Tag Archives: Kurt Brand

[September 6, 1968] Adventures for a Dime: Science Fiction and Horror Dime Novels in West Germany


by Cora Buhlert

Interesting Times

"May you live in interesting times" is supposedly an ancient Chinese curse, even though the proverb is completely unknown in China.

But be that as it may, we are certainly living in very interesting times, because it has been a long, hot summer of protests and violence here in Europe as well as abroad. Whether in Paris, Prague, Zurich, Rome, Warsaw, Bonn or West Berlin, whether on the western or eastern side of the iron curtain, it seems as if every single day there is another protest, another riot and the violent response of the authorities in the news.

Priests protesting against the West German emergency power act
The massive protests against West Germany's new emergency powers act did not just attract university students. Here we have a group of priests protesting the new law.
Former concentration camp inmates protest the West German emergency laws
Former concentration camp prisoners donned their old prisoner uniforms to protest the West German emergency measures act. A similar law was abused in the 1930s and paved Hitler's way to power.
Soviet tanks crush protests in Prague, Czecheslovakia
Soviet tanks crush protests in Prague, Czecheslovakia
Protests in Paris
Massive protests in Paris on May 1.
Police versus protesters in Paris
Student protesters clash with the police in Paris.
Burned out bus in Mexico city
A burned out bus during students protests in Mexico City.
Sit-in in Zurich
A sit-in in Zurich where protesters took over an empty department store.

Burning Streets and Sappy Songs

Maybe the fact that this has been such a violent year is the reason why the pop songs dominating the West German charts are so extremely saccharine. Songs by the Beatles or the Rolling Stones regularly hit the West German charts, but the breakout star of 1968 in West Germany is a young Dutch singer known as Heintje (real name Hein Simons) who just celebrated his thirteenth birthday last month.

Now young Heintje has a beautiful voice – at least for now, because puberty will eventually hit. However, the songs he is made to sing are painfully saccharine. His breakout hit was "Mama", a song that's already thirty years old and was originally written for Beniamino Gigli. His follow-up "Du sollst nicht weinen" (You shall not cry), a version of "La Golondrina", a Mexican song that is already more than a hundred years old, is currently topping the West German charts. And Heintje (or rather his manager) have even more plans. A new song called "Oma so lieb" (Grandma so kind) is coming out soon and Heintje will also appear in the movie Zum Teufel mit der Penne (To Hell With School).

Meanwhile, enjoy this performance of his breakout hit "Mama":

Escape at the Newsstand

While some are seeking escape from the violence on the news in sappy pop songs, others head for the spinner rack at their local newsstand to peruse the offerings and lose themselves in fantastic worlds.

West German newsstand 1960s
A typical West German newsstand.
Typical West German newsstand
Another example of a typical West German newsstand.

I've written before about the so-called “Heftromane”, digest-sized 64-page fiction magazines sold at newsstands, gas stations, grocery stores and wherever magazines are sold. West German newsstands carry a bewildering array of "Heftromane" in variety of genres. Westerns, crime novels, war novels and romance novels with subgenres such as aristocratic romance, Alpine romance and medical romance are still the most popular, but there are also a number of science fiction series to be found.

The State of the United Galactic Empire

The eight hundred pound gorilla of West German science fiction is still Perry Rhodan. The series launched in September 1961 and is still going strong seven years later. In fact, I just picked up issue No. 366 today.

Perry Rhodan 366
The latest issue of Perry Rhodan.

It has been almost four years, since I last checked in on Perry Rhodan's adventures in these pages, and a lot has happened since then.

Perry Rhodan's own Solar Empire and the Great Empire of Perry's Arkonian allies joined forces to form the United Galactic Empire. However, this new Empire continues to be beset by crises from within and without. And so Perry Rhodan and friends have been travelling to distant galaxies and also tangling with time cops.

A major internal crisis facing the United Galactic Empire was the revolt of the planet Plophos. Under the rule of the tyrannical Iratio Hondro, the Plophosians managed to shoot down Perry Rhodan's flagship Crest, imprisoned the crew and tried to poison them. However, Perry Rhodan managed to escape with the aid of Mory Abro, daughter of a Plophosian opposition leader.

