Brackett, Leigh (1915-1978)
Leigh Brackett was a popular presence in mid-twentieth-century American science fiction. She is best known for her skill in writing space opera —she was labeled the "Queen of Space Opera"—as well as for her screenplay for the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Brackett's writing is characterized by vivid imagery and realistic dialogue. She worked across a range of media and influenced numerous other writers.
Brackett's early works, short stories such as "Martian Quest" and "Enchantress of Venus," were published in the pulp science fiction magazines: her first stories appeared in Astounding Stories in 1940. Despite the reputation of the pulps as a male-dominated field of production, women writers such as Brackett did play a role in the shaping and development of the genre. In a period where space opera was popular, Brackett's work showed the influence of key writers in this field— particularly, Edgar Rice Burroughs—while still constructing an original voice. Her knowing, even playful, reworkings of common ideas in the subgenre led her to construct intricately imagined societies, rounded characters, and memorably vivid landscapes. Despite using male protagonists, she portrayed female characters as active, capable, and complex. Brackett's longer fiction, including The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), The Ginger Star (1974), and The Hounds of Skaith (1976), depicted worlds and societies undergoing social change, embedded within their environment and with their own histories. She also explored the consequences of a nuclear apocalypse and the construction of a rural religious community in The Long Tomorrow (1955).
Brackett's adaptability was shown in her ability to cross media, demonstrated by the plays and television and film screenplays she wrote. She also crossed genres, writing westerns (Rio Brauo, 1959) and film noir {The Big Sleep, 1946). She wrote the first draft of the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back shortly before her death. Brackett was an active part of the science fiction writing community: she collaborated with Ray Bradbury and with her husband, Edmond Hamilton. Other science fiction writers, notably Marion Zimmer Bradley and Michael Moorcroft, have acknowledged Brackett's influence.
Brackett has occupied an uneasy place in the feminist science fiction canon, caught between the desire to reclaim a "herstory" of science fiction and a critical preference for explicitly feminist texts. Brackett is a key example of women that published science fiction before Second Wave feminism. However, a number of factors have resulted in the lack of critical attention to her work. She is cited as an exemplar in response to feminist critiques but worked mainly in the subgenre of space opera—not known as an especially fertile area for feminist writers. She was not engaged with feminism either in her life or in her texts. Nonetheless, Brackett's work exemplifies the negotiation of generic tropes undertaken by women writers of science fiction.
3.5 out of 5
Showing posts with label encyclopedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label encyclopedia. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Wikipedia - People of the Talisman
People of the Talisman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia People of the Talisman
Cover of first edition.
Author Leigh Brackett
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction Fantasy novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date 1964
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 128 pp
ISBN NA
Preceded by The Secret of Sinharat
People of the Talisman is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.Contents [hide]
1 Plot introduction
2 Plot summary
2.1 Black Amazon of Mars
2.2 People of the Talisman
2.3 Expansion Commentary
3 Characters
4 Publication history
5 Titles
6 Footnotes
7 References
[edit]
Plot introduction
Despite beginning in the same place and with the same situation, Black Amazon of Mars and People of the Talisman are two different stories on a similar premise, with occasionally overlapping text. The differences between the two can be seen in the following synopses.
[edit]
Plot summary
[edit]
Black Amazon of Mars
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he presses it to his forehead and receives visions of a tower, a city in the ice, and a pass - the memories of Ban Cruach. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat.
Chapter 2 - The riders of Mekh arrest and plunder Stark, except for his clothes and Camar's belt. They lead him to their camp in a valley several days northward. There they bring him before the masked and fully armored lord Ciaran. Ciaran interrogates Stark and announces his plan to besiege Kushat. Stark is uncooperative and demands to see Ciaran's face. Ciaran turns him over to Thord, his previous capturer.
Chapter 3 - Stark is tied to a scaffold and scourged by Thord. When Thord comes near him, Stark bits his hand hard enough to break his thumb. When Thord tries to kill Stark for this, Ciaran kills Thord for disobedience. Stark feigns unconsciousness, despite being prodded by spears. When he is cut down, Stark gets a spear, kills several riders, and escapes on a mount. After riding for three days through a snowy wasteland marked by a series of towers, he reaches Kushat, a city standing in front of a pass through a scarp.
