The world's longest-serving sci-fi hero

[@Drwurstable]

It's especially exciting to read those books (the early ones in particular) today, as it's a journey into the past and the future at the same time. The story takes you into the future, but the way it is written you learn a lot about how people in that time thought about society and the future.

[@JasonJrake]

That’s one of my favorite things about sci-fi. One of the best takes I’ve read on that is a duology by Peter F Hamilton. The titles are “Pandora’s Star” and “Judas Unchained.” I’m not into any of his other books, but this pair really challenged my idea of how similar and different the culture could be from what I always imagined. This story imagines a world where humans have an interplanetary civilization with no spaceships. If you want to go in blind and not be spoiled about how that could happen, DON’T read any summaries. It was cool to pick it up on a recommendation and be surprised. The audio version narrated by John Lee is particularly well done.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

When I read the title, I immediately thought this was going to be a video about Dr. Who. And I am German! Shame on me...

[@J.A.P.9]

He's a runner-up, serving about 40 years saving the world - but with a sonic screwdriver, no armory needed!

[@xaverlustig3581]

I thought it would be Cliff Allister McLane.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

@Xaver Lustig But he only had 6 episodes. Yes, he is older, but that also means that he's been dead for a longer time. This is about those who're still kickin'.

[@xaverlustig3581]

@@Seegalgalguntijak I know I know. I was just thinking "science fiction", "German", "must be old", and Raumpatrouille was the first thing that came to my mind.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

@Xaver Lustig Well, it is well worth watching, even still today one of the greatest sci-fi shows there are. Especially considering the time it was made, and the means they had back then.

[@Draxtor]

THANK YOU my dude = this I now will have handy for my English-speaking folks whenever I start babbling about the awesomeness that is Perry Rhodan !!!!!!! THANK YOU !!!!!!

[@arthur_p_dent]

Actually, "Mission Stardust" is available on Amazon Prime (in Germany anyway), under its German title, "Perry Rhodan SOS aus dem Weltall".

[@Der_Madus]

Ich oute mich als Leser der Erstauflage seit Band 1629 und fühle mich sehr alt... ;)

[@BerndFunken]

Ich hab mit der 4. Auflage von Nummer 1 an angefangen damit, hab die bis Nummer 799 gelesen, bekam dann von einem Freund die Hefte 800 bis 1400 der 1. Auflage geschenkt, hab die aber nie alle gelesen, weils mir irgendwann dann doch etwas zu abgedreht und irgendwie esoterisch wurde. Ich hab dann ein paar Jahre pausiert und wollte später wieder einsteigen, aber zu der Zeit war die Story aus meiner Sicht sogar noch abgedrehter, für mich unmöglich mich da noch rein zu finden.

[@Balligat]

Ich habe von Anfang an (Erstausgabe) gelesen - bis kurz vor Band 600 und habe kürzlich zu meinem 73. Geburtstag eine komplette Sammlung auf Festplatte von meiner jüngsten Schwester geschenkt bekommen. Die hat als ich bei meinen Eltern auszog meine Sammlung von Heften komplett übernommen und wurde ebenfalls zum PR Fan. Momentan höre ich - ja nach zeitlicher Auslastung - wieder alle Stories ab No. 1 als Hörspiel (*podcast*).

[@DeannaAllison]

That was really interesting - thanks for this video; I had not heard about Perry Rhodan and I love sci-fi!

[@david124cherrington5]

As a long suffering American Fan, I would like to know how the "Posbis" cycle ended. The U.S. edition ceased publication before it was finished.

[@bastardslayer5625]

I have no idea where the US publication stopped so I hope this will make sense and I hope I can remember the gist of it well... It turns out that the Posbis were created as a weapon to stop anyone in the Milkyway from traveling to the Andromeda galaxy. The Laurins, the invisible aliens, were recruited to do the same and to keep the Posbis in check. At some point Perry and Atlan are invited to the homeworld of the Posbis where they learn that the biological component comes from a gigantic living plasma thats kybernetically connected to a computer component. The plasma is controlled by the computer to do the bidding of the Laurins and their masters from Andromeda. It asks Perry to free it which the Terrans achieve by fighting off the Laurins and hacking the Computer part, gifting the Posbis free will. After that the Posbis become mankinds' best ally(and frankly turning from Borg into Data ;) ). And let me tell you, the following Andromeda cycle blows everything out of the water that came before it and was rightfully deemed to be the best cycle of the series for a long time.

[@paullowman9131]

You and I both. I remember very fondly this series, when it was being printed in English. The translation could be rough, but the series had an epic sweep and compelling characters. This series of books was brought to America by Forrest J Ackerman, and I was hooked at an early age.

[@david124cherrington5]

@@paullowman9131 Did you get any of the Masters Edition published by Forry?

[@paullowman9131]

@@david124cherrington5 Actually, I did. These books or small magazines were actually pretty much the way they came out in Germany. They existed in this format for a time and then stopped. Not sure why Ace stopped printing the Perry Rhodan series; it was definitely profitable. As for FJA, I think that he lived to about 100, heart attacks and all; I hope that he had a good life and had many loved ones around him.