Perry Rhodan
Perry Rhodan's future wife Mory Abro is caught in the embrace of a bug-eyed monster on Jonny Bruck's cover for issue 186.

Initially, Mory and Perry disliked each other intensely, but during their perilous flight they fell in love. Eventually, Perry Rhodan and Mory Abro were married and had twins, a girl named Suzan Betty and a boy named Michael Reginald. So Perry Rhodan finally found some happiness after losing his first wife Thora all the way back in issue 78.

Since Perry Rhodan and most of his supporting cast are near immortal due to their cellular activators, time moves fast in the series and so the twins are already adults in the current issues. Suzan Betty studied mathematics, founded a chain of banks and eventually married the brilliant but scatterbrained scientist Geoffry Abel Waringer, initially against her parents' wishes.

Perry Rhodan 302
Suzan Betty Rhodan poses with Gucky the telepathic Mousebeaver and Gucky's son Jumpy on the cover of issue 302.

Unlike his sister, Michael Reginald Rhodan chafed against finding himself in the shadow of his father. He ran away from home several times as a boy and finally left for good at age twenty-four. Fascinated by the French Revolution, he took the name Roi Danton, started dressing in eighteenth century garb for reasons best known to himself and joined the Free Traders, eventually rising to their king.

Perry Rhodan 300
Michael Reginald Rhodan a.k.a. Roi Danton displays his rather unusual sense of style on the cover of issue 300.

Since the death of Thora, Perry Rhodan was sorely lacking in regular female characters, so Mory Abro and Suzan Betty Rhodan are welcome additions to the series. Even more welcome would be women authors, for the writing staff of Perry Rhodan is still all male. Which is a massive oversight, especially since West Germany does have female science fiction writers such as Lore Matthaey, prolific writer, translator and editor of the Utopia Zukunftsroman series, or the writer behind the pseudonym Garry McDunn, who I have on good authority is actually a woman.

Perry Rhodan's Rivals

Success breeds imitators and so other "Heftroman" publishers launched their own science fiction series, all inspired by Perry Rhodan and all inevitably starring square-jawed spacemen.

I already wrote about Ren Dhark, the Martin Kelter publishing company's foray into the science fiction genre. The brainchild of Perry Rhodan writer Kurt Brand, the saga about Terran colonists who crash-landed on the planet Hope is still going strong two years later. By now, the Terrans and their leader Ren Dhark have found not only traces of intelligent aliens they've named the Mysterious (because no one knows what they look like) but also a giant spaceship called Point of Interrogation. Ren Dhark and his crew repaired and launched the Point of Interrogation and are currently searching for both the Mysterious and Earth, which Ren Dhark, who was born in space aboard the colony ship Galaxis, has never seen.

Ren Dhark

Ren Dhark is enjoyable enough and has gradually also established its own identity as more than just a Perry Rhodan copy. The mystery behind the mysterious Mysterious is certainly compelling, though I hope the resolution, when it eventually comes, lives up to the mystery.

In November 1966, Bastei Verlag entered the science fiction arena with Rex Corda – Der Retter der Erde (Rex Corda – Saviour of the Earth). The brainchild of West German science fiction author H.G. Francis (real name Hans Gerhard Franciskowsky), the series finds Earth first near destroyed in a nuclear war and then caught in the middle of an intergalactic conflict between the Laktones and the Orathones, which has lasted for millennia. The titular characters Rex Corda is a US senator who tries to save the Earth from getting destroyed by the two warring factions.

Rex Corda No. 1
The cover for the first issue of Rex Corda.

Rex Corda is a lot more political than either Perry Rhodan or Ren Dhark and the parallels to the war in Vietnam are more than obvious. Maybe this is why Rex Corda only lasted for thirty-eight issues, ending last year.

Rex Corda
Don't worry, the attractive woman Rex Corda is protecting from an intergalactic petrodactyl is his sister.

The End of Utopia

After the cancellation of Rex Corda, H.G. Francis and his writing team launched a new science fiction series in the pages of the long-running science fiction anthology series Utopia Zukunfsroman.

