"SOS: Spaceship Titan! (Perry Rhodan #34)" by Kurt Brand, translated by
Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/SOS-spaceship-Titan-Perry-Rhodan/dp/B0006XDOFO/

Book number thirty-four 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 again. I
read the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1973 that
I had to be very careful with due to age. 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 #103, plus the Atlan books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

BTW, this is actually book number 42 of the German Pamphlets. There is
a very good explanation of the plot in German on this website of all of
the PR books. There is automatic Google translation available for
English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, French, and Portuguese.
https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Raumschiff_TITAN_funkt_SOS

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. It has been over ten years since then and the New Power has
flourished with millions of people and many spaceships headquartered in
the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania.

Thora has directed the Titan to wait at a specific planet for their
hyperspace translation suppressor to be installed after the Ganymede
brings one out from Earth. Otherwise the huge Arkonide positronic brain
can find out where Earth is at. The planet is supposedly a dead planet
but there are people and other creatures there also. And a huge
spaceship graveyard.

One has to remember that this book was written in German in 1962 and
translated to English in 1973. 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.

Two observations:
1. The publisher should have put two to four of the translated stories
in each book. Having two stories in the first five books worked out
well. Just having one story in the book is too short and would never
allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should
read the totally awesome "Mutineer's Moon" Dahak series of three books
by David Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856/

My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars (2 reviews)

Lynn

Lynn McGuire wrote:

<snip>

> Thora has directed the Titan to wait at a specific planet for their
> hyperspace translation suppressor to be installed after the Ganymede
> brings one out from Earth. Otherwise the huge Arkonide positronic brain
> can find out where Earth is at. The planet is supposedly a dead planet
> but there are people and other creatures there also. And a huge
> spaceship graveyard.

"SOS: Spaceship Titan!"'s planet Honur is _Serenity_'s Reaver infested
planet Miranda writ in Rhoverse. Reverse, rather - in light of "SOS"'s
debut decades before _Serenity_'s own. Honur's spaceship graveyard is
more down to earth, so to speak:

https://crcomp.net/arts/pr0042/moewig1.png

than Miranda's Reaver fleet. The Rhobots who wade waves on the cover on
the Moewig ("Raumschiff TITAN funkt SOS:"):

https://crcomp.net/arts/pr0042/moewig.png

grace one of my favorite covers. As is typical, God only knows what
the Morrow cover depicts (besides spacey seventies scenes):

https://crcomp.net/arts/pr0042/ace.png

Honos hobos remind me of Bradbury's /rusted ones/ in "The Visitor."

Danke,

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