_Empires_of_the_Moon>
> of 1657. Apparently more interesting than the visit to the
> Sun, which - the book - seems to not have its own page.
>
> But in which stories did the voyagers return in possession
> of alien super-science?
In _Skylark Three_, Edward E. Smith's 1930 sequel to _The Skylark of Space_, Seaton and Crane find
themselves at war with the advanced alien species the Fenechrone. As it happens the duo have
recently created an impenetrable "zone of force" that is a nearly perfect defense, but once it is
activated the ship that deploys it cannot observe or maneuver. They have historical evidence that
advanced beings once visited the planet Osnome, to which Earth is allied. Seaton and Crane search
the star cluster which contains Osnome for these advanced aliens, hoping that they know how to work
through a zone of force. Seaton and party find the planet Norlamin, home to the advanced aliens, who
give them mastery of "fifth order" forces which allows them to defeat the Fenechrone.
Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist
peterw...@hotmail.com
Jan 23, 2022, 4:16:32 PM1/23/22
to
On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 10:36:50 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >
> >> The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
> >> pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> >> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> >> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> >> vowel in those languages.
> >
> >I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
> >vowel is also inserted in that case.
> He says "potahto", you say "potayto".
>
> It comes to the same thing, in practice.
>
> Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
> First none will come and then a lot'll
The technical term for this is "non-Newtonian fluid".
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:28:32 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 2:30:09 PM UTC-6, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> >
> >> The name is originally Czech, Vl?ek, 'little wolf', which is
> >> pronounced [?vl?t??k], with a syllabic l. That is, the l functions
> >> like a vowel. Both English and German also feature syllabic l's,
> >> but only word-finally as in "bottle". So Vlcek gets a prosthetic
> >> vowel in those languages.
> >
> >I thought that in English, "bottle" is pronounced "bottul", so a
> >vowel is also inserted in that case.
> He says "potahto", you say "potayto".
>
> It comes to the same thing, in practice.
>
> Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
> First none will come and then a lot'll
Interestingly, in a further deviation from American practice, in the Cockney dialect "bottle" is
pronounced with a glottal stop mid-word. If memory serves, in one of Harry Harrison's _Deathworld_
stories Jason Dinalt notes that some people from a lost colony they are dealing with are speaking
a version of Esperanto with some variations, including a glottal stop. Jason remarks, "Believe me,
no language needs a glottal stop."
Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist
peterw...@hotmail.com
Jan 23, 2022, 9:44:07 PM1/23/22
to
1963 in _Analog_ as _The Ethical Engineer_, and in book form as _Deathworld 2_. The protagonist is
Jason dinAlt, (different capitalization) which is suggestive of Dutch ancestry:
"I thought I recognized the language, and I was right. It's a corrupt form of Esperanto, the language all the
Terido worlds speak. This altered language plus the fact that these people live about one step above the
stone-age culture is pretty sure evidence that they are cut off from any contact with the rest of the galaxy,
though I hope not. There may be a trading base somewhere on the planet, and if there is we'll find it later.
We have enough other things to worry about right now, but at least we can speak the language. These people
have contracted and lost a lot of sounds and even introduced a glottal stop, something that no language needs,
but with a little effort the meaning can still be made out."
Whenever I have occasion to explain to someone what a glottal stop is I use the example of the Cockney
pronunciation of bottle, which many people have heard in movies. It is an interesting point that a
professional gambler like Jason dinAlt who has knocked around in the backwaters of galactic civilization
has acquired a certain knowledge of linguistics.
Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist
Robert Carnegie
Jan 24, 2022, 1:11:11 PM1/24/22
to
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