Perry Rhodan


Perry Rhodan is a German space opera franchise, named after its hero. It commenced in 1961 and has been ongoing for decades, written by an ever-changing team of authors. Having sold approximately two billion copies worldwide, it is the most successful science fiction book series ever written. The first billion of worldwide sales was celebrated in 1986. The series has spun off into comic books, audio dramas, video games and the like. A reboot, Perry Rhodan NEO, was launched in 2011 and began publication in English in April 2021.

Print publication

The series has spun off into many different forms of media, but originated as a serial novella published weekly since 8 September 1961 in the Romanheft format. These are digest-sized booklets, usually containing 66 pages, the German equivalent of the now-defunct American pulp magazine. They are published by Pabel-Moewig Verlag, a subsidiary of Bauer Media Group headquartered in Hamburg. As of February 2019, 3000 booklet novels of the original series, 850 spinoff novels of the sister series Atlan and over 400 paperbacks and 200 hardcover editions have been published, totalling over 300,000 pages.

English translation

The first 126 novels were translated into English and published by Ace Books between 1969 and 1978, with the same translations used for the British edition published by Futura Publications which issued only 39 novels. When Ace cancelled its translation of the series, translator Wendayne Ackerman self-published the following 19 novels and made them available by subscription only. Financial disputes with the German publishers led to the cancellation of the American translation in 1979.
An attempt to revive the series in English was made in 1997–1998 by Vector Publications of the US which published translations of four issues from the current storyline being published in Germany at the time.
The series and its spin-offs have captured a substantial fraction of the original German science fiction output and exert influence on many German writers in the field.

Structure

The series is told in an arc storyline structure. An arc—called a "cycle"—would have anywhere from 25 to 100 issues devoted to it. Similar subsequent cycles are referred to as a "grand-cycle".

History

‘Perry Rhodan, der Erbe des Universums’ was created by German science fiction authors K. H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting and launched in 1961 by German publishing house Arthur Moewig Verlag. Originally planned as a 30 to 50 volume series, it has been published continuously every week since, celebrating the 3000th issue in 2019. Written by an ever-changing team of authors, many of whom, however, remained with the series for decades or life, Perry Rhodan is issued in weekly novella-size installments in the traditional German Heftroman format. Unlike most German Heftromane, Perry Rhodan consists not of unconnected novels but is a series with a continuous, increasingly complex plotline, with frequent back references to events. In addition to its original Heftroman form, the series now also appears in hardcovers, paperbacks, e-books, comics and audiobooks.
Over the decades there have also been comic strips, numerous collectibles, several encyclopedias, audio plays, inspired music, etc. The series has seen partial translations into several languages. It also spawned the German-Italian-Spanish 1967 movie Mission Stardust, which is widely considered so terrible that many fans of the series pretend it never existed.
Coinciding with the 50th-anniversary World Con, on 30 September 2011, a new series named Perry Rhodan Neo began publication, attracting new readers with a reboot of the story, starting in the year 2036 instead of 1971, and a related but independent story-line. On April 2, 2021, light novel and manga publisher J-Novel Club announced Perry Rhodan NEO as a launch title for its new J-Novel Pulp imprint, making this the first ongoing English release of new Perry Rhodan serials in over 20 years.
It has become the most popular science fiction book series of all time.

Overview

Premise

The story begins in 1971. During the first human Moon landing by US Space Force Major Perry Rhodan and his crew, they discover a marooned extraterrestrial space ship from the fictional planet Arkon, located in the M13 cluster. Appropriating the Arkonide technology, they proceed to unify Terra and carve out a place for humanity in the galaxy and the cosmos. Two of the accomplishments that enable them to do so are positronic brains and starship drives for near-instantaneous hyperspatial translation. These were directly borrowed from Isaac Asimov's science fiction.
As the series progresses, major characters, including the title character, are granted relative immortality. They are immune to age and disease, but not to violent death. The story continues over the course of millennia and includes flashbacks thousands and even millions of years into the past. The scope widens to encompass other galaxies, even more remote regions of space, parallel universes and cosmic structures, time travel, paranormal powers, a variety of aliens ranging from threatening to endearing, and bodiless entities, some of which have godlike powers.

