Sometimes there are ideas that somewhere along the way from Expokraten (what a handy Term!) The author lose, unfortunately, something of charm. This happened to me with a scene in the 1st Band of ATLAN MONOLITH " Planet of the silver men" . Atlan and Santjun have on said planet down - of course in secret, because where Atlan personally appeared occurs because trembles every villain, and all criminal activities come to an abrupt halt, which is not exactly is voltage conducive . But how can this be? You have a cruiser available, 100 meters, also a tiny Space jet fighters and even a classic (we The year is 3112 old calendar, which allows me to play with the art of my personal PR-wedding). Purely technical treatment offers seen, of course, a hidden hint in the planetary shadow and a swift landing maneuver, as described in the classic series of stages.
But that I came across. In addition, I had Atlan deliberately limited to a single 100-meter ship and had the lifeboats households, of which one can indeed not too many packed into such a small vessel cell (the plan drawings by R. Zengerle leave because, unfortunately, hardly margins). And Atlan little stuff would still urgently benötigen ... Dumm nur, dass die zum Gegner übergelaufenen USO -Agenten unten auf Thanaton zuallererst die geheime Transmitter -Verbindungen kappten, um sich ihren Dienstherren vom Hals zu halten ...
Da entstand vor meinem inneren Auge das Bild zweier Kampfanzüge, die, von glühenden Plasmafahnen umgeben, in Thanatons Atmosphäre eintauchen. Schillernde Schutzschirme, wütende Böen aus Feuer - das müsste doch funktionieren! So gleiten nur Helden zu Boden, Helden mit einem ernsten Auftrag ...
Uwe Anton gefiel die Idee nicht so sehr wie mir, weshalb sie auch im fertigen Roman nicht gerade viel Platz occupies. This is a shame, because for one it was made by NASA in the 60s (of the last century ...) was thinking actually of any such return systems for individual astronauts - braking rocket, heat shield and a parachute, if you will - and, on the other prepares the adventurer Felix Baumgartner currently preparing for a jump of 40 kilometers. 40 km altitude are not yet to space, but this distinction is more a formality than a guarantee of survival should be the helmet open.
It certainly is a spectacular ride to sail so entirely without a capsule in the upper atmosphere to the ground to observe wie die Erde von einer Kugel zur Scheibe wird, zu einem Mosaik aus Braun- und Grüntönen, zu harten Felsen, die vermutlich wahnsinnig schnell größer werden - ganz so, wie es Atlan und Santjun in "Planet der Silberherren" erlebten (oder ein paar Raumkadetten in Larry Niven/ Jerry Pournelle: "Der Splitter im Auge Gottes", denn es gibt nichts Neues mehr in der Welt).
