"The Dead Live (Perry Rhodan #48)" by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman

[Lynn McGuire]

"The Dead Live (Perry Rhodan #48)" by Clark Darlton, translated by
Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Rhodan-48-Dead-LIve/dp/4141660310/

Book number forty-eight of a series of one hundred and thirty-six space
opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets,
number in the thousands. The English books started with two translated
German stories per book translated by Wendayne Ackerman and transitioned
to one story per book with the sixth book. And then they transition
back to two stories in book #109/110. The Ace publisher dropped out at
#118, so Forest and Wendayne Ackerman published books #119 to #136 in
pamphlets before stopping in 1978. The German books were written from
1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently
been rebooted again. I read the well printed and well bound book
published by Ace in 1974 that I had to be very careful with due to age.
I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on
ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans
in The Great Flood of 1989. In fact, I now own book #1 to book #105,
plus the Atlan books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

BTW, this is actually book number 56 of the German pamphlets written in
1962. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on this
website of all of the PR books. There is automatic Google translation
available for English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, French, and Portuguese.
https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Der_Schatten_des_Overhead

In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow
astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in 1971. The
first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were
nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio
interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an
aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of
500. It has been over sixty-nine years since then and the Solar Empire
has flourished with tens of millions of people and many spaceships
headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania. Perry Rhodan
has been elected by the people of Earth to be the World Administrator.

Two of Perry Rhodan's mutants have gone rogue and set up shop on the
planet Volat with a bunch of Springers. They have promised trips to the
planet Wanderer to receive treatments of eternal life, which they think
that they can steal. They managed to kill Perry Rhodan's first mutant
spy and seriously hurt his second mutant spy. The spaceship immediately
travels back to Earth and reports in. Perry Rhodan and Pucky jump on
the spaceship and it goes back to resolve the situation. One thing to
note is that Volat is part of the Arkonide Empire and the robot regent
is sending a robot fleet to subdue the rebellion.

Two observations:
1. The publisher should have put two to four of the translated stories
in each book. Having two stories in the first five books worked out
well. Just having one story in the book is too short and would never
allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should
read the totally awesome "Mutineer's Moon" Dahak series of three books
by David Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/

My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 0 out of 5 stars (0 reviews)

Lynn

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2022-08-12, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "The Dead Live (Perry Rhodan #48)" by Clark Darlton, translated by
> Wendayne Ackerman
> https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Rhodan-48-Dead-LIve/dp/4141660310/
>

> BTW, this is actually book number 56 of the German pamphlets written in
> 1962.

> https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Der_Schatten_des_Overhead

You forgot to update the URL from your previous review. This is #56:
https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Die_Toten_leben

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Lynn McGuire]

Oops ! Thanks for the save.

Lynn

[Don]

Lynn McGuire wrote:

<snip>

> Two of Perry Rhodan's mutants have gone rogue and set up shop on the
> planet Volat with a bunch of Springers. They have promised trips to the
> planet Wanderer to receive treatments of eternal life, which they think
> that they can steal. They managed to kill Perry Rhodan's first mutant
> spy and seriously hurt his second mutant spy. The spaceship immediately
> travels back to Earth and reports in. Perry Rhodan and Pucky jump on
> the spaceship and it goes back to resolve the situation. One thing to
> note is that Volat is part of the Arkonide Empire and the robot regent
> is sending a robot fleet to subdue the rebellion.

This story introduces a new theme: dissent - a political fact-of-life
encountered by all leaders.
The Ackermans add "Earth-love it or leave it!" to their Ace
translation. Their phrase is a take-off on "America-love it or leave
it!" - more precisely stated as "America-love war or leave America!"
Today's bumper stickers show similar sentiment with "If you can't
stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them" (where
they can kill you).
The elimination of dissenters is one evil way to quell dissent.

Thora's kidnapped for the first time in this story. An enemy endangers
her in order to manipulate Rhodan.
The Galactic Traders, the Springers, exploit large, powerful cats
called Katanians, whose uncanny behavior brings to mind van Vogt's
Coeurl. The Springers hypnotize Katanians to order to misuse them. They
were introduced to Volat as unwillingly accomplices to help Springers
rule the planet with an iron fist.
The mouse-beaver Pucky's innate fear of cats surfaces in this story.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.