Universe and multiverse

The universe in which the plot regularly takes place is called the Einstein Universe. Its laws are nearly identical to those of the real universe, in terms of late 20th century science. Newer theories about dark matter and dark energy are currently not used in the series. The laws of nature follow old theories that have been disproven, in order to protect series continuity.
This Einstein Universe is but one of many universes, each to a greater or lesser extent different from it, for example one in which time runs slower, an anti-matter universe, a shrinking universe, etc. Each universe possesses a large ensemble of parallel timelines, which are usually unreachable from each other but may be accessed by special means, thereby itself creating many more parallel timelines.
The Einstein Universe is embedded in a high-dimensional manifold, called Hyperspace. This hyperspace consists of several subspaces that different technologies use for faster-than-light travel. The exact traits of those higher dimensions are not much explained. The border of the universe is a dimension called the deep, once used for construction of the gigantic disc-shaped world Deepland.

Psionic Web and Moral Code

The Psionic Web crosses invisibly through the whole universe, constantly emitting "vital energy" and "psionic energy", guaranteeing normal life and the wellbeing of higher entities.
The Moral Code crosses through all universes, and is linked to the Psionic Web. It is subdivided into the Cosmogenes, which are again subdivided into the Cosmonucleotids. The Cosmonucleotids determine reality and fate for their respective parts of a given universe, via messengers.
Higher beings are trying to gain control of this Code to rule reality. The Moral Code itself was not installed by the higher beings, the higher powers by themselves have no clue why or by whom the Code was made.
Once the Cosmocrats ordered Perry Rhodan to find the answer to the third ultimate question: "Who initiated the LAW and what does it accomplish?" Perry Rhodan had the chance to receive the answer at the mountain of creation, but refused, as he knew that the answer would destroy his mind. The negative Superintelligence Koltoroc had received the answer to the last ultimate question, 69 million years BC at Negane Mountain, but it is not known if it made any use of the information.

Onion-shell model

An evolutionary schema, similar to the Great Chain of Being, called the "onion-shell model" is employed in relationship to all life. Here, continuous evolution is from lower to higher lifeforms, culminating in bodiless entities. Later in the series, further lifeforms, representing stages between the known shells, were introduced.
The main shells are:
  1. Lifeless matter
  2. Bacteria
  3. Higher animals
  4. Intelligent species
  5. Intelligent species that have contacted other species
  6. Superintelligences
  7. Matter sources/ Matter sinks
  8. Cosmocrats / Chaotarchs
  9. Powers close to the "Horizon of the LAW", the essence of the Multiverse
The Superintelligences are the next step above normal minds. They can be born, for example, when a species collectively gives up its bodies and unites their spirits. Such Superintelligences may claim as their domain areas consisting of up to several galaxies. The Superintelligence provides mental support to the species in its domain, sometimes symbiotically, sometimes parasitically.
The Matter Sources/Sinks are born when a Superintelligence fuses with all life and matter in its domain while shrinking. Little more is known except that the process is gradual and that the resulting object lacks the gravitational pull possessed if the contraction produced a black hole.
The "high powers" were long thought to be the highest known lifeforms. They live in an unimaginably distant dimension and have great powers in ruling over lower beings. However they are not omniscient and they are unable to directly interact with lower beings. To enter a regular universe they have to assume a mortal shape, thus reducing their powers and sometimes their knowledge and memory. This is known as the transform syndrome. As a consequence, they rarely interact with lower beings and instead enlist individuals, organizations or entire species.

Conflict between the high powers

Among the high powers are two factions known as the Cosmocrats and the Chaotarchs. The Cosmocrats wish to transform all universes into a state of absolute order. The Chaotarchs wish to do the opposite and remake all universes into absolute chaos. They are engulfed in a cataclysmic neverending war involving nearly all known universes. They manipulate and doom whole species for their actions. Open warfare is just one tool among many. In the 2300–2499 cycle the Milky Way galaxy was subjected to open military assault by the forces of chaos trying to establish a bastion of chaos, a Negasphere, in the nearby galaxy Hangay.
Recent stories have revealed to the protagonists that life itself has become a rival to the high powers. Spreading uncontrollably among the universe, it can be found in nearly every niche. The Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs both use life for their own directed goals of order and disorder, but life's unplanned and unregulated cosmological actions are a disturbance for and to both. The Pangalactic Statisticians have while some cosmological manipulation is caused by the cosmocrat servants and a lesser amount by the chaos servants, the majority is caused by the uncontrollable power of life itself. To reduce the influence of life, the Cosmocrats have stopped their programs that encourage the development of life and intelligence. They have increased the hyperimpedance in order to reduce the effectivity and durability of most forms of hypertechnology.
At least one power, called Thez, higher than either Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs has been recently identified. Thez is said to live close to the "Horizon of the LAW" so that both Cosmocrats and Chaotarchs have problems understanding it.