Saturday, August 4, 2007

Perry Rhodan auf Deutsch and in English


I saw The Simpsons Movie the same day I watched an episode of The Simpsons, and frankly the blended together in my mind when I was later trying to remember what was in the movie.

A somewhat similar dissonance when I recently took a break from reading the German-language Perry Rhodan book, Kampf um die SOL, to read the English-language translation of a different Perry Rhodan book, Lemuria I: Star Ark (from FanPro, whose web site has since gone offline, so there may never be a Lemuria II). Having previously read a German-language Rhodan novel (Raumschiff in Fesseln, for you completists), so I knew what to expect when I read Kampf um die SOL, but it wasn't until I read the English novel that I learned how much of it I got wrong. (What? That character's not a robot? Huh?)

Goes to show how shaky my German still is.

Anyway, if you're not familiar with Rhodan and you're a science fiction reader, you should check it out – in some language (it's in German, English, French, Spanish, Czech, etc., etc., etc.). Begun back in the early 1960s, the Rhodan magazine, stories, and comics have been published ever since, making them the longest-running science fiction series in the world. Yes, longer than the Star Trek franchise. And it's still wildly popular. See the official German-language Rhodan site here [http://www.perry-rhodan.net/ ] and the English-language site here [http://www.perry-rhodan.us/ ].

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