I found volumes 1-22 at Goodwill the other day at $1.00 a piece.
I'm reading through the first one right now. I'll be honest, it's a bit stilted in parts. But I'm attributing that to the translation from German to English. They are in no way bad though, especially since I'm reading them with my "Pulp Gamer" glasses on.
I'll be honest, I always passed these by while hunting around the Sci-Fi section during my used book hunts. But for some reason these sung out to me to be rescued.
These particular books I found are in wonderful condition-they've been lovingly cared for, up until the moment someone tossed them in donation bin at Goodwill.
But fear not- they have found a home.
I suppose all these years I must have just been ignorant, because as I sit here and look at these wonderfully evocative Space pulp covers, I think- "Why the hell hasn't anyone done a pulp style RPG treatment of these books?"
Or have they? If so please enlighten me.
they just about scream Star Frontiers campaign! I mean just look at some of these...
I'm reading through the first one right now. I'll be honest, it's a bit stilted in parts. But I'm attributing that to the translation from German to English. They are in no way bad though, especially since I'm reading them with my "Pulp Gamer" glasses on. In any event I've committed myself to reading at least the first four or five, and then we'll see what happens. Don't be surprised if some of these Perry Rhodan creatures and aliens make thier way into Hador in some fashion or other.
****Edit***
Hey I just found a German site that offers a free PDF of their Perry Rhodan RPG. I think it's a rules lite PDF, and its all in German. But its still cool to look at.
The mascot for Bubonicon, the science fiction convention held here in Albuquerque, NM, is Perry Rhodent.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a Perry Rhodan video game... a point&click adventure. Don't know if it's been released anywhere outside Germany, though.
ReplyDeleteThe latest issue of ImagineFX, a concept art and graphic magazine from England that is available in the US, mentions a new Perry Rodan project with some really nice art.
ReplyDeleteI forget if its a video game or a film but the concept designs looked sweet.
The Monster Brains blog has a post with possibly dozens of lurid Perry Rodan covers, which tend to be generally amazing with things like Carcosa-esque three-headed mutant stegosaurs and an alien being mauled by bears.
ReplyDeleteSince you mention the covers ... the English translation had new covers. Only your book #9 has an original Perry Rhodan cover (issue #15).
ReplyDeletehttp://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Quelle:PR15
Artist Johnny Bruck did 1797 PR covers, plus 218 covers for a seperate series of (stand alone) PR paperback novels (the original PR novels are pulp brochures, weekly, around 60 pages, the size of a US comic book, and sold at newsstands).
http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Johnny_Bruck
PR was a huge success. There used to be 5 different editions available at the same time - the publisher started "reruns" of the series every 5-7 years, e.g. on the day the 1st series hit #842 (in Oct. 1977) the 4th edition began with #1.
(Btw., the current issue is #2522.)
More interesting:
The publisher applied Perry Rhodan's formula for success to the fantasy genre as well. The result was Mythor, a pulpy sword & sorcery series that ran from 1980 - 1985.
Here are all 192 covers:
http://www.sf-hefte.homepage.t-online.de/MYTHOR.HTM
It began as a thinly veiled Conan rip-off but very soon developed a different take on the genre as it adopted the same huge, convoluted metaplot model that had worked for Perry Rhodan (think: Babylon 5) and tied readers to the franchise.
A friend of mine used to turn those novels into modules for his RQ/T&T campaign.
The Perry Rhodan RPG:
It is based on the first German fantasy RPG, Midgard. Midgard was published in 1981, a class-and-level game very similar to D&D 3.x/Palladium Fantasy/The Arcanum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midgard_(role-playing_game)