Lynn McGuire
2025-02-11 02:36:58 UTC
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Permalinkhttps://www.amazon.com/Spaceship-Ancestors-Perry-Rhodan-73/dp/B0006WT5OE/
Book number seventy-three 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 Forrest 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 1975 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 #106, plus the Atlan books, and some of the Lemuria books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
BTW, this is actually book number 81 of the German pamphlets written in
1963. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on the
Perrypedia German 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/Raumschiff_der_Ahnen_(Roman)
In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow
astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in their
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 seventy 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
and keep them from being taken over by the robot administrator of Arkon.
Pucky the mutant mousebeaver and the light cruiser Arctic are returning
home to Earth from a mission. At one of the FTL transition points,
Pucky telepathically hears someone screaming for help. They transition
in the direction of the cry and find a 1,200 meter Arkonide spherical
battleship. Pucky teleports on board and finds a bunch of live and
frozen Arkenides being controlled by robots.
Two observations:
1. Forrest Ackerman should have put two or three 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: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars (2 reviews)
Lynn