Customer Reviews

Enterprise Stardust (Perry Rhodan)

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"Enterprise Stardust" seems like such an inauspicious beginning to what is now the world's greatest Science Fiction Space Opera.

Although only about 125 books (still an incredible number for any series of books) were translated and reprinted in America, over 1800 (yes, that's right, over one thousand eight hundred!) have been printed in Germany and reprinted in almost every country in the world. The series is still being produced on a weekly basis.

In "Enterprise Stardust" were are introduced to the major characters for the next few years. Two humans, Major Perry Rhodan, commander of the first nuclear powered rocket to the moon, and Captain Reginald Bell become embroiled in an interstellar conflict when they find not only the ruins of a gigantic spaceship on the moon, but they also realize that it is still occupied!

Krest, an Arkonide Scientist, and the military commander, Thora, are found in the ship, along with a few other Arkonides. Krest gives Rhodan access to some of his civilization's fantastic creations in exchange for a promise to attempt to cure a strange disease that he has.

Upon arrival on Earth, Rhodan takes what seems to be at first glance to be a stupid idea - he realizes that the nations of Earth are not ready to handle the technology of the Arkonides, and lands the ship in the middle of the Gobi desert and activates a special force field (of Arkonide design) over the ship. He uses this base to start what will eventually be a galactic empire based on Earth (or what Perry calls "Terra").

Meanwhile, he sends a couple crewmembers to retrieve the material Krest needs for his condition. One is captured, but the other returns, not only with the medicine Krest needs, but a doctor to administer it to him.

This is a very good novel in the best tradition of E. E. (Doc) Smith. It's not good scifi, but it's great Space Opera. Don't let the seemingly slow pace of the first American edition stop you from enjoying this fantastic series. Turn off the logical portion of your mind and sit back and enjoy the story of what happens when one man is given almost limitless powers. It doesn't take Rhodan long to determine that "with great power comes great responsibility".

Well worth picking up an issue or two for traders, as the originals have been out-of-print for sometime. Gee, I wish some enterprising book publisher sees this and gets interested in reprinting and continuing this fine Space Opera.

How much do I love this series? Well, I bought a German course for my computer and have started ordering the originals from Europe. This book introduces the most prolific science fiction series of all time. When the first US rocket lands on the moon, the astronauts find a crew of Arkonides marooned on the dark side. Perry Rhodan, the commander of the US ship, offers to help them in exchange for technology and embarks on a plan to bring the earth up to the level of the Arkonides.
From this book, 2500+ adventures were launched in Germany. The series encompasses a pulp style weekly, comic books, paperbacks and dozens of other products and publications.
About 150 of the novels were published in the US including several books containing 2 stories and about 20 or so published by a now-defunct small publisher. In those available in the English, you'll find such pulp-SF staples as aliens, robot brains that rule entire empires, atomic mutants (from before the X-Men craze), survivors of Atlantis, and a dinosaur infested Venus. Perry's succession of giant spaceships is amazing.
Warning-prepare to be addicted to the series after the 1st several books. My one gripe with the English version is the prevalence of very bad puns inserted by editor Forrest Ackerman. They don't appear in the first few books but become a nuisance after that.
Give it a try.

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.

The staggering adventure begins. In the midst of imminent global meltdown into nuclear conflict, a manned flight to Mars is going ahead, partly as a symbolic rallying point.

Major Perry Rhodan and his crew encounter something out of the ordinary and are forced to try a rather nasty landing, which leaves them out of contact with Earth.

What and who they meet there, come as a big surprise, and their return to Earth will open up a new era for humanity.