Moments later, a hologram appeared; it showed a member of the dominant race of the galaxy, the Siom Som. The Somer in the holo had a bright red beak and dark gray whiskers, which he fluffed up at the sight of the bald Terran. "The sight of you is an insult," the creature snarled. The translator changed his Sothalk words into Intercosmo. "No one shows uncovered flesh to a merchant general like me."
German magazine Perry Rhodan is the most published science fiction periodical in the world, with over one billion copies sold. It's been running continuously since its debut in 1961 and thus exceeds 3,300 consecutive weeks in print. Each issue contains about sixty pages of text offering the latest chapters in an ongoing space opera saga. Individual stories (called "cycles") are serialized over a period of 1-2 years.
Issue #1716, 'Die Hantel des Somers,' was part of the fifty-part story 'The Ayindi,' which takes place in our year 4804. The cover depicts human leaders meeting Funuored, representative of a bird-like alien race introduced in issue #1293. The "barbell" or "dumbbell" of the title is a small fidget spinner carried by each Somer, granting psychic powers but also having addictive properties which lead the user to behave unpredictably. In the following scene, Earth's leader Misonan meets with Funuored:
In his hand the Somer held a kind of scepter or toy that he was constantly turning back and forth; a small barbell less than ten centimeters long and about half as wide. The device had sections of different colors that could be moved against each other. Sometimes the structure looked like an hourglass, sometimes like a barbell for weight training, sometimes like a toy weapon... "It must be interesting," thought Koka Szari Misonan, "to own such a miniature dumbbell, since playing with it obviously calms him down and turns even the domineering Somer into a sociable and understanding being."
Herbert "Johnny" Bruck (1921-1995) was an extremely prolific painter. He had been producing covers for Perry Rhodan (as he did for its predecessor Terra) since its very first issue. This lovely work was one of the culminations of a very long and fruitful career which cemented Bruck as the dean of German sci-fi illustration.
Bruck would only receive a brief precis of the text from which to produce a painting. As a result, the cover images often represent the theme of the interior but not the details. For instance, the barbell so prominent in the story does not appear on the cover. However, I love the mix of green and purple colors, and the decorative details on the astronaut's suit. The art is edge-to-edge on a 20.25”x14.5” board of stiff art paper.
