Liking Perry Rhodan. Thinking Star Frontiers
I'm really enjoying The Perry Rhodan series. The biggest hurdle is the sometimes dry translation but the stories are a pulp aficionado's dream. I would love to see a line like Paizos Planet Stories revive this series. For those of you into Science Fiction pulp gaming this is really a great series with lots of ideas for games and campaigns.
I'm flipping through my copy of Star Frontiers: Digitally Remastered right now. I dont really think it would be too much of a leap. By the way have you guys been keeping up with Star Frontiersman? He's up to issue 13 as of today (more reading for me to catch up on). What a great job!
I enjoy the Perry Rhodan series quite a bit, although I typically can only read a couple at a time. I've got about 20 more lying around here. There's hundreds, though.
ReplyDeleteHundreds? Actually there are over 2000 in Germany. The series has been running since the early 60s here and since then every week a new episode has been released.
ReplyDeleteThe current issue is #2513. Plus 800 (or so) issues of the spin-off series, Atlan. (Atlan is a character that was introduced in issue #50.)
ReplyDeleteStar Frontiers is a very good fit for the first 300-400 issues (a much better fit than the official RPG, I might add...). After that the scope of the series and its universe got considerably bigger (adventures across galaxies, immortality, Earth being thrown "five minutes into the future" (to hide it from enemies), the solar system being pulled into another mini galaxy that collided with the Milky Way, an eon-old war between immortal forces of Good and Evil, creation and entropy, etc.)
The series lost its pulp charm as pulp fell out of fashion. It was always a mirror of its publication time, just as James Bond was adapted to the "zeitgeist" (blaxpoitation --> To live and let die; Star Wars --> Moonraker).
The pulpy, military SF of the first 300 issues made room for softer SF as the New Wave (Spinrad, Ballard, Moorcock in literature, Métal Hurlant, Philippe Druillet, Moebius in comics) established itself.
The series follows a huge metaplot that is divided into "cycles" (story arcs, "seasons") of varying length ("The Third Power", #1-49, "The Swarm", #500-559, "The Endless Armada", #1100-1199, etc.)
The metaplot of the series has become so unwieldy that it is very hard for new readers to enter the PR cosmos. Usually the start of a new cycle is a good hop-on point, and all their marketing is happening around these crucial issues (roughly every two years).
To fight that problem they started a new series of mostly unrelated, more adventurous stories, "Perry Rhodan Action" (36 issues, so far).
Perry Rhodan - Brazil
ReplyDelete.
www.meadiciona.com/perryrhodan