Thu 20 Aug 2026
SF Diary Review: K. H. SCHEER & WALTER ERNSTING – Enterprrise Stardust.
Posted by Steve under Uncategorized[14] Comments
K. H. SCHEER & WALTER ERNSTING – Enterprise Stardust. Perry Rhodan #1, Ace, paperback original;1st printing, 1969.
The first of a long German series, in two parts, probably first punished separately. Comments of each follow. Tolerably good writing and translation. Interesting enough to read more. [I never did.] Overall rating **½
“Enterprse Stardust.” Rhodan and his crew make the first landing on the moon, to find the disabled Arkonides’ spaceship. Perry agrees to help the dying Khrest in return for the aliens’ support in stopping incipient warfare on Earth.
The lunar landing is more physically difficult than it appears to have actually been, and it seems preferable for man to have done it on their own, than to depend on advanced alien technology. Yet you can’t sneer at a helping hand.
I didn’t understand why Earth was not automatically advanced on the civilization scale, without Rhodan’s personal report to Khrest that humanity was about to begin the conquest of space. Here they are, on the moon after all. **
“The Third Power.” Back on Earth, Rhodan must convince all sides that he means to stop all war, even as he appears to have become a traitor in the meantime. The resulting alliance of enemies is heavy-handed in treatment, but the point is made.
Having the first two installments published in the same book makes for more repetition, which otherwise would have been useful in keeping details of the previous story in mind. Next time the stories will stand on their own. **½
August 21st, 2026 at 4:46 am
Perry Rhodan…more juvenile than Captain Future and far less interesting. I find it amazing that Forrest Ackerman was able to keep this ball rolling as long as he did.
August 21st, 2026 at 11:10 am
You are quite right, Jerry. I believe that this review is a wart on my book reviewing career. What this blog is, is warts and all.
August 21st, 2026 at 3:44 pm
I read the first few of these when they came out and enjoyed them but didn’t continue with the series. Then years later I reread them and ripped through a couple dozen more. That was enough, though. At this point, I’ll never read any more.
August 21st, 2026 at 6:54 pm
Everybody seems to have their own personal quota on these, differing from person to person. I wonder what Forry Ackerman really thought about them, but I suppose we’ll never know.
August 21st, 2026 at 8:23 pm
I don’t think Forry ever met a science fiction cliche he did not like.
August 21st, 2026 at 10:15 pm
I think you’re right.
August 22nd, 2026 at 9:14 am
I seem to recall that to fill out the later books, Forry serialized some early SF novels that were in the public domain even then, such as GULLIVER OF MARS. I actually owned all the Ace editions at one point and it was fun hunting them down in dusty used bookstores, but then my enthusiasm for the series waned and most of them went unread.
August 22nd, 2026 at 12:28 pm
You and I are much alike in many ways, James. You and I both spent a lot of time searching for new books on the spinner racks in drug stores when we were younger, for example. And I kept buying Perry Rhodan books also, and in my case. even after I stopped reading them (and after Ace stopped printing them).
August 22nd, 2026 at 1:55 pm
While the original series continues in Germany with more than 3000 installments so far, they rebooted the series a few years ago under the title PERRY RHODAN NEO, rewriting the early books but moving the time period later. I have English language e-book editions of the first several but haven’t read any of them. The reboot lasted only 18 volumes, a real drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the original.
August 23rd, 2026 at 3:55 pm
More stories than I was aware of, and I thought I knew more than your average run of the mill SF fan. Thanks, James!
August 24th, 2026 at 1:59 pm
I’ve neither read any of the books (although they drew my attention on bookstore shelves when I was a lad) nor seen the movie in decades, but I gather that this plotline served as at least the partial basis for Mission Stardust (1967), with Lang Jeffries as Rhodan, which to my knowledge remains the only adaptation.
August 24th, 2026 at 7:56 pm
Matthew
Add this to a long list of things I did not know earlier but *should* have. Thank you.
The film has its own Wikipedia page. From the Reception segment:
In a contemporary review, Variety noted the dubbing in the film, stating that it was “only fair” and that the special effects were “crude, the color uneven, but the very audaciousness of the admixture keeps the attention.” The review also praised the film score by Anton G. Abril and Marcello Giombini.
From retrospective reviews, Gary Westfahl in his book The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918-1969 noted that the film contained “shoddy special effects” and recalled “Saturday afternoon serials more than science fiction films of the 1960s”. Westfahl referred to the film as “one of the era’s most reviled genre films.”
To read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Stardust
August 26th, 2026 at 12:53 pm
Didn’t know it was reviled (although that would help to explain the absence of any follow-ups), but it’s certainly obscure; at the age of 14, which may be the last time I saw it, I gave it one star out of five.
Leading lady Essy Persson later appeared with Vincent Price in Cry of the Banshee, while John Karlsen, who played Crest (sic), was the “Von” Helsing heir in Michael Reeves’s The She Beast, for whatever that’s worth.
August 30th, 2026 at 2:43 am
Back then I could afford to collect them for the Gray Morrow covers, by far the best of the books, I know many loved them, but I found them unreadble.