Forrest J Ackerman has graciously consented to write an introduction to our first issue of Perry Rhodan, titled Time Lapse and written by Robert Feldhoff. Check it out below!
UNLESS YOU HAVE led a sheltered life and have never read a word by Edgar Rice Burroughs - have never heard of Tarzan or John Carter of Mars or Carson of Venus or Helium, the capital of Barsoom, or Pellucidar, the world at the center of the Earth - and you were just about to read your first Burroughs novel and discover there are scores more teeming with fascinating tharks and jeddaks an Numa and Cheetah and Red Planet Princess Dejah Thoris and Ras Thavas, the Master Mind of Mars, and thoats and histahs and heads that crawl away from bodies on crablike claws, and surviving tribes from the sunken world of Atlantis and…and…and…wouldn’t your mouth be watering at the prospect of all you had to catch up with?
Or if you were seeing a scientifilm like INDEPENDENCE DAY for the firstime and were told there were scores to catch up with like THIS ISLAND EARTH, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, a STAR WARS trilogy, THE INVISIBLE MAN, METROPOLIS, THINGS TO COME…would you be able to contain yourself?
Well, if this is your first experience with Perry Rhodan, you’re in an enviable situation. As you read this episode, you have one thousand seven hundred ninety nine to catch up with! The Perry Rhodan novels have been a weekly treat for fans of science fiction in Germany for thirty five years. American fans - perhaps you’re one among them? - first were introduced to this immortal intergalactic adventurer in 1969 when my late wife Wendayne as translator and myself presented him to stunned American audiences. His popularity grew so great that at one time he was appearing three times a month and other translators had to be employed, such as Wendayne’s brother and pioneering science fiction author Stuart J. Byrne and the current translator Dwight Decker.
A word about the translation. I am struck by the fact that it doesn’t read like a translation! If I were editing Perry Rhodan today I would scarcely have to touch a word of Dwight’s work! Congratulations. Many American publishers of science fiction have been leery of printing translations from foreign languages because good translators are about as rare as the atmosphere on Mars. Perry is in good hands with Dwight, himself an ardent Rhodanite.
If you date back to the halcyon days of Perry Rhodan in the USA, you’ll remember such episodes as The Secret of the Time Vault, Quest Through Space and Time, The Planet of the Dying Sun, Menace of the Mutant Master, The Thrall of Hypno, A World Gone Mad, Project Earthsave, The Last Days of Atlantis, Crimson Universe, The Caller From Eternity, and dozens of other mind-boggling adventures, now all collectors’ items preserved in cherished collections. If you’ve never read any of the original 137 novels (146 stories including doubles and skipped issues), what a treat you have in store for you!
YES, the publisher’s plans include the re-issue of the original translations as early as 1998! The incomparable love of Perry Rhodan’s life, Thora, will live again…the irrepressible teleporting mouse-beaver Pucky will be up to his playful mischief-making…Atlan of Atlantis will assume his role in the Rhodan adventures…the Arkonide Empire will play its part in future history.
No one who falls in love with a favorite scientifilm sees it only once - I’ve seen METROPOLIS eighty-eight times. Fans of "Skylark Smith, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, never tire of re-reading works by their favorite authors; the generation that grew up with Perry Rhodan will be delighted to renew his acquaintance with the re-publication of the pioneering works, and you discovering science fiction’s longest active character - 1800 plus episodes! - may find yourself lured away from your TV series, your role-playing games, your comic books for the primal thrills of the written word as you are whirled through worlds of wonder by wizards of imagination.
In the original American era of Perry Rhodan, clubs, fanzines, and conventions sprang up like the skeletal warriors in Ray Harryhausen’s animation masterpiece. Perry has been translated into French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech - it’s a wonder it hasn’t been in Esperanto! Clubs, conventions, fanzines thrive all over Europe. I predict a renaissance of similar Rhodan activity throughout America. I look forryward to attending the first new USA Rhocon. The publisher will welcome your letters, and I’ll be reading the letter column with interest.
I’m 80 now and hopefully have 20 years of life left. I look forward to Perry thriving in the 21st century!
Webmasters John Foyt (rhodanenglish@netscape.net)
and Steve Taylor (steve-taylor@fsmail.net)