From: Sean Wallace
Ken Bulmer's Hook series was a bit of fun for him, as he's excellent friends with Ted Tubb and as Tubb was writing his successful Dumarest of Terra saga at this time Ken went ahead and tried his hand at doing an intergalactic hero - unfortunately Hook is just a little pulpish, whereas Dumarest is grim all the way through.
They did this sort of thing also with Roman gladiators - Tubb with his Atilus the Gladiator series and Ken with his own short series - The Land of Mist and Sea of Swords, both by Mayflower and Pinnacle in the middle 1970s. I don't think I've read these before, but the Tubb, yes.
(Got to agree about Dumarest. There are a lot of similarities between the series - but there are no laughs in the Dumarest books.)
From: Marcus Grebe
Hi there,
A few days ago I began re-reading the first 4 books from the Ryder Hook series. The first time i read them there was no Internet so now I decided to find out a bit more about one of my favourite heros on the WWW. I stumpled upon your website wich is pretty much the only site dedicated to him. I thought "Gee, there's someone who likes Ryder Hook but has only read the first four books". So I thought I'd write you and tell you about the other books:
Actually, I don't know if they were only published in german (I read them in german) but there are 5 more books in the series.
THE GERVASE FACTOR (1984)
THE LOST FLEET (1988)
STAR STRIKE (1988)
LURE OF THE NOVAMEN (1988)
CITADEL OF DOOM (1988)
SECRET OF THE NOVAMEN (1988)
I doubt the copyright info is correct since I don't believe that almost all of the books were published in 1988 but that's what it says. Since I'm now in the spirit I'l probably re-read all the books so i can tell you how the story continues . I do remember though *spoiler* that Hook "aquired" a small starship on his own, he "met" a female android (that was even capable of reproduction) and he stole some Iola Gervase gene material from the Novamen - so they might one day have a child after all - with the help of the android. He also wiped out all the Novamen in one part of the galaxy but the rest of them are still out there.
So, there was enough room to contiue the saga of Ryder Hook but it never happened - too bad.
I hope I could help you a little with this information. See you out in the whirlpool.
Marcus "Bad Karma" Grebe
NYDENION - Get Ready for a new world.
From: David Ball
I've just finished reading your website on Kenneth Bulmer's "Ryder Hook" series of books. I, too, first read my (brand new) copy of Whirlpool of Stars in my early teens; I also used to look for the rude bits in James Herbert's books, although I found Whirlpool a fabulously entertaining story. I still have my (well read) copy and some years ago I was given a second hand copy of Star City. I've also read a library copy of The Boosted Man.
Everything you say about the books is true; they may not be the greatest stories ever written, but they're very foresighted. Multi-nationals today seem to be more and more like the "econorgs" in Hooks universe. I've often thought that Whirlpool would make the basis for a great film script and I've frequently imagined how it might be.
By the way, you have the honour of being the very first person I've e-mailed! Despite being a 35 year old graphic designer, who works with Apple Macs every day, I've only just lurched into the Internet age. I was trawling through the web looking for anything related to the books when I came upon your site. Unfortunately, I screwed up my first attempt and so you might end up receiving two versions of this!
I'll sign off now by saying that you're the first ever fan of the books I've ever come across.
From: Ralf Haberski
I don't know wether this is really news to you, but since I was searching the internet for more Info on these books and "stumbled" across your page, I thought why not telling you what I know. Mabye it is of interest to you. I bought two Hook-books in a packet for three quid. Kind of: We have to get rid of this old stuff. So buy blindly 20 SF books and pay almost nothing for it. Which I did. Amongst them were the books "Gefangen im All" (in Engl.: Captured in Space) (publ. 1988, Original title: Citadel of Doom, publ. also 88) and "Rebell der Sterne" (in Engl.: Rebel of the Stars) (publ. 1988, Original title: Star Strike, publ. also 88). Both books I have are second edition. Both second editions were published in a rather short time (within 1 and 5 months), so at that time there was obviously an interest in these books in Germany.
As you can see, the title translation into German is rather lousy. The translation of the books is as well. Even though I don«t know the original texts it is pretty obvious that the one who translated the books hadn«t much time or was absolutely not interested in a proper translation. For example:
The translator created words in German, which are not a part of this language, at least according to German dictionaries.
- Some adjectives or words are so strangely stringed together that I was wondering wether the author is not capable of formulating properly or the translator simply didn«t like what she translated.
- Boosted man is translated with project-man, etc.
- Also I realised that the reader of the publishing house was obviously in a haste. The books are full of printing mistakes, even in the second edition.
To be honest, I checked the internet to find out how many books of this partially extremely silly stuff were published. It was just curiosity. And I thought mabye there exists a fan-community and I could find out wether the original versions of the books are more interesting. It wouldn«t be the first time that I came across books which are good in English, but the translation screwed them up.
There are some ideas in the books which I like, (for example the idea with the conglomeratlike-companies, as you«ve mentioned on your page) but as far as I can judge from the - obviously bad - translation, the writing style seems to be rather poor. At least it was a nice afternoon lecture, which kept me from doing more important things. And I must admit there is a certain thrill in the storyline.
Ok, last info: In Germany eight Ryder Hook books (10 stories) were published.
The first one "Der Nova-Mann" (selfexplaining, I guess) is a four-volume-book. I don«t know which titles are in there.
2nd: "Mission Galaxis"
3rd: "Weltraum-Friedhof" (Space-graveyard)
4th: "Rebell der Sterne" (see above)
5th: "Weltraum-Piraten" (Space-pirates)
6th: "Gefangen im All" (see above)
7th: "VermŠchtnis der Zukunft" (Legacy of the future)
So much from the continent. I hope I could help you a little bit.