Chapter 4 - Stark enters Kushat and meets Thanis. He his challenged by Lugh, whom he warns about the imminent attack by Mekh. Lugh leads Stark to the guard captain, who dismisses Stark's claims, but is persuaded to pass the warning on to the nobility. He gives Stark into the custody of Thanis, who takes him to her home. Stark sleeps, only to be wakened by Thanis' brother Balin, who tells him that soldiers have come, and warns him not to speak of the talisman. A nobleman, Rogain, enters with a group of soldiers and questions Stark about the invasion. Rogain at last agrees to put Kushat in arms. After Rogain and his men leave, Balin and Thanis explain that they found the talisman in Camar's belt, and they agree not to return it to the men of Kushat. Stark goes to sleep again. Just before dawn he wakes and goes up on Kushat's wall.
Chapter 5 - In the morning, the clans of Mekh, led by Ciaran, attack Kushat. Despite resistance, Mekh takes the Wall and breaches its gate. Stark, who had been fighting on the wall, goes down to face Ciaran in single combat. As they fight, Stark tears Ciaran's mask off, revealing her to be a red-haired woman.
Chapter 6 - Despite this revelation, in the moment of victory, Ciaran is able to retain the loyalty of her followers. As the soldiers of Kushat charge and are beaten back, Stark manages to escape the mêlée. Stark hides in Kushat until the looting commences.
Chapter 7 -
Chapter 8 -
Chapter 9 -
[edit]
People of the Talisman
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he hears tiny, unintelligible voices that alarm him. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat.
Chapter 2 -
Chapter 3 -
Chapter 4 -
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 6 -
Chapter 7 -
Chapter 8 -
Chapter 9 -
Chapter 10 -
Chapter 11 -
Chapter 12 -
Chapter 13 -
Chapter 14 -
Chapter 15 -
[edit]
Expansion Commentary
The Talisman expansion is far more ambitious than the one of The Secret of Sinharat; for one thing, the resulting story is about a third longer than Sinharat. Despite the comprehensiveness of the revision, the treatment of the earlier chapters, where more of the original text is retained, is sometimes clumsy and the motivation of the changes is sometimes unclear. In at least one place there is a significant editorial faux pas -- a passage in which an important character is introduced is omitted, and the character is later referred to by name without the connection between name and person having ever been made explicit. The murderously insane aliens of Talisman are a very unusual invention for Brackett, and it may be that the hand of Hamilton is seen at work here. Ban Cruach also loses much of his mythical glamor in Talisman, which is something of a let-down, though it does work as a "twist" conclusion.
[edit]
Characters
Eric John Stark, a mercenary fighter, born on Mercury, looking for trouble in northern Mars.
Camar, a Martian thief of the northern city of Kushat.
Ciaran, lord of the barbarian tribe of Mekh, who keeps some secret forever hidden behind his mask.
Thord, captain of Mekh, servant of Ciaran.
Otar, of Kushat, counselor and servant of Ciaran.
Lugh, officer of the guard of Kushat.
Rogain, nobleman of Kushat and Commander of the City.
Balin, a thief of Kushat.
Thanis, Balin's sister.
Ban Cruach, a hero of ancient Mars, standing forever at the Gates of Death in the Norland wilderness.
[edit]
Publication history
This story was first published under the title Black Amazon of Mars in the pulp magazine Planet Stories, March 1951.
In 1964, after a total revision and expansion, it was republished as People of the Talisman, as one part of an Ace Double novel; its companion was another expanded Eric John Stark story, The Secret of Sinharat. The expansion has sometimes been attributed to Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton[1]. For People of the Talisman, there may be some internal evidence to support this suggestion.
In 1982, it appeared, again together with The Secret of Sinharat, under the title Eric John Stark, Outlaw of Mars.
In 2005 the original Planet Stories version was republished in Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, Volume 46 in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series. It appeared the same year in the collection Stark and the Star Kings (Haffner Press).
