"Renegades of the Future (Perry Rhodan #65)" by Kurt Mahr, translated by
Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Future-Perry-Rhodan-65/dp/4416602480/

Book number sixty-five 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 1975 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 73 of the German pamphlets written in
1963. 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_drei_Deserteure

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
and keep them from being taken over by the robot administrator of Arkon.

The Myrtha system containing the Grautier and Whistler planets is
predicted to have a time plane convergence with the Druuf's time plane
in less than a year's time. So the Solarian Empire is creating a base
in the system to fight the Druufs off. All of the settlers on Grautier
have been offered to be transported back to the Venus or to join the
Solarian Fleet. But, three of the settlers have stolen a Gazelle
spaceship with First Lieutenant Chellish as the pilot. The deserters
are planning on selling the position of Earth to the Arkonide Robot
Regent but cannot get to the Arkonide fleet without going through the
Solarian fleet first.

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: 5 out of 5 stars (1 reviews)

Lynn

My followup to your previous installment review noted the diversity of
fauna on Grey Beast and conjectured only planet Tolimon's galactic
zoo is more diverse. On second thought, PR's Venus also contains more
fauna than Grey Beast.

Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Renegades of the Future (Perry Rhodan #65)" by Kurt Mahr, translated by
> Wendayne Ackerman
> https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Future-Perry-Rhodan-65/dp/4416602480/

<snip>

> https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Die_drei_Deserteure

<snip>

> The Myrtha system containing the Grautier and Whistler planets is
> predicted to have a time plane convergence with the Druuf's time plane
> in less than a year's time. So the Solarian Empire is creating a base
> in the system to fight the Druufs off. All of the settlers on Grautier
> have been offered to be transported back to the Venus or to join the
> Solarian Fleet. But, three of the settlers have stolen a Gazelle
> spaceship with First Lieutenant Chellish as the pilot. The deserters
> are planning on selling the position of Earth to the Arkonide Robot
> Regent but cannot get to the Arkonide fleet without going through the
> Solarian fleet first.

For Chellish, the Order of the Blue Comet (blauen Kometen). A formulaic
element used by this novelette and some others in the first two Zyklus
is the need to keep Terrania's locus under wraps, lest the Robot Regent
reduce it to a colony or annihilate it altogether.
This story's stylistic structure includes interesting, internecine
vignettes at the top of each chapter subsequent to the first. The
tabloid _Terrianian Times_ fights it out with the _Terriania Daily News_
for narrative control. Such blinking blinkered belligerent bromide
battles bring to mind brouhahas between The Daily Mail and The Guardian:

<https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/22/daily-mail-v-guardian-an-open-minded-readers-view>

Danke,

--
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telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.