# l'orphelin de perdide the orphan of perdide author: stefan wul original title: l'orphelin de perdide illustrator: rene brantonne country: france series: anticipation genre: novel science fiction publisher: fleuve noir publication date: 1958 media type: paper pages: 186 the orphan of perdide is a science fiction novel by french author stefan wul published in 1958 # presentation of the work the orphan of perdide is the seventh novel by the french writer stefan wul to be published by the fleuve noir in the collection "anticipation" in 1958. consisting of three parts divided into sixteen chapters the novel was written by stefan wul in three weeks # plot summary on the dangerous planet perdide a father and ir four-year-old son claude are trying to escape a swarm of giant hornets. exhausted the father managed to send a distress message to ir friend max but failed to reach ir directly and instructed ir son to quickly get into the forest on the hill. before dying the father gives ir transceiver to claude and tells ir to do what it says. the boy finds himself alone in a strange forest with ir only companion the small egg-shaped object aboard the ship the big max- the smuggler max discovers the message from ir friend and contact perdide. little claude immediately responds speaking to ir microphone as if it were a person. ey then decided to divert its route to perdide to save the child. ir two passengers belle and ir husband martin who have paid a large sum to be taken to the planet sidoine protest in vain. max maintains communication with claude and instructs ir on how to survive in a hostile environment the big max lands on the beautiful planet devil-ball where max joins ir old friend silbad. the aging silbad has had a metal plate on ir head since ey was attacked by hornets on perdide in ir childhood and knows about the dangers of the planet. touched by the story of claude ey boards the big max and spends most of ir time telling stories to the child and to protect the dangers of the forest the four passengers take turns at the microphone to occupy the little claude. impatient at the side trip martin tried to encourage claude to enter a dangerous cave and arrive sooner at sidoine. silbad surprises and violently beats ir then max locks martin in a cabin of ir spaceship. belle is shocked by the attitude of ir husband when they make a stopover on the planet gamma 10 martin takes the opportunity to escape. max starts to pursue ir but found martin's dead body inert in the sand. ey is soon surrounded by a bunch of ex-prisoners of sidoine stranded on the planet and is taken to a troglodyte village. silbad eventually comes to search for max and is also captured. the two men are presented to the master who intends to feed them to ir hungry monster. but max and silbad manage to escape then provide food to the master and ir monster and promises to bring back help for the prisoners stranded on the planet in ir approach to the planet perdide the big max is caught in unexpectedly intense interstellar and interplanetary traffic and are detained by the police. max and silbad question the authorities and learn to ir amazement that perdide is a developed planet urbanised and largely colonised since its "enhancement" nearly sixty years earlier. max and silbad realise that ir space journey at 99% of the speed of light created a time lag of a century between them and the planet perdide. hearing the news silbad has a heart attack the big max lands on the planet perdide and max goes in search of a local historian to understand how the tragic story of the little claude ended a hundred years earlier. max then meets the elderly bader who saved claude from an attack of giant hornets and then adopted ir. the boy suffering from amnesia began to be called sylvain bader but everyone knew ir as "silbad." max then goes back to the hospital to see the old silbad dying in horrible suffering without knowing the truth. max then returned with belle to devil-ball to start a new world # main characters the characters are presented in alphabetical order **+** 'mr. bader' adoptive father silbad; **+** 'belle bôz' passenger on the ship 'the big max' ' wife of martin; **+** 'martin bôz' a passenger on the ship 'the big max' ' husband of belle; **+** 'claude' the last settler of perdide; **+** 'claude' or 'claudi' son of the last settler of perdide; **+** the 'master' chief of the rebels former prisoners of sidoine; **+** 'max' captain of 'the big max' idealistic interstellar smuggler; **+** 'silbad' or 'sylvain bader' friend of max the old guard of the planet devil-ball; **+** 'vano' former prisoner exiled to sidoine; # # space-time paradox in the orphan of perdide stefan wul operates the famous twin paradox statement in 1911 by paul langevin on the basis of the theory of relativity of albert einstein. in the story max and silbad traveling in space at a speed close to that of light and undergo a form of time dilation that produces a lag of a century at the end of ir journey # # self-reference > the brief vision of human beings turn into a squirrel cage in the orphan of perdide developed in noô ii-114 & seq # # movie adaptation the orphan of perdide was made into a film under the title time masters an animated feature film by rene laloux with drawings of moebius. rene laloux was already familiar with the work of stefan wul having adapted a feature film titled fantastic planet in 1973 while retaining the backdrop of the novel by stefan wul rene laloux proceeded to change especially at the end of the story which is probably related to the judgment ey wore himself on the novels by stefan wul: "in all wul novels mostly it is a great idea to start. the first two thirds are great well built with a coherence in playwriting etc. and the final third is a little shitty. or ey ran out of time got tired or started getting lazy" the main differences between the original novel and its film version are: stefan wul's novel: rene laloux's adaptation character names: max / claudi / martin bôz.: character names: jafar / piel / prince maton (the rest are unchanged). opening scene: a father fleeing with ir son on a hilly plain.: opening scene: a father and son on an all-terrain vehicle driving at full speed and ends up having an accident. stranded pirates on the planet gamma 10 are headed by an obese cannibalistic monster.: former pirates robbed of ir individuality become winged beings are under the control of a pure mind. no extraterrestrial intelligent beings other than humans.: added two intelligent races: the gnomes on devil's ball and the masters of time. the planet devil-ball has a rugged terrain.: the planet devil-ball is flat. prince bôz is an unscrupulous character who dies without glory by trying to escape.: prince maton is an unscrupulous character who sacrifices himself to the pure spirit on gamma 10 to save jafar's life. the perdide fauna consists of giant hornets and worms.: the perdide fauna consists of giant hornets worms and hippo-ornithorynx. final scene: the crew arrives on a planet perdide fully colonised and developed. max learns the truth about claude questioning ir adoptive father.: final scene: the crew arrives on a huge space station and learns the truth about piel through telepathic powers of the two gnomes.:#french editions **+** fleuve noir coll. anticipation № 109 1958 ; **+** fleuve noir coll. super-luxe - les lendemains retrouves № 51 1978 reissued in 1982 ; **+** l'orphelin de perdide ou les maîtres du temps denoël coll. presence du futur № 536 cover by jean-yves kervevan 1993 ; **+** dans œuvres complètes 1 lefrancq coll. volumes 1996; castelmore coll. science-fiction 2015 468 # # in portuguese **+** o vagabundo des estrelas livro do brasil coll. « argonauta » no 60 1960 # # in hungarian **+** a perdide árvája cser kiadó 2019. © hungarian translation: zoltán szalóki (86-8) # see also **+** richard chomet satellite dans la revue les cahiers de la science-fiction № 4 1958 ; **+** ronny l. idels horizons du fantastique № 5 1969 **+** denis philippe opta dans la revue fiction № 229 1973 ; **+** amhan coll. planète à vendre № 17/42 1993 # references 1. see in this preface laurent genefort in stefan wul complete works - 1 ' 'lefrancq publishing coll. "volumes" 1996 p. 13. 2. laurent genefort 'architecture of the book-universe science fiction through five works: noo s. wul dune f. herbert the company of ice g.-j. arnaud helliconia b. aldiss hyperion d. simmons phd thesis of university of nice sophia-antipolis 12 december 1997 archived february 24 2011 at the wayback machine. additional archives: wayback machine 3. see in this interview with stefan wul presented in the dvd 'bonus' of les maîtres du temps. collector edition 2 dvd directed by rene laloux designed by moebius telecip tf1 films productions 2004 // republic of bob