New propulsion systems, solar systems or multi-dimensional connections: Rainer Castor is the man who creates all of this for the Perry Rhodan or Atlan series. The author, Rainer Castor, is the technologist among the Perry Rhodan team authors. With his ideas and technological creations he is able to fascinate the reader over and over again. Rainer Castor guarantees that technologies within the perryverse are synchronized with the series and that they fit into the story line.
Rainer Castor was born on the fourth of June 1961 in the city of Andernach on the river Rhine. By trade, Rainer Castor, is a fully trained construction material analyst. He went to university to obtain a degree as civil engineer but terminated his studies prematurely after a couple of semesters. He joined the German armed forces, but changed his status from military to civil services. (In Germany it is possible to refuse the participation in the mandatory military conscription due to religious or conscious reasons. A special assessment process by the government decides if the reasons for rejecting the duty to serve the country as a soldier and rather change the status to civil services is warranted)
Rainer Castor is involved in writing for over twenty years. As a reader he likes to read novels by Frank Herbert "The desert planet" (»Der Wüstenplanet«) and Robert A. Heinlein, who ranks as a distant second. He also likes to read novels by Perry Rhodan authors K.H. Scheer, Peter Terrid and Hans Kneifel. However, he hasn't made a decision about his most favorite author yet.
In the mid eighties, Rainer Castor met Hans Kneifel. The experienced Kneifel recognized Castor's talents and hired him as his assistant. Everybody who has read the forewords to the Atlan-Time Adventures attentively, will also have read the praising words by Hans Kneifel in regards to Rainer Castor's tiredless research and his accurate date calculations.
During his work with Hans Kneifel, Rainer Castor discovered his most favorite Perry Rhodan series character: The immortal Atlan and the Arkonide culture with their feudalistic social system and high-tech way of life. In 1996, Rainer Castor began to write for the Perry Rhodan pocket book series with the planet novel # 396 "For Arkon's honor" ( »Für Arkons Ehre«). Three years later he wrote the double issue 1973 - 1974 and became a full member of the Perry Rhodan author team.
He then became known as the Atlan "Guru" and took over from Hans Kneifel as Blue Book series author creating the Atlan Blue Books #14 to #16. This is a section of the Perry Rhodan series of which not much was known before the release of this trilogy. Here, Castor tells the background information of the time when Atlan reigned as Imperator Gonozal VIII over the Arkon Imperium after the Robot Regent had been defeated and made to serve Atlan as the supreme authority over the Imperium. Many things about the Fam Zhy, Dagor and especially the life at the Arkon Imperial Court were revealed.
Rainer Castor is currently working on the very large Atlan Blue Book section, issue # 17 to date (#26) and coordinates, combines, streamlines, rewrites and adapts the old Atlan Heft issues dealing with the young Atlan and his protector and mentor Far-tuloon (this name has intentionally been spelled with a hyphen, so it cannot be mistaken by our American readers.) after the death of his father Gonozal VII, who was assassinated by the charges of Atlan's uncle Orbanashol.
Being involved in all this work, it is quite astonishing that Rainer Castor still finds the time to assist exposé author Robert Feldhoff with data sets and writes the weekly Perry Rhodan Comment (1st edition). His 200th comment appeared in PR issue # 2158. He also assisted PR author Uwe Anton with the exposé
of the Atlan miniseries Omega-Centauri ...
Rainer Castor not only writes for Perry Rhodan. He wrote the historic book "The blood governor" ("Der Blutvogt") which was published in 1997 by Haffmanns Publishing in Zurich, Switzerland. This proved that also in Germany, suspenseful historic books such as "The Medicus" can be written. (according to the NDR, North German Radio) The publication of his book - which is also published by Heyne Publishing as a pocket book in its third edition - has earned him a scholarship award in recognition of his work by the by the Arno-Schmidt Foundation / Nordkolleg in Rendsburg, Germany, in 1998 as part of the: "Summer seminar for highly gifted junior-authors.
Rainer Castor's web site can be found under:
http://www.rainercastor.de/
Source: PMV, adaptation: MK
