Re: "The Atom Hell of Grautier (Perry Rhodan #71)"

Lynn McGuire wrote:

"The Atom Hell of Grautier (Perry Rhodan #71)"
   https://www.amazon.com/Perry-Rhodan-Atom-Hell-Grautier/dp/044166055X/
>
Book number seventy-one 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 79 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/Die_Atomh%C3%B6lle_von_Gray_Beast
>
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.
>
Perry Rhodan is building a huge fleet of 1,200 space ships around the
hidden Terran base at the Grautier planet for attacking the Arkonide
Robot Regent.  But the Terran battle cruiser Rigel had its FTL
transition compensator fail and the Terran base on Grautier was exposed
to the Arkonides.  An Arkon robot battle group shows up and bombs
Grautier with Arkon bombs that start an unextinguishable nuclear fire
which destroys the planet.  But, Perry Rhodan and his entire command
staff are on the planet.
>
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/

It was bad enough when an original, popular character named Thora was
eliminated. Now PR planetcides a popular place. The unleashed nihilism
sucker punched any readers (eg me) invested in Gray Beast. They take the
time to get to know their way around a setting, and the next thing they
know - Boom! - it's gone.
    It's one thing when an obscure planet, Beteigeuze III for instance,
is used as a setting thrice before it's Arkon bombed into a small star
by Mounder Cekztel. It's quite another thing for it to happen to
heavenly body Gray Beast, used four times as often in relatively recent
Rhoverse romps.

Danke,

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