Pulaster. Roman eines Planeten (Pulaster. Novel of a Planet)

Pulaster

By Angela & Karlheinz Steinmüller
Memoranda Publishers, Berlin 2021
Collected Works, Vol. 5

"Pulaster" could be simply distorted Latin, meaning "paluster", swampy. Nearly all of the planet is covered with swamps and dripping jungles. So, please, wear rubber boots when you walk out into the wet wilderness! And beware of the "springlings" - young intelligent dinosaurs which hop around without paying much attention to members of the Space Fleet.
Fabius, a young Fleet technician has run aground on Pulaster. He is disgusted by the primoridal nature of the planet and the primitive culture of the Hrengeng (the intelligent dinosaurs). Nevertheless, he agrees to join an expedition to some supposed relics of an old cosmic hypercivilization. This expedition ends in catastrophy - and the long, dangerous way back to the Fleet Base turns for our hero and his dinosaur friend into a quest for their own roots.

Perhaps "Pulaster" stands for "pulcher aster" - beautiful star.

The new revised and augmented edition at Memoranda Publishers Berlin contains an appendix with two maps, a chronology and additional documents, e. g. from the famous planetary guide "All About Pulaster".

"There was one big problem", tells Karlheinz about the revised edition, "we had too many ideas. We could have easily filled hundreds of pages with more information about the unique culture of the Space Fleet, complemented the volume with a dictionary of the specific brand of Latin language the Space Fleet uses etc. But we did not want to inflate the novel. Nevertheless, it took us more time than planned." Therefore, the volume had to be supplemented by a kind of future planetary wikipedia and other documents. Calculations about the population dynamics of the Hrengeng (in German language) are provided here.

Previous Editions

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Neues Leben Publ. Berlin 1986, Suhrkamp Publ. Frankfurt/M. 1988, and Shayol Publ. Berlin 2008