[@MegaJJ1968]

You are amazing! I immediately knew you‘re going to talk about Perry Rhodan. So cool you made a vid about it!

[@HalfEye79]

There even is a Perry Rhodan P&P-RPG based on the system of Midgard.

[@Henning_Rech]

It is probably not the oldest sci-fi tale. The author L. Ron Hubbard started to write sci-fi already around 1950, and his strange ferrytale series is published until today, and sometimes modified and extended, to be able to resell it. But it is MUCH more expensive!

[@michaelstaengl1349]

And Jules Verne predated Hubbard by around 70 years and was much more sucessfull as Hubbard thus not in need to found a sect.

[@dbudelsky]

I started sometime before 900 and read most older volumes starting early in the "4. Auflage". Stopped around 1250 as the golden Voltz era ended obviously.

[@Speireata4]

I read one of the books ten years ago and I liked it, but not that much, so I was very astonished when I found out that it was such a long series.

[@Astrofrank]

Funny detail: I know two people who read and collected PR right from the start. Both of the like(d) the earlier, slightly militaristic style a bit more despite one of them was radically pacifistic!

[@ZemplinTemplar]

Good summary. And now do Raumpatrouille Orion ! ;-)

[@FonVegen]

HAHA! I knew what this would be about from the title alone, though I have only read three of the silver books (namely 4, 9, and 13)... and then a very few more recent ones, one of which played in Andromeda and featured Maahks. There's probably a lot I still have to read.

[@ReisQuarteu]

When I was a teenager, I used to read the Brazilian-Portuguese version of Perry Rhodan! I really enjoyed reading it! Nowadays, I don't even know if that version still exists....

[@larsaf3]

Yes, AFAIK, Perry Rhodan is still published in Brasil as an ebook. Try Googling "Perry Rhodan Brasil."

[@HiroKozaka]

I'm Brazilian, and Perry Rhodan has been published there for decades. They've just started to republished what is considered the best era/phase of PH starting on edition 650. facebook.com/perryrhodansspg/

[@robertjarman3703]

Well, the Mars Opportunity Rover became a UFO, an Uncontactable Fallen Object.

[@Atlan801]

i read 70.000 pages of perry rhodan and there is more then twice ahead :)

[@Anson_AKB]

i started reading it when they began the 4th reprint, but became the best customer of many "used book shops" where i finally succeeded to get my hands on issues 1-1000 in first print :-) guess what i just was reading when i was asked to select a username when i logged in to the first BBS's (with a 300 baud accustic coupler at that time) ... your choice seems to have been influenced a bit too :-)

[@rkirk]

This is highly relevant to my interests!

[@8penguin]

Fun fact - the cover of the first episode shown here is actually the cover of the reprint from 1988.

[@tenochaxayacatl1187]

They even restarted it as Perry Rhodan Neo. I like to listen to both.

[@paulmoechner8888]

I JUST finished reading the first book in english titled "Operation Stardust". It also had a second story inside the book titled "The Third Power". Just ordered the next book titled "The Radiant Dome". I haven't enjoyed a good scifi book like this in years. Does anybody know any Perry Rhodan fan forums that are in english? Finding the next book in the series was a little confusing but was able to figure it out using google translate. I'm asking incase I hit a snag when shopping online for the next novel, or if I have questions, etc.

[@henrietteneuschwander219]

I had never heard of this series before, so I can't help you out personally. But I'm sure you could simply ask questions in English in the German forums, I'm sure the fans would be happy to answer questions of foreigners who take interest in their favourite series!

[@eisikater1584]

If ever you want a new cat, call her Dao'lin'hay, the nicest cat in the universe: www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Dao-Lin-H%27ay And, hey, she can read thoughts and fly a spaceship. Well, the first, my cats also do, but the latter ... ? If you ask me, the Kartanin are one of the most fascinating species ever created in science fiction.

[@RalphH007]

Ad Astra!

[@downhill240]

Always interesting stuff here!

[@SeresTheZocker]

There are even Perry Rhodan comics

[@grafikdrummer]

The Perry Rodan movie has been shown in the hosted TV-series "SchleFaZ". The title is an abreviation of "The worst movies of all time". Very adequate!

[@Juno101]

I watched a lot of SchleFaZ back in the day, but I didn't know that they covered that movie. Otherwise I would've watched it.

[@freakylulu771]

i read perry rhodan and i love it

[@BertGrink]

I was actually aware of the existence of Perry Rhodan, but not the nature of the series. Hmmm, I wonder...

[@felixw19]

Thats something I´ve never heard of

[@KaiHenningsen]

My first one was 500, though I back-filled that over time. I _think_ I stopped somewhere after 1500 and before 2000 ... didn't like what they were doing, and never got back in again. PR taught me to budget regular expenditures. Oh, and we should mention the spin-offs, like the Atlan series, the planet novels, and so on ... ... and of course, there's perry-rhodan.net!