[edit]
Titles
Black Amazon of Mars is typical of the rather wordy and sometimes misleading titles assigned to stories in Planet Stories, to go along with their colorful, action-packed, but equally misleading cover art. The cover of the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories gives the title as Black Amazon of Mars: A Novel of Warrior Worlds by Leigh Brackett, with the explanatory blurb A hooded warlord leads the hordes of Mekh against the Ancient Doom. Although not very revealing of anything about the plot, it is slightly more accurate than some of Planet Stories' other blurbs.
The "Black Amazon" in question is of course Ciaran/Ciara, whose role in the story is for once central enough to justify Planet's title, and its choice of her as the center of its cover. The Allen Anderson cover of the March 1951 issue shows a dramatically tilted red-haired woman in black mail swinging a double-bitted battle-axe at a mass of waving black tentacles emerging from the ground. The tentacles are apparently a wild stab by the artist at giving some form to the almost undepictable aliens of the story. An inappropriately pale-skinned Stark, looking rather like Mickey Mouse in red shorts and suspenders, is shown in the background futilely waving a sword about. The further background somewhat more convincingly depicts Ban Cruach at the Gates of Death.
The later title, People of the Talisman at least has the merit of not giving away an important plot point prematurely. Otherwise, it is rather vague; it might refer either to the people of Kushat, or the aliens beyond the Gates of Death, in either case excluding the two main characters!
[edit]
Footnotes
[edit]
References
Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 61. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia People of the Talisman
Cover of first edition.
Author Leigh Brackett
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction Fantasy novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date 1964
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 128 pp
ISBN NA
Preceded by The Secret of Sinharat
People of the Talisman is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.Contents [hide]
1 Plot introduction
2 Plot summary
2.1 Black Amazon of Mars
2.2 People of the Talisman
2.3 Expansion Commentary
3 Characters
4 Publication history
5 Titles
6 Footnotes
7 References
[edit]
Plot introduction
Despite beginning in the same place and with the same situation, Black Amazon of Mars and People of the Talisman are two different stories on a similar premise, with occasionally overlapping text. The differences between the two can be seen in the following synopses.
[edit]
Plot summary
[edit]
Black Amazon of Mars
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he presses it to his forehead and receives visions of a tower, a city in the ice, and a pass - the memories of Ban Cruach. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat.
Chapter 2 - The riders of Mekh arrest and plunder Stark, except for his clothes and Camar's belt. They lead him to their camp in a valley several days northward. There they bring him before the masked and fully armored lord Ciaran. Ciaran interrogates Stark and announces his plan to besiege Kushat. Stark is uncooperative and demands to see Ciaran's face. Ciaran turns him over to Thord, his previous capturer.
Chapter 3 - Stark is tied to a scaffold and scourged by Thord. When Thord comes near him, Stark bits his hand hard enough to break his thumb. When Thord tries to kill Stark for this, Ciaran kills Thord for disobedience. Stark feigns unconsciousness, despite being prodded by spears. When he is cut down, Stark gets a spear, kills several riders, and escapes on a mount. After riding for three days through a snowy wasteland marked by a series of towers, he reaches Kushat, a city standing in front of a pass through a scarp.
Chapter 4 - Stark enters Kushat and meets Thanis. He his challenged by Lugh, whom he warns about the imminent attack by Mekh. Lugh leads Stark to the guard captain, who dismisses Stark's claims, but is persuaded to pass the warning on to the nobility. He gives Stark into the custody of Thanis, who takes him to her home. Stark sleeps, only to be wakened by Thanis' brother Balin, who tells him that soldiers have come, and warns him not to speak of the talisman. A nobleman, Rogain, enters with a group of soldiers and questions Stark about the invasion. Rogain at last agrees to put Kushat in arms. After Rogain and his men leave, Balin and Thanis explain that they found the talisman in Camar's belt, and they agree not to return it to the men of Kushat. Stark goes to sleep again. Just before dawn he wakes and goes up on Kushat's wall.