Ad Astra – Chet Morrows Weg zu den Sternen (Ad Astra – Chet Morrow's Way to the Stars) started last year. The series is set in a solar system not unlike what could be found in the pages of pulp magazines like Planet Stories twenty years ago. Chet Morrow serves as an ensign aboard the interplanetary spaceship Dyna-Carrier, which is beset by saboteurs. After unmasking the saboteurs, Chet Morrow is promoted to Second Lieutenant and has many adventures around the solar system, while finding traces of alien visitors. Eventually, Chet Morrow becomes commander of the interstellar spaceship Sword of Terra and heads the first expedition to Alpha Centauri, which not only turns out to be inhabited, but also houses a human colony consisting of the descendants of ancient Romans who were abducted by aliens.

Ad Astra 1
The cover for the first Ad Astra novel "Sabotage at the Dyna-Carrier" looks very much like a Perry Rhodan cover.

Ad Astra

Ad Astra was certainly thrilling, and indeed the quality of the two H.G. Francis science fiction series Rex Corda and Ad Astra was higher than the average Perry Rhodan clone. Alas, Ad Astra was prematurely cut short, when Utopia Zukunftsroman was cancelled earlier this year after fifteen years. Worse, Ad Astra ended on a down note with the Earth and much of the solar system seemingly destroyed by a rogue comet.

Utopia Zukunftsroman may be history, but its competitor Terra Science Fiction is still being published, though the anthology series was rebranded as Terra Nova this year. The publisher Zauberkreis Verlag also entered the science fiction anthology market with Zauberkreis SF two years ago.

Utopia Zukunftsroman
The final issue of Utopia Zukunftsroman featured a German translation of "Objectif Tamax" by French science fiction author Peter Randa.

But even if the West German "Heftroman" market does not look too promising for any science fiction series not named Perry Rhodan, a very interesting series in another genre just launched.

Things Get Spooky

Silber-Krimi (Silver Mystery) is a long-running crime fiction anthology series which started in 1952. Over the years, several recurring sleuths popped up in the pages of Silber-Krimi, the best known of them FBI Agent Jeff Conter and the crime-solving Butler Parker. But while the crimes in Silber-Krimi may occasionally seem far-fetched, they are still happening in our world.

Silber Grusel Krimi 747

This changed with issue 747 in July, when the regular Silber-Krimi bore the subtitle "Silber Grusel Krimi – Ein Roman für starke Nerven" (Silver Spooky Mystery – a novel for readers with strong nerves). Intrigued, I picked up the issue and was treated to "Das Grauen schleicht durch Bonnards Haus" (Horror creeps through Bonnard's house) by the appropriately named Dan Shocker.

After a spooky opening with a young man being pursued by beings unknown, the novel introduces us to Larry Brent, an FBI agent on holiday in France. FBI agents are popular protagonists in West German crime fiction, likely due to the enormous success of the "Heftroman" series G-Man Jerry Cotton.

However, it's very much a busman's holiday for Larry Brent, for no sooner has he arrived in France than he finds a body, completely drained of blood. Regular readers of spooky stories will find this quite ominous. And indeed, Larry Brent is attacked by a bona fide vampire soon thereafter. He vows to stop the bloodsucking fiend and finds that he is not the only one who is investigating the vampire killings. No, an agent of a mysterious organisation named PSA (short for Psychoanalytische Spezialabteilung, i.e. Psychoanalytic Special Unit) is also on the case. The story ends with the vampires vanquished and Larry Brent becoming on agent of the PSA himself.

"Das Grauen schleicht durch Bonnards Haus" is a satisfying horror novel, though the author clearly has no idea what psychoanalysis is and that it has nothing to do with investigating paranormal phenomena and everything with Sigmund Freud. Nonetheless, the novel proved popular enough that Larry Brent is getting a second outing this month.

But who is the author behind the outlandish pseudonym Dan Shocker? Well, it turns out that he is Jürgen Grasmück. Though only twenty-eight years old and using a wheelchair since his teens, Grasmück has already had a lengthy career. He started writing science fiction novels at sixteen and was a staff writer on both Ad Astra and Rex Corda. Grasmück tended to include horror elements into his science fiction novels and has clearly found his calling with the Larry Brent novels.

