June 30, 2003
While the quite successful Perry Rhodan con was taking place in Garching, with a few hundred fans spending a nice time with the writers and illustrators, one man was sitting at his PC in Oldenburg and working away in the sweat of his brow: Not only was Robert Feldhoff working on the new plot outlines for the “Der Sternenozean" (“Ocean of Stars") story cycle, which will introduce a new era in the Perry Rhodan series starting with issue 2200, but he was also already diligently writing the jubilee issue itself.
Meanwhile I faced the challenge of having to keep my mouth shut when readers brought up the upcoming story cycle and tried to extract all kinds of information from me. I’m sure that the same was true for the authors in attendance.
Perhaps Robert Feldhoff was even glad that he did not have to subject himself to this “ordeal" in the first place. After all, one has really has to be careful about keeping everything straight in these conversations.
Much of the foundation of the story cycle that will start with issue 2200 has already been established. The developer of the plot knows the twists that he wants to include and where he wants to place the highlights of the cycle. Hence, in his own thinking he’s about twenty to fifty booklet novellas ahead of the readers, which makes it quite difficult to give meaningful answers without disclosing too much.
Because so many fans asked me so many things in Garching, I’ll summarize some of the answers here, and they don’t just involve the booklet novella series itself:
- In spite of an almost homey sounding beginning, issue 2200, which is set in the Milky Way, opens up a completely new scenario for the Perry Rhodan series, with many things changing in fundamental ways.
- A new main character will be introduced, to be joined very quickly by additional characters; not all of whom necessarily are to the liking of the other heroes (not to mention the readers).
- Dirk Schulz will draw the cover of issue 2200, the early sketches of which I think have turned out quite well. Along these lines, the cover picture will serve up additional surprises.
- A poster will be included, which won’t be identical with the cover but instead was exclusively prepared for the novel. As the information already appeared on a fan web site, I might as well also mention this: It involves a cutaway drawing.
- The Atlan mini-series, i.e., the Centauri series, was a notable success. The writers and editors would gladly like to repeat this success. At present, however, there are no definite plans.
- A main focus of our current work is the Odyssey cycle, which will be published in paperback by Heyne starting in November 2003. The writers are exchanging e-mails almost daily, supporting each other with ideas. Moreover, one novel has already been completed. Frank Borsch is coordinating these efforts.
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