"The Blue Dwarfs (Perry Rhodan #54)" by Kurt Mahr
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Dwarfs-Perry-Rhodan-54/dp/4412660370/

Book number fifty-four of a series of one hundred and thirty-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 translated by Wendayne Ackerman and transitioned
to one story per book with the sixth book. And then they transition
back to two stories in book #109/110. The Ace publisher dropped out at
#118, so Forrest and Wendayne Ackerman published books #119 to #136 in
pamphlets before stopping in 1978. 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 1974 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 #106,
plus the Atlan books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

BTW, this is actually book number 62 of the German pamphlets written in
1962. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on the
Perrypedia German 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/Die_blauen_Zwerge

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 sixty-nine years since then and the Solar Empire
has flourished with tens of millions of people and many spaceships
headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania. Perry Rhodan
has been elected by the people of Earth to be the World Administrator.

So back to the 8,000 exiled colonists from Earth who crash landed on the
planet Gray Beast from the crashed space freighter Adventurous. The
exiles are now exploring around their settlement where the Adventurous
crash landed using their one helicopter. They are finding danger and
they are finding friends. And some of the danger is coming from within
the exiles.

Two observations:
1. Forrest Ackerman should have put two or three 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: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 0 out of 5 stars (0 reviews)

Lynn

Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "The Blue Dwarfs (Perry Rhodan #54)" by Kurt Mahr
> https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Dwarfs-Perry-Rhodan-54/dp/4412660370/
>

<snip>

> So back to the 8,000 exiled colonists from Earth who crash landed on the
> planet Gray Beast from the crashed space freighter Adventurous. The
> exiles are now exploring around their settlement where the Adventurous
> crash landed using their one helicopter. They are finding danger and
> they are finding friends. And some of the danger is coming from within
> the exiles.

A trio of elements pique my continued interest in this story.
First, the titular tongues of St. Elmo's Fire, dubbed blue dwarfs,
are an alien indigenous intelligent life form. The blue beings are able
to act as a magic carpet to transport things after they mass together.
Second, the planet Gray Beast (German) or Grautier (English), serves
as a setting for several subsequent stories with widely divergent,
unconnected plots.
Third, Horace O. Mutton's redemption commences with this story.

Danke,

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