"The Immortal Unknown (Perry Rhodan #13)" by K. H. Scheer, translated by
Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/immortal-Perry-Rhodan-peacelord-universe/dp/B0006W4C7Y/

Book number thirteen of a series of one hundred and twenty-six space
opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets,
number in the thousands. The English books started with two translated
German stories per book and transitioned to one story per book with the
sixth book. The German books were written from 1961 to present time,
having sold two billion copies and even recently been rebooted. I read
the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1972 that I had
to be very careful with due to age. My copy is a second edition from
1974. I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two
ago on ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry
Rhodans in The Great Flood of 1989. In fact, I now own book #1 to book
#101.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow
astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in 1971. The
first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were
nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio
interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an
aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of 500.

Perry Rhodan and his crew return to the Vega star system now that they
have a map to world of the immortals, after their side trip to the
Tugland star system courtesy of Pucky. They find that the Vega star has
dramatically enlarged and is going to nova in three weeks. So they take
back their smaller space ships and travel along the map to find the
world of the immortals.

One has to remember that this book was written in German in 1962 and
translated to English in 1972. Many items that came about in the 1970s
and beyond such as cell phones are not reflected in the book. However,
commercial aircraft commonly traveling at Mach 3 are not available to
the public as talked about in the book. Niels Bohr's saying "Prediction
is very difficult, especially about the future" comes to mind.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (4 reviews)

Lynn

I think I remember not seeing why finding the immortals
was the immediate priority. I mean, yes, /immortality/,
but it wasn't evident that it was being handed out
for free, and meanwhile, Earth needed defending.
I would buy it if the quest for super aliens was related
to defending Earth, but I don't remember that happening.

On 11/8/2021 2:21 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> I think I remember not seeing why finding the immortals
> was the immediate priority. I mean, yes, /immortality/,
> but it wasn't evident that it was being handed out
> for free, and meanwhile, Earth needed defending.
> I would buy it if the quest for super aliens was related
> to defending Earth, but I don't remember that happening.

Perry was fulfilling a promise to Khrest and Thora. The side issues
were unexpected, especially the biggest side issue, time. And then the
immortal refused to hand immortality to Khrest since the Arkonide race
was in a descendant phase.

BTW, I forgot to mention that I really like the FTL system that Rhodan
inherited from the Arkensides. Their FTL system is really a
teleportation device. The travel is instantaneous, one just has to know
where one is going to a precise degree. Although, I have not seen the
concept in PR of galactic and universe drift that the Stargate series
made a lot of noise about.

Lynn

In article <smc3b1$ej2$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 11/8/2021 2:21 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> I think I remember not seeing why finding the immortals
>> was the immediate priority. I mean, yes, /immortality/,
>> but it wasn't evident that it was being handed out
>> for free, and meanwhile, Earth needed defending.
>> I would buy it if the quest for super aliens was related
>> to defending Earth, but I don't remember that happening.
>
>Perry was fulfilling a promise to Khrest and Thora. The side issues
>were unexpected, especially the biggest side issue, time. And then the
>immortal refused to hand immortality to Khrest since the Arkonide race
>was in a descendant phase.
>

The Immortal Unknown was really kind of a jerk. Not only was IT speciesist
against the Arkonides, IT wouldn't lift a finger to help the Barkonides
when they were about to blow themselves up because nobody thought to
make a polarized plug.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 11/8/2021 4:14 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <smc3b1$ej2$1@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/8/2021 2:21 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>> I think I remember not seeing why finding the immortals
>>> was the immediate priority. I mean, yes, /immortality/,
>>> but it wasn't evident that it was being handed out
>>> for free, and meanwhile, Earth needed defending.
>>> I would buy it if the quest for super aliens was related
>>> to defending Earth, but I don't remember that happening.
>>
>> Perry was fulfilling a promise to Khrest and Thora. The side issues
>> were unexpected, especially the biggest side issue, time. And then the
>> immortal refused to hand immortality to Khrest since the Arkonide race
>> was in a descendant phase.
>>
>
> The Immortal Unknown was really kind of a jerk. Not only was IT speciesist
> against the Arkonides, IT wouldn't lift a finger to help the Barkonides
> when they were about to blow themselves up because nobody thought to
> make a polarized plug.

And the immortal did not tell Perry how long they were spending on the
world of the immortals.

Lynn

Ted Nolan wrote:
> Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>>> I think I remember not seeing why finding the immortals
>>> was the immediate priority. I mean, yes, /immortality/,
>>> but it wasn't evident that it was being handed out
>>> for free, and meanwhile, Earth needed defending.
>>> I would buy it if the quest for super aliens was related
>>> to defending Earth, but I don't remember that happening.
>>
>>Perry was fulfilling a promise to Khrest and Thora. The side issues
>>were unexpected, especially the biggest side issue, time. And then the
>>immortal refused to hand immortality to Khrest since the Arkonide race
>>was in a descendant phase.
>>
>
> The Immortal Unknown was really kind of a jerk. Not only was IT speciesist
> against the Arkonides, IT wouldn't lift a finger to help the Barkonides
> when they were about to blow themselves up because nobody thought to
> make a polarized plug.

My mind associates the Immortal Unknown with Star Trek's "Q." My
imagination sees Q's face whenever the Immortal Unknown's mentioned in
PR. Given how TOS is the only Star Trek ever watched by me, mass media
marketing must've made an impression despite my efforts to avoid it.
(Perhaps Q subliminally entered my mind as big screens were cryptoscoped
through house windows in passing during dog walks through the
neighborhood.)

Here's shortened story synopsis thus far:

Determined to thwart Thora as she races towards the moon to regain
control of her ship stranded on its surface, NATO, China, and Russia
each launch one missile to destroy the marooned cruiser. The missiles
contain a new nuclear bomb payload triggered by mesons, designed to
penetrate the grounded ship's automatic defenses.
As Thora's beached ship is destroyed, its hypersender transmits an
alarm to an Arkonide robot garrison on an inhospitable planet named Myra
IV. A few days later, instead of the expected Arkon robot fleet, only
one obsolete Fantan ship arrives in the Solar System. So Rhodan and
Khrest surmise the weak Fantan people managed to wrest control of Myra
IV away from Arkon.
In the wake of the Fantan ship's destruction by Earth, a Mind
Snatchers (MS) invasion occurs next. Although the MS can not prevail
against an Arkon armada, they can easily overcome one solitary Arkon
cruiser in distress.
After the Third Power vanquishes the MS, Rhodan subsequently travels
to the besieged Vega sector to fend off the intelligent lizard-like
Topides before they reach Earth. In the end it turns out the Topide's
made a navigation error and mistook the Vega sector itself for the Solar
System.
Rhodan's been known to gamble with humanity's fate from time to
time. He has the fortitude to risk everything on a low probability
outcome if need be.
After Rhodan's victory over the Topides, a time vault built by
beings who live longer than the sun piques his curiosity. So Rhodan
wagers Earth's immediate threats are sufficiently quelled to provide him
with enough leeway to investigate the time vault.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'