Chapter 5 - In the morning, the clans of Mekh, led by Ciaran, attack Kushat. Despite resistance, Mekh takes the Wall and breaches its gate. Stark, who had been fighting on the wall, goes down to face Ciaran in single combat. As they fight, Stark tears Ciaran's mask off, revealing her to be a red-haired woman.
Chapter 6 - Despite this revelation, in the moment of victory, Ciaran is able to retain the loyalty of her followers. As the soldiers of Kushat charge and are beaten back, Stark manages to escape the mêlée. Stark hides in Kushat until the looting commences.
Chapter 7 -
Chapter 8 -
Chapter 9 -
[edit]
People of the Talisman
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he hears tiny, unintelligible voices that alarm him. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat.
Chapter 2 -
Chapter 3 -
Chapter 4 -
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 6 -
Chapter 7 -
Chapter 8 -
Chapter 9 -
Chapter 10 -
Chapter 11 -
Chapter 12 -
Chapter 13 -
Chapter 14 -
Chapter 15 -
[edit]
Expansion Commentary
The Talisman expansion is far more ambitious than the one of The Secret of Sinharat; for one thing, the resulting story is about a third longer than Sinharat. Despite the comprehensiveness of the revision, the treatment of the earlier chapters, where more of the original text is retained, is sometimes clumsy and the motivation of the changes is sometimes unclear. In at least one place there is a significant editorial faux pas -- a passage in which an important character is introduced is omitted, and the character is later referred to by name without the connection between name and person having ever been made explicit. The murderously insane aliens of Talisman are a very unusual invention for Brackett, and it may be that the hand of Hamilton is seen at work here. Ban Cruach also loses much of his mythical glamor in Talisman, which is something of a let-down, though it does work as a "twist" conclusion.
[edit]
Characters
Eric John Stark, a mercenary fighter, born on Mercury, looking for trouble in northern Mars.
Camar, a Martian thief of the northern city of Kushat.
Ciaran, lord of the barbarian tribe of Mekh, who keeps some secret forever hidden behind his mask.
Thord, captain of Mekh, servant of Ciaran.
Otar, of Kushat, counselor and servant of Ciaran.
Lugh, officer of the guard of Kushat.
Rogain, nobleman of Kushat and Commander of the City.
Balin, a thief of Kushat.
Thanis, Balin's sister.
Ban Cruach, a hero of ancient Mars, standing forever at the Gates of Death in the Norland wilderness.
[edit]
Publication history
This story was first published under the title Black Amazon of Mars in the pulp magazine Planet Stories, March 1951.
In 1964, after a total revision and expansion, it was republished as People of the Talisman, as one part of an Ace Double novel; its companion was another expanded Eric John Stark story, The Secret of Sinharat. The expansion has sometimes been attributed to Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton[1]. For People of the Talisman, there may be some internal evidence to support this suggestion.
In 1982, it appeared, again together with The Secret of Sinharat, under the title Eric John Stark, Outlaw of Mars.
In 2005 the original Planet Stories version was republished in Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, Volume 46 in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series. It appeared the same year in the collection Stark and the Star Kings (Haffner Press).
[edit]
Titles
Black Amazon of Mars is typical of the rather wordy and sometimes misleading titles assigned to stories in Planet Stories, to go along with their colorful, action-packed, but equally misleading cover art. The cover of the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories gives the title as Black Amazon of Mars: A Novel of Warrior Worlds by Leigh Brackett, with the explanatory blurb A hooded warlord leads the hordes of Mekh against the Ancient Doom. Although not very revealing of anything about the plot, it is slightly more accurate than some of Planet Stories' other blurbs.
The "Black Amazon" in question is of course Ciaran/Ciara, whose role in the story is for once central enough to justify Planet's title, and its choice of her as the center of its cover. The Allen Anderson cover of the March 1951 issue shows a dramatically tilted red-haired woman in black mail swinging a double-bitted battle-axe at a mass of waving black tentacles emerging from the ground. The tentacles are apparently a wild stab by the artist at giving some form to the almost undepictable aliens of the story. An inappropriately pale-skinned Stark, looking rather like Mickey Mouse in red shorts and suspenders, is shown in the background futilely waving a sword about. The further background somewhat more convincingly depicts Ban Cruach at the Gates of Death.
