"Beware The Microbots (Perry Rhodan #35)" by Kurt Mahr, translated by
Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/Beware-Microbots-Perry-Rhodan-35/dp/4411660180/

Book number thirty-five 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 43 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/Rauschgifth%C3%A4ndler_der_Galaxis

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.

Perry Rhodan and his new 5,000 foot diameter spaceship, the Titan, are
waiting at the planet Honur for their new hyperspace translation
suppressor that the Ganymede is bringing from Earth so they do not
reveal the location of Earth to the hyperspace watchers. The crew of
the Titan have discovered that there are inhabitants on the planet and
that they have little pets. But the pets emit a poison that causes
continuous euphoria and most of the crew are infected. Perry Rhodan and
the uninfected crew members find the drug manufacturing facility built
by a remote Arkonide race and destroy it. But they cannot cure the
euphoria disease.

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 (1 review)

Lynn

Lynn McGuire wrote:

<snip>

> Perry Rhodan and his new 5,000 foot diameter spaceship, the Titan, are
> waiting at the planet Honur for their new hyperspace translation
> suppressor that the Ganymede is bringing from Earth so they do not
> reveal the location of Earth to the hyperspace watchers. The crew of
> the Titan have discovered that there are inhabitants on the planet and
> that they have little pets. But the pets emit a poison that causes
> continuous euphoria and most of the crew are infected. Perry Rhodan and
> the uninfected crew members find the drug manufacturing facility built
> by a remote Arkonide race and destroy it. But they cannot cure the
> euphoria disease.

Die Dritte Macht encounters four alien Aras for the first time on Honur.
The Aras are an Arkonidean genealogical offshoot; galactic medical
geniuses. They are ruthless - the type of people who develop COVID in
order to profit from vaccine sales.
The poison's apparently misspelled as hexylamin in English and also
misspelled as hexylamins in German.
Allow me one other nit. Wendayne translates "färben" into "dye." But
"stain" seems more apropos from a histological perspective.

Danke,

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