Quo Vadis, Heftroman?

Even though Perry Rhodan continues to be popular, other science fiction series have had a hard time in the West German "Heftroman" market. Will we eventually see another challenger to Perry Rhodan arise or was Ad Astra the last attempt to establish an ongoing science fiction series?

Meanwhile, occult investigator Larry Brent is an intriguing new character to arrive in the pages of the rather staid Silber-Krimi. Will his adventures continue, or will Larry Brent's second case also be his last?

We'll find out… at the newsstand.

West German newsstand






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[August 14, 1966] So Bad It's Hilarious (The Star Magicians by Lin Carter/The Off-Worlders by John Baxter (Ace Double G-588))


by Cora Buhlert

Science Fiction at the Newsstand

Perry Rhodan No. 258
Issue 258 of Perry Rhodan features the fan favourite character Gucky the mouse beaver on the cover, expertly drawn by Johnny Bruck.

Ever since its debut almost five years ago, West German science fiction has been synonymous with the dime novel series Perry Rhodan. Issue 258 of Perry Rhodan came out this week and so far, the series shows no sign of faltering.

Success breeds imitators and so there have been challengers for the crown of West Germany's premier science fiction series. The first challenger Mark Powers was hampered by old fashioned and inconsistent plots and so the series was discontinued in 1964, though Mark Powers still occasionally pops up in the pages of the anthology series Utopia Zukunftsroman.

This month, a new challenger appeared on West German newsstands. Ren Dhark is penned by former Perry Rhodan writer Kurt Brand and published by Kelter Verlag. Only one issue has come out so far, but what I've read looks promising.

Ren Dhark, No. 1
The first issue of Ren Dhark, the latest Perry Rhodan challenger

The story begins in the far off future of 2051 AD, when overpopulation – a popular theme in current science fiction, as Harry Harrison's Make Room, Make Room! and several of the stories collected in Orbit 1 show – forces humanity to look for a new home among the stars. So the starship Galaxis under the command of Captain Sam Dhark (no reason is given for the odd spelling of the name) departs for Deneb with fifty thousand colonists. However, the time effect drive malfunctions, stranding the Galaxis in the depths of space, turned into an involuntary generation ship.

Eventually, the Galaxis, now commanded by the titular Ren Dhark, son of the late captain, manages to find a habitable planet. But their problems have only just begun, because the planet in question is not only habitable, but also inhabited…

Ren Dhark started out promising enough, though not particularly innovative. Nonetheless, I will certainly haunt the newsstand on the lookout for issue 2.

Science Fiction at the Spinner Rack

The Off-Worlders by John Baxter

However, my main source of new science fiction is still the spinner rack at my local import bookstore. And during my last visit, I managed to snap up the latest Ace Double, number G-588 to be exact, which includes The Off-Worlders by John Baxter and The Star Magicians by Lin Carter.

The Off-Worlders has just been serialised in New Worlds under the title The God Killers, so I'll just point you to Mark Yon's review of the novel and delve right into the other half of this Ace Double.

Most readers of the Journey will probably know Lin Carter mainly from his "Our Man in Fandom" columns in If, but he is also an up and coming science fiction and fantasy writer. Erika Frank reviewed his sword and sorcery novel The Wizard of Lemuria last year. Now, Carter has set his sights on space opera, though barbarians still feature prominently.

A Familiar History

The Star Magicians by Lin Carter
Amazingly, Jack Gaughan's cover is an accurate illustration of a scene in the novel.

The Star Magicians begins with one of those dreaded information laden prologues which occasionally afflict science fiction novels. In fact, when I read the capsule history of the fall of the Great Carina Empire, I briefly wondered whether I had accidentally picked up a later book in an ongoing series.

But even if there is no previous novel in the series, the history of the Carina Empire, which is beset by barbarians at its borders and eventually breaks apart and descends into a new dark age, will seem familiar to anybody who knows even a lick of history, for here is the fall of the Roman Empire replayed once again in outer space.

However, one planet stands firm against the new dark age and the barbarian Star Rovers: the planet Parlion, which is inhabited by a group called the White Wizards, who preserve science and technology and are considered magicians by their less enlightened neighbours. If that story seems familiar, it's probably because you've read it before when it was still called Foundation and penned by Isaac Asimov.