The later title, People of the Talisman at least has the merit of not giving away an important plot point prematurely. Otherwise, it is rather vague; it might refer either to the people of Kushat, or the aliens beyond the Gates of Death, in either case excluding the two main characters!
[edit]
Footnotes
[edit]
References
Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 61. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
Wikipedia - The Secret of Sinharat
The Secret of Sinharat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Secret of Sinharat
Cover of first edition.
Author Leigh Brackett
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date 1964
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 95 pp
ISBN NA
Followed by People of the Talisman
The Secret of Sinharat is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
1.1 Queen of the Martian Catacombs
1.2 The Secret of Sinharat
1.3 Expansion Commentary
2 Characters
3 Publication history
4 Titles
5 Footnotes
6 References
7 External links
[edit]
Plot summary
For the first seven chapters, Queen of the Martian Catacombs and The Secret of Sinharat are almost word-for-word identical; the differences are inconsequential to the plot. In Chapter 1, a brief paragraph is inserted to situate the reader in the Leigh Brackett Solar System and to excuse the presence of non-Terran humans on planets like Mars through the concept of a prehistoric "seeding" - not mentioned elsewhere in Brackett's novels. In Chapter 5, an explicit reference to the events of Brackett's story The Beast-Jewel of Mars (Planet Stories, Winter 1948) has been cut, perhaps on the assumption that readers of the novel would not know or be interested in the earlier story. The Arabic word khamsin is consistently replaced by "storm wind", perhaps on the grounds that readers might not be familiar with the word (or mistake it for a Martian technical term).
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, fleeing from Venus where he has been running guns to native opponents of a Terro-Venusian mining concern (mining and mineral extraction companies recur as villains in Brackett's stories), has come to Mars to fight as a mercenary in a private war in the Martian Drylands on behalf of Delgaun, lord of the Martian city of Valkis. He is finally pinned down by agents of Earth Police Control. Their leader, Simon Ashton, offers him a deal: lifting of his sentence, if he agrees to act as a spy on Delgaun, whom Ashton claims is plotting a major war together with a barbarian leader called Kynon, of the Dryland tribe of Shun; a war that Ashton says will be disastrous for the drylanders. Stark agrees to go to Valkis as Ashton's agent, and return to report to him in the Martian city of Tarak.
Chapter 2 - Stark enters Valkis late at night and sees the drylanders gathering there. He meets Delgaun and several other mercenaries that Delgaun has hired. One of them is Luhar, an old enemy of Stark from Venus. They challenge each other, but Delgaun separates them. At dawn, Kynon of Shun enters Valkis.
Chapter 3 - Delgaun, Stark and the mercenaries go to see Kynon. In the public square of Valkis, Kynon demonstrates a technology which he claims to have recovered from the lost secrets of the Ramas, an ancient race of Martians who had acquired a form of immortality. Kynon, using two crystal circlets and a glowing rod, appears to transfer the consciousness of an old Martian man into a young Terran boy. The old man collapses and dies. Kynon returns with Delgaun and the others to the council room in the palace.
Chapter 4 - Stark accuses Kynon of an elaborate charade in which the boy was coached in his part and the old man was killed by poison. Kynon admits it, but justifies it as a necessity for uniting the drylanders against the City-States of the Dryland Borders, who are depriving them of water resources. Together with the men of Valkis and the other Low-canal cities, they will conquer the City-States and become fully independent of Terra. Stark goes to his quarters and sleeps through the day. At dusk he goes to the council-room, and finds Delgaun there with Kynon's female companion, Berild. Delgaun asks Stark to bring back one of Kynon's trusted captains, Freka, who is indulging in "a certain vice"; he needs to be back before Kynon sets out at midnight for his desert headquarters. On his way, Stark is stopped by Fianna, Berild's serving girl, who warns him that he is going into a trap set by Delgaun. Stark accepts the warning, but continues anyway.
