"The Bonds of Eternity (Perry Rhodan #69)" by Clark Darlton

"The Bonds of Eternity (Perry Rhodan #69)" by Clark Darlton
   https://www.amazon.com/Bonds-Eternity-Perry-Rhodan-69/dp/4416601530/
Book number sixty-nine 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 77 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/In_den_Fesseln_der_Ewigkeit
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 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.
Atlan, Perry Rhodan, Reginald Bell, Pucky, and a crew take the Drusus, a 1,500 meter (one mile) diameter Titan spaceship, into the Druuf star system again.  A fleet of thousands of robot space ships from Arkon is there trying to keep the Druufs from leaving their planet.  And a long lost mutant is trying to contact Perry Rhodan.  Perry Rhodan finally answers the continuous contact from the Robot Regent of Arkon to discuss strategy to defeat the Druufs.
BTW, there is a two part serial of the marriage of Perry Rhodan and
Thora of Arkon ended in this issue.  This short story was written by
Clark Darlton specifically for the English book series but, written in
German so it had to be translated also by Wendy Ackerman.  And Clark Darlton wrote the short story in the Ackerman's house in Los Angeles on a German typewriter.
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:  0 out of 5 stars (0 reviews)
Lynn