Naked Bodies and Tortured Metaphors

Once the actual plot begins, the novel becomes more engaging, though not necessarily better or more original. The story proper opens in an arena, where a would-be Conan gladiator is fighting against an alien monster, while the barbarian warlord Drask looks on and fondles a naked girl.

The naked girl is a captive princess, though you wouldn't know it from the first chapter. Carter repeatedly starts and then fails to describe the young woman, getting sidetracked by reminiscing about the conquest of the planet in a pitched space battle, describing the chafing and sweat-soaked leather and iron garb of a barbarian warrior and lovingly detailing the manly vigour and magnificent body of the gladiator (who will be dead within two pages, his "nakedness clothed in dripping scarlet").

Here's a typical example of Lin Carter's tortured prose. If this is too much for you, best bail out now, because the entire book is like that:

Above, in the royal box, Drask reclined at his ease on the satin cushions, half his cynical attention on the tragic drama unfolding below, and half on the trembling young girl beside him, whose nude breasts he was idly fondling. A philosopher in his rough way, the Warlord of the Star Rovers mused on the changeful ways of Fate. In this moment of time the young Argionid swordsman was filled with robust life, bursting with manly vigor in the full hot morning of his youth… in the next moment, his splendid, virile body would be an awful bundle of bloody rags, crushed in the inexorable jaws of the slavering thard.

We are toys at the feet of the gods, he thought.

When Carter finally remembers to describe the young princess – or rather her breasts – he compares them to "warm, white fruit", at which point I wondered whether Carter has ever seen a naked woman, or eaten fruit, for that matter.

After the would-be Conan has met his demise, we are finally introduced to the actual protagonist, Perion of North Hollis (which sounds like a stop on the London Underground rather than a city on an alien planet), a minstrel sentenced to die in the arena for treason. However, Perion manages to outwit the monster and is pardoned and even invited to a feast of the Star Rovers, where he further ingratiates himself by stopping the captive princess from stabbing the warlord Drask. Her attempt at revenge foiled, the princess stabs herself and is forgotten within a page. We never even learn her name nor anything about her appearance except that she has breasts.

Lin Carter
Lin Carter

White Wizards and Green Goddesses

What follows is a clunky and exposition laden dialogue, which not only repeats information we already got in the equally clunky prologue, but also reveals that there is only one person who can stand against the mighty warlord Drask, namely Calastor, one of the White Wizards of Parlion. Not only does Calastor have superior quasi-magic technology, he also has dozens of minions willing to do his bidding. Worse, no one knows what he looks like. "For aught we know, he might be standing among us at the very moment," mutters one of the few named Star Rovers at the feast. Anybody who has read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series may develop certain suspicions at this point.

Since the princess committed suicide, Drask is in need of a new bed companion and picks a random dancing girl, who promptly tries to stab him again. Even Drask, who's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, thinks that two assassination attempts in one night are a little much to be a coincidence. So he examines the dagger with which the girl tried to stab him and finds a glowing green stone, a talisman dedicated to the Green Goddess of Malkh. The dancing girl is one of her priestesses. For it turns out that Drask has not one but two sworn enemies in the galaxy, the White Wizard and the Green Goddess. Of course, it might have been helpful if Carter had mentioned that tidbit of information before.

The interrogation of the dancing girl, whose name is revealed to be Lurn, reveals nothing, because Lurn downs a potion that – no, this time around, the potion doesn't kill her, it only makes her fall asleep. When the sleeping Lurn is taken to the dungeon for further interrogation, she vanishes into thin air.

Lurn reappears on the next day, hidden in Perion's baggage, which leads to both her and Perion being arrested. During their interrogation, Perion is unmasked as none other than Calastor, the White Wizard and sworn enemy of Drask. This turn of events might have been a genuine surprise, if Carter hadn't borrowed it wholesale from "The Mule" part of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. And just in case you failed to notice the parallels, Perion is even shown with a (pack)mule shortly before his arrest. In fact, the only surprise is that the reveal happens halfway through the novel rather than at the end, as I expected.