Chapter 5 - Stark comes to Kala's, a broken-down dive in a mostly uninhabited part of Valkis. He finds Freka there, indulging in shanga, a radiation-induced temporary atavistic regression to a bestial state. Stark realizes that an empty room near Freka probably contains the trap set for him. When he is refused entrance to the room, he leaves Kala's and waits outside. He is followed by Luhar, who had been waiting in the empty room for a chance to attack Stark. Stark jumps Luhar; the fighting goes back into Kala's, where the shanga addicts and Kala herself become involved. Stark knocks Freka out, is stabbed by Luhar, knocks Luhar out, and returns with Freka to Delgaun's palace. Delgaun is surprised and angry; Berild is pleased.
Chapter 6 - At midnight, Kynon leaves Valkis with the drylanders and mercenaries. Kynon orders Stark and Luhar to remain apart from each other. Delgaun remains behind. Luhar and Freka confer. The caravan proceeds across the desert for three days, and on the fourth day they are hit by a sandstorm.
Chapter 7 - Luhar and Freka take advantage of the storm to jump Stark and leave him for dead. He finds himself together with Berild. When the storm blows out, they are lost in the desert. They proceed on foot. After four days, running out of water, they come to a wilderness of rocks.
From chapter 8 on the two versions diverge.
[edit]
Queen of the Martian Catacombs
Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to a ruined monastery. She miraculously discovers a long-buried well. After they have drunk and slept, Stark suggests to Berild that she is actually a surviving immortal Rama, and knew the location of the well from memory. Berild dismisses the accusation. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave.
Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat, the old city of the Ramas, where Kynon has made his headquarters. They find Kynon's army and his mercenaries camped in the desert outside the city. Stark enters Sinharat looking for Luhar, and fatally attacks him when he finds him. Delgaun is also mysteriously there. Kynon arrests Stark and places him in a subterranean cell in Sinharat under Freka's guard. Before Freka can kill Stark, Fianna appears and shoots him. Stark disposes of Freka in a pit in the catacombs. Fianna explains that Delgaun and Berild are both Ramas, and that while Kynon wants empire, Delgaun and Berild want to control Mars - without Kynon - through their mercenary outlander clients.
Chapter 10 - Stark and Fianna proceed to a crypt below Sinharat where Berild is waiting. Kynon is there with her, but drugged and under Berild's hypnotic control. Berild offers to become Stark's lover and to make him a Rama, by exchanging his mind with Kynon's, and disposing of Delgaun after the war. Stark agrees, and Berild produces the real crowns of the Ramas, and puts them on Stark's and Kynon's heads.
Chapter 11 - Stark awakes to find himself in Kynon's body. His own body is still there, alive but with Kynon's mind still under hypnosis. Berild locks Kynon, in Stark's body, in a small cell. Stark-as-Kynon goes with Berild to address the armies assembled at Sinharat from a high ledge in the city. Delgaun is there. Instead of leading them to war, Stark reveals the charade of the false Rama crowns. Berild stabs Stark in the back. Stark reveals Berild's treachery to Delgaun. Delgaun throws Berild from the ledge and attempts to unseat Stark from his steed and flee. Stark, though wounded, grasps Delgaun and throttles him, while Delgaun stabs him repeatedly. Stark kills Delgaun and loses consciousness. Fianna runs to him.
Chapter 12 - Stark awakes and finds himself with Fianna. He is back in the crypt below Sinharat, in his own body. Kynon is next to him, dead. Fianna reveals that she is also a Rama, unknown to Berild and Delgaun. She expresses remorse for her past evil and destroys the rod and crowns of the Ramas. Stark and Fianna leave together and find Sinharat deserted. Fianna decides to stay in Sinharat for a while before she decides what to do. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton.
[edit]
The Secret of Sinharat
Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to an old ruin, where they both collapse. At night, Stark wakes to see Berild tracing her steps to the site of a long-buried well. They uncover it together, drink, and sleep. The next night, Stark suggests to Berild that she must be a witch to have discovered the well. Berild explains that she knew the secret of the well's location from her father, who had crossed the desert in this place years ago. Stark accepts her explanation, but is privately unconvinced. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave.
Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat at dawn and find Kynon's caravan encamped outside. The Dryland armies have not yet arrived, but only Kynon and his mercenaries are in the city itself, which the drylanders regard as taboo. Stark and Berild enter Sinharat looking for Luhar, but Kynon prevents Stark and Luhar from fighting. Berild kills Luhar with a knife. Kynon does not punish Berild, but warns Stark not to fight with Freka, who has gone back to the desert, and condemns the infighting that threatens his plans. Berild lies to Kynon about how she and Stark reached Sinharat, pretending that they had more water than they did. Kynon dismisses Berild and Stark.
Chapter 10 - Stark awakes at dusk and finds Fianna there. She warns him that his life is in danger from Delgaun, when he arrives. Stark refuses to flee. Fianna leads Stark to a chamber where Berild is waiting. She warns him against Delgaun, and expresses her resentment at Kynon. Drums beat announcing the late arrival of Delgaun and his allies to Sinharat, and Stark and Berild part. As Stark leaves, he meets Fianna, who hints that Berild may be a Rama.
Chapter 11 - Kynon unveils the banner of the Ramas before the massed armies of the Drylands and the Low-canals in front of Sinharat. Stark confronts Delgaun as a fellow-follower of Kynon, and forces Delgaun to accept him as comrade-in-arms. Later, in council, Delgaun backs down before Kynon, and they proceed to plot the conquest of the City-States. Kynon warns his confederates not to reveal that they do not really have the secret of the Ramas. Days pass. Freka returns from Shun with more fighters, but Kynon keeps him and Stark from fighting. Later, Stark goes into Sinharat and finds Berild reading an ancient wall-inscription in an unknown language. Stark follows her as she goes to a high window.
Chapter 12 - Stark accuses Berild of being a Rama. Berild dismisses his statement with smooth explanations, but Stark does not accept them. Stark deduces that Delgaun must also be a Rama. Berild leaves suddenly. Stark goes later, and is attacked by Freka who is under the influence of shanga. As they are fighting, Kynon and his fighters discover them. Stark is accused of murdering Freka, and the Shunni demand his blood. Stark is knocked out as he tries to blurt out the truth of Kynon's charade. He awakes in an underground cell, guarded by a Shunni warrior. (This portion of the expansion is a rewrite of the middle of Chapter 9 of Catacombs.)
Chapter 13 - Fianna appears, shoots the Shunni, and frees Stark. Fianna reveals that she, Berild, and Delgaun are all surviving Ramas, though she is dependent upon them for the Sending-on of Minds. She leads him into the catacombs, where Stark disposes of the guard's body in a pit and takes his sword. Fianna describes Delgaun and Berild's plans for empire, and explains that they intend to dispose of Kynon by putting Delgaun's mind into Kynon's body. She asks Stark to help her prevent it, and leads him to Berild's chamber. There they find Kynon in bonds, and Berild preparing the real crowns of the Ramas for the Sending-on of Minds.
Chapter 14 - Stark enters, attacks Delgaun and kills him with the sword. Berild drops the crowns and draws a knife. Fianna frees Kynon, who throttles Berild as she slashes him. Stark tells the wounded Kynon to stop the march of the Drylanders. He and Fianna help Kynon out to the open stairway that leads up to Sinharat. From there, Kynon addresses the tribes, telling them of Delgaun and Berild's treachery and his own lie about having the secret of the Ramas. Then he collapses and dies. The mercenaries and the armies break up and leave. Stark returns to Sinharat and finds Fianna. She explains that she has hidden the crowns of the Ramas, unable to destroy them. She invites Stark to return to Sinharat late in his life, offering to make him a Rama then. He refuses. Fianna says that she will stay in Sinharat. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton, looking back at Sinharat as he goes.
[edit]
Expansion Commentary
The Sinharat expansion is very competently and intelligently written and very much in the mature Brackett style. The characters of Kynon and Fianna are given additional depth. Whereas in Catacombs Kynon was merely