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Snowman in Flames (Perry Rhodan #25)

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Book # 25 of this Space Opera continues the first huge story arc, which began in book # 21, "The Cosmic Decoy", and concludes in Book # 41, "The Earth Dies".

These mega-stories are called "bands" in the original German. This band deals with the first encounter between the fledgling fleet of Terra and the might of the galactic empire.

Perry Rhodan, fresh from his meeting with the inhabitant of the Planet of Eternal Life, returns to the icy world where a few of his cadets bravely stayed to keep some of the Springer fleet near Snowman, rather than following Rhodan to his destination. Rhodan uses the teletransmitters and the 'secret' weapon he received on his mission to destroy several of the Springer fleet, but not before the leader of the Springers sets off a bomb on Snowman that will turn it into an atomic fireball. Perry and Pucky barely manage to rescue Tifflor and his cadet friends from Snowman before it is destroyed. Pucky also discovers that there are aliens living on this icy world - aliens in the form of intelligent plants with mild hypnotic and telepathic powers. Pucky and the cadets manage to rescue a small number of these "semi-sleepers" before the atomic fire consumes Snowman and the rest of the semi-sleeper's race. Tifflor also finds out from Pucky why he was so important to Rhodan's plan.

Next "episode" - Number 26 - "Cosmic Traitor".

I've never been this impressed by a series. I'm reminded of old cliffhanger serials like "Buck Rodgers" or "Flash Gordon" when reading these marvelous books. This series is still being published in Germany and is now well over 2,000 stories. It's too bad American publishers stopped after only about 120 books. I had to learn to speak, read, and write German in order to continue reading Perry Rhodan.

This book contains another editorial, another science fiction movie section, and another letters column. There are also extra stories - one continuing adventure, similar to a serial, and some "Shock Shorts" - continuing a series of SF short stories at the end of each book. Although these stories have nothing to do with Perry Rhodan, they are worth looking at.

It's well worth reading the entire Rhodan series.