Calastor and Lurn escape Drask by teleporting to safety and engage in yet another exchange of long explanations aboard Calastor's spaceship. Calastor reveals that he must stop Drask and the Star Rovers soon, because they are threatening the planet that the White Wizards of Parlion have picked out as the nucleus of the new galactic empire they are trying to build.

Smoke and Mirrors

The story now heads to Xulthoom, the planet of mists and also the planet that drives men mad. Xulthoom is a fascinating setting with its ancient ruins and perpetual mists and I wonder what e.g. Leigh Brackett could do with it. Lin Carter does not nearly have Leigh Brackett's skills, but even he manages to convey the spooky atmosphere of Xulthoom.

Calastor uses his quasi-magical science to mentally destabilise the Star Rovers and turn them against each other, while gizmo-speaking to Lurn and spouting an amount of nonsense about psionics that would impress even John W. Campbell.

Due to Calastor's manipulations, the Star Rovers go mad one by one and begin to hear voices. Some literally die of fear. In the end, even Drask himself hears a voice, supposedly that of the Green Goddess, warning him to return to the Rim Stars whence he came or suffer the consequences. However, the message from the Green Goddess is not Calastor's doing. There is another power at work here.

Spooked by the message of the Green Goddess, Drask finally gives the order to abandon Xulthoom – no, not to go home, but to conquer the next planet, the one planet that the White Wizards want to keep the Star Rovers away from at all costs.

Calastor summons some help from Parlion and together the White Wizards attempt to dissuade the Star Rovers from travelling onwards by projecting an illusion of space dragons attacking the fleet. However, the Star Rover shaman Abdekiel, an offensive Asian stereotype who is frequently likened to a "butter yellow buddha", sees through the ruse.

So Calastor and his companions teleport aboard the Star Rover flagship to face Drask and his men directly. The White Wizards use their mental powers to disarm the barbarians, while Calastor gets involved in a prolonged and remarkably well described swordfight.

The standoff is interrupted by the Green Goddess herself, who thoroughly smites the Star Rover fleet, a scene strikingly illustrated by Jack Gaughan on the cover. Finally, the Goddess teleports the adversaries away, metes out punishment to Drask and gives her blessing to the marriage of Calastor and Lurn (who turns out to be a princess as well), who will rule together over the world that will become the nucleus of the new empire.

An Unholy Mess

Lin Carter was aiming for Isaac Asimov's Foundation as written by Robert E. Howard. However, Carter has the skill of neither Asimov nor Howard and so the result is just a mess.

One technique that Carter borrows from Robert E. Howard is Howard's tendency to begin a story with a supporting character before his barbarian adventurer Conan steps onto the scene. But while Howard never leaves any doubt that Conan is the hero of the story, Carter seems unsure which of his characters is the protagonist. By rights, Calastor and Lurn should be the stars, but Calastor vanishes for chapters at a time and Lurn never even acquires a personality, so Drask, the villain, is the closest thing to a protagonist this unholy mess of a novel has.

Make no mistake, this is a terrible book. It's certainly the worst book I have ever reviewed for Galactic Journey. The plot is hackneyed, the prose is tortured and so purple that it almost crosses over into ultraviolet. In fact, this book is so awful that I wonder how desperate Ace must have been to publish it. If there was a Hugo Award for the worst science fiction novel, The Star Magicians would be the uncontested winner.

However, this novel has one redeeming feature: it is at least entertainingly terrible. In fact, the book is utterly hilarious. I was giggling the whole time I read it and regaled friends and family members with reading Lin Carter's awful prose out loud. If The Star Magicians were a parody, it would be absolutely brilliant. But unfortunately, it's supposed to be a serious space opera adventure.

I'm sure there is something that Lin Carter excels at and I hope that he will eventually find it. However, writing science fiction is not it.

One and a half stars

AG Weser workers relaxing
Workers at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen are enjoyaing a well deserved break in the summer sun.
Three young ladies bathing in Bremen
Meanwhile, these three young ladies are enjoying a swim in the Stadionbad public pool in Bremen.


Rosel George Brown's new hit novel, Sibyl Sue Blue, is much better than Lin Carter's book. You might want to get the taste out with it!