By W. W. Shols (=
German issue #23, Friday 9 February 1962)
After a short
chapter establishing that even mutant teleporter Tako Kakuta cannot
penetrate Secret Barrier X from the helplessly orbiting Good Hope V –
the attempt subjects him to literally hours of subjective time in hell
during which pass only seconds for his crewmates – the balance of the
story takes place on Venus itself. Basically, in addition to the
wounded Perry Rhodan and Son Okura traveling slowly to catch up with
John Marshall who has gone ahead to try to establish telepathic
contact with the semi-intelligent seal-like creatures whom they
encountered in their initial explorations of Venus (#4[b],
Base on Venus), Gen. Tomisenkov with the captive Thora
makes his way toward Venus Base while being harried by the rebel Lt. Wallerinski's “pacifists,” and a new force is added to the mix –
the remnants of the Eastern Bloc reinforcements that were decimated
before ever they landed on Venus (Menace
of Atomiggedon), whose commander Col. Raskujan has declared
himself the sole authority on the planet and launched an attack on
Tomisenkov's forces with vastly superior forces and equipment,
including helicopters. Early on, Tomisenkov ambushes and destroys
Thora's robotic companion R-17, but by the end both himself and Thora
have been captured by Raskujan. Meanwhile, Marshall has not found
the “seals,” but has been rejoined by Rhodan and Okura, and
together the three have made first an abortive attempt to steal a
helicopter from Raskujan's forces, then managed to get away with an
inflatable life raft and supplies with which they mean to cross a
200-mile wide stretch of Venusian sea that lies between them and
Venus Base.
So, ultimately, not
a whole lot happens except pieces being moved around on the playing
board.
See
another summary at
http://perryrhodan.us/php/displaySummary.php?number=23
* * *
The Ace cover is a
pretty generic science-fiction cover by Gray Morrow – literally,
pretty but generic, having nothing whatsoever to do with the story.
The original German cover by Johhny Bruck at least illustrates the
ambush of poor R-17 by Tomisenkov's men. Once again there are no
interior drawings.
The dedication is
to Otis
Adelbert Kline, “Whose Grandon of Terra Once Had Grand
Adventures on Venus too.” Kline was an early 20th-century pulp
science-fiction and adventure writer who penned planetary romances
much in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars and Venus
series. The oft-repeated story that Kline and Burroughs engaged in a
running feud over Kline's supposed imitation of Burroughs is almost
certainly not true. Kline was also important as a literary agent for
Robert E. Howard.
Both the editorial
and the “Scientifilm World” column are repeats from the previous
issue, q.v.
This period in the books' publications seems to have been rife with
such production snafus.
But with this
issue, Perry Rhodan does become more of a true paperback/pulp
“magabook” with the inclusion of two shorter stories at the end.
First there is the initial installment of Garrett P. Serviss' almost
immediate sequel to H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds that began
in the New York Evening Journal within weeks of Wells'
original reaching its first US publication conclusion in Cosmopolitan
(yes, you read that right, except that here we're not talking
about the modern women's magazine, rather an earlier and “far more erudite
publication whose broad remit included journalism, serious comment
and stories from some of the best known writers of the age” – War
of the Worlds website). Serviss' original 1898 title gives away one
of the major conceits of his story, which had as its hero none other than the
“Wizard of Menlo Park” – it was called Edison's Conquest of
Mars. Here the tale is retitled Pursuit to Mars. Besides
Thomas Edison, who in short order invented both an electrical means
of space propulsion and a disintegrator beam weapon, other
characters include Lord Kelvin and physicist Wilhelm Roentgen – all
part of leading the Earth's effort to pick itself back up to take the
war back to the Martians! By the end of the second chapter reprinted
here (in Forrest J Ackerman's heavily edited form), the new united
Earth fleet has launched for the red planet.
Second there is the
first of what FJA calls “Shock Shorts,” short one-to-two-page
stories with some twist at the end. This one is by Clive Jackson,
entitled “The Swordsmen of Varnis,” and is a pretty typically
ERB-esque tale of a brave hero and a beautiful maiden valiantly holding off seemingly
hopeless odds on Mars ... until one of the attackers says “To hell with
this!” – or to quote it exactly:
“Leaping backward
out of the conflict he flung his sword on the ground in disgust.
'Bah!' he grunted. 'This is ridiculous!' And, so saying, he
unclipped a proton gun from his belt and blasted Lehni-tal-Loanis and
her Warrior Lord out of existence with a searing energy-beam.
“(End).”
Frankly, I found
Pursuit to Mars and “The Swordsmen of Varnis” both more
engaging than this installment of Perry Rhodan. It just
confirms that W. W. Shols is my least favorite Perry Rhodan
writer (see also here).
Luckily, he wrote only one more issue after this one.
Next: The Venus
Trap by Kurt Mahr.
Cheers! … Ad
Astra! … and Happy New Year!
