After almost exactly 50 years the Perry Rhodan universe is getting its own reboot this September. The original series will still continue but the new "Perry Rhodan Neo" will start at 0 in the year 2036 (as opposed to the original 1971 when the series started in 1961). The discussion I've read in the official Perry Rhodan-forums mirror those that we've seen when the first details about Trek09 came out - it's uncanny PERRY RHODAN NEO
I wonder if there are fans as upset about this as some DC fans are about the renumbering of Action Comics? I never got into Rhodan books, but I always got a kick out of the "coming in issue 153, Rhodan finds himself in prison" ads that would appear 100 books earlier. According to Wikipedia there's been more than 2,200 Rhodan stories! Yikes! I am surprised no one's really tried to run with Rhodan as a serious TV series or movies - I know a couple of films were made in Europe years ago. I've always seen it as the German equivalent of Doctor Who. Alex
I have a Rhodan video game which is kinda cool. I bought it on a whim having never heard of Perry Rhodan before.
There is only one (godawful) PR-film from the late 60s. They've reached No. 2606 this week. And, yes, for some this seems to be the end of the world as we know it. With this new series you would seem to be exactly the kind of people the authors would like to reach: those who are somewhat interested but shy away from getting into it because of all the canon-baggage.
I read Perry Rhodan back in the early '70s. I picked up one in a department store because it had a cool space opera picture on the cover, this was something well into the series (afaik the English publications were well behind the German ones) but I had no problem getting into it. I bought up all the back issues I could find and followed forward for a year or so. The thing about it was, it was an action series, there wasn't really all that much story. I followed it for 30 issues or so and it is designed to just keep going on and on but really in circles with no character developement or lessons learned or any point really.
I've never read this series is any of it in english. I all so looked on my nook and it's there as well. all so I was wondering exactly what kinda sci fi this is? it looks like buck rodgers.
About 133 issues hwere released in english, rare find these days. Style wise its pretty much classic scifi pulp fiction in the early stuff. but overall its a very hard to classify series, since it chanced a lot with time. For example issues 500-1399 are much more complex and have a different focus and a complexity that lets dune look like childs play.
Yes, only some of the earliest stories were published in English and there wasn't much success with that. I guess a recent Spiegel-article put it best when it said that the quality ranges from great science fiction to aggravated assault
I remember seeing many of them in the bookstore when I was a lad, but not in years... never knew anyone who read them, though.
I never could keep up with the weekly series. To read sixty pages in one week, well, it's managable, but at some point I simply lose interest. And a few friends of mine recently dropped out of the weekly series because the current writing staff seems not to be very good. I guess I'll give the new series a try, since it won't be on a weekly basis. Also, Frank Borsch is one of the better PR writers of the last decade, so I'm curious to see what he will do with this. Borsch also worked as a translator for the German Marvel Comics, so it's kinda obvious where the idea for this concept came from.
That is a huge draw for me too. Since last year I'm trying to read the whole series from the start - but now in the low 200s I've switched to the silver editions (to avoid all the filler stuff), otherwise I'll never be able to catch up
Maybe someone will do a fanslation (is this actual slang for fan-translation or did I just make that up?). Like the cover, but still hate the title of the new series. I also think they should have lost the font of the classic series. I personally would have liked something like simply "Rhodan".
I don't think there are English translations planned. But... what better time than now to learn to read German. The artist was subtle... he added only one, right above the author's name
I read a few many years ago when I was a kid. I don't remember much about them, outside of being fun reads.