Perry Rhodan: The Neverending Story At over 200,000,000 words, the German-language science fiction megasaga Perry Rhodan is the longest narrative project ever created. A rotating roster of authors collaborate to publish one ~75,000-word novel every week of the year, following the overarching plot outlines established by the core story committee, and have done so for over half a century, with this year seeing the release of the 2,750th novel. Created in 11961 (Holocene calendar) by K.H. Scheer and Clark Darlton, who, hearing that Americans planned to land on Earths moon within a decade, imagined the astronauts discovering alien artifacts on the lunar surface and entering a galactic community. Initially conceived as a thirty-volume limited series, Perry Rhodans popularity caused an indefinite extension and expanded into the Perryverse, which includes 850+ Atlan ancient astronaut series novels of over 60,000,000 words and 400+ longer Planetenroman (Planet Novel) standalone novels of over 75,000,000 words, for a total of well over 300,000,000 words in the Perryverse (not including a few hundred comics, a 11967 ultra-low-budget film, and a 12008 videogame), and over one billion copies sold - double J.K. Rowlings and a quarter Agatha Christies circulation. Like the British Doctor Who (11963-) and unlike the American Star Trek (11966-) and Star Wars (11976-) science fiction megafranchises which came later but enjoy much greater popularity due to being published in English and primarily in visual media, Perry Rhodans major characters are immortal, Unites States Space Force Major Perry Rhodan and his comrades having received invulnerability to aging and disease (but not violent death) from advanced extraterrestrials. The story spans millennia of Perry Rhodans life and is universal in scope, including intergalactic journeys, parallel universes, paranormal abilities, a panoply of alien life both friendly and hostile, time travel, and flashbacks to thousands and millions of years ago. 12011 saw the launch of Perry Rhodan Neo, rebooting the original series beginning in 12036 rather than 11971, while the original series continues in parallel. In the seventies, Forrest J Ackerman facilitated the publication through Ace Books of the first 118 novels in English, translated by his wife Wendayne, then published #119-137 independently; Vector Enterprises published 1800-1803 in the nineties. Per Wikipedia, translations of Perry Rhodan are currently available in Brazil (#1-536 and #650-847 as of August 12011), Russia, China, Japan（#1-800 as of May 12011), France, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands (#1-2000 as of September 12009). To read the rest, one must know or learn German.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:13:41 +0000