[@HaploidCell]

Literally never got into Perry Rhodan even though I'm a German sci-fi nerd. The backlog is just too daunting and just skipping over stuff is just not how I approach sagas.

[@rogerwilco2]

Start at the beginning. Simple.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

How long does it take to read one? Would it actually be feasonable to read thousands of magazines while new ones are still released before you get too old to read?

[@dorderre]

@@HappyBeezerStudios it's been and is still being reprinted into a series of novels, which number currently (I might be wrong there) in their 140's. Only slightly less daunting ;)

[@wernerruf7761]

Old german sci-fi activities are always good. And Perry Rhodan wasn't the only one. So here is a question for you. Where is the underwater base, whose bottom is now overgrown with grass and from which space cruisers were launched with the help of Alka-Seltzer tablets, located.

[@rewboss]

I'm way ahead of you on that one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gquuqp9oZ5iVg8k

[@wernerruf7761]

@@rewboss I guess not, I think I drew my first pictures of the space cruiser Orion in art classes of the 5th grade. Long before 2015. And you did not answer the question. - Where is the place of the underwater base (where was recorded) localized? A little hint, 32UPUxxxyyy fits, but 32UPU901266 is wrong. Second tip, there were also temporarily 16 sarcophagi.

[@fredamber8238]

Ich wohne in Großbritannien und lese ebenfalls Perry Rhodan.

[@xaverlustig3581]

Matthias Rust is a bit wonky in the head. I thought so when I first saw him on television, while the media celebrated him as some kind of hero. But what he said was a bit out of this world. Turned out I was right.

[@Trygvar13]

I was introduced to Perry Rhodan back in 1984 (in French). I had almost all the collection that was available in French until about 10 years ago but the translated version was so far behind the orignal German version that I started buying the German Silberband series. However my German is not that good and it was difficult to read. I still loved it however.

[@WilAdams]

Let me point out that having never heard of Perry in 1970 when I stumbled upon the movie Mission Stardust on a late Saturday night show called Creature Features. I loved the film indeed I own it to this day and watch it often. Why wouldn’t I? The leader of the alien is a Beautiful and Sexy woman and while a strong woman she is still a woman and thus is putty in Perry’s capable hands.

[@wolfmanAl]

Yeah, thats the good stuff. I wonder why there was never a Perry Rhodan TV show.

[@thomaslanghorst5738]

The short answer is 'too risky for the german market, and too expensive if done right'. The more comprehensive answer can be found behind this link: wortvogel.de/2018/11/abandoned-die-perry-rhodan-tv-serie/ I hope you like podcasts.

[@theobaldcoussin5445]

It is not only the longest running Si-Fi saga. Or do you know another that is running longer or has more printed pages?

[@rewboss]

Yes. British soap-opera "Coronation Street" has been on TV since December 1960.

[@MonicaTheMad]

I have the idea that I've read a Perry Rhodan novel. Maybe I'm wrong. The name is very familiar.

[@Sammakko7]

2:35 1987*

[@BenCalvinHary_official]

Gutes Video, guter Kanal, guter Mann! :-) Folge dir schon seit längerem, jetzt überschneidet unser KZbin-Output sich zufälligerweise auch noch: PERRY RHODAN hat auch einen eigenen Kanal hier bei YT. Hab' mir sagen lassen, der sei ganz OK... ;-)

[@r.connor9280]

Suck it One Piece. There's a new time wasting series on the block

[@matekochkoch]

The reign he establishes over the earth and half the Milky-way in the early episodes reminds me more to North Korea than anything else. A "democracy" that always votes the same leader, who is also head of military and the whole society is militarized.

[@the_mastermage]

Well yes but actually no

[@AlexanderGoeres]

it took me all of the first sentense to recognize it. and i don't even like this stuff! but nice, that mention it! really! is it translated? in any language at all?

[@connectingthedots100]

I'd just like to add that Rust is an a**hole, sadly. But I guess that's life.

[@annypenny8621]

I've never read Perry Rhodan, because I thought it was trashy literature...🤔

[@Pyriold]

It's different to other weekly published stories because it is one big ever advancing story. I have read it for a long time and it has a higher quality than most people would think.

[@annypenny8621]

Pyriold hoch lebe das Vorurteil ...😉

[@ThomasRenneis]

You forgot to mention that a certain George Walton Lucas Jr read Perry Rhodan in the 60´s and 70´s and he was heavily inspired by it for Star Wars...especially *many of the Ships in Star Wars are inspired by Perry Rhodan* ( * quoted from George Walton Lucas Jr )

[@varana]

3:49 ?

[@ThomasRenneis]

@@varana thnx for the heads up...don´t know how I missed that bit...but I watched it a 03:00 in the morning.

[@saber1epee0]

ThomasRenneis hahaha we've all been there.

[@Juno101]

Deathstar: Nah Old Man: Yeah

[@eltfell]

I know about Perry Rhodan, but I never wasted any time on reading that rubbish.

[@e1woqf]

I do read it and I can tell you, it's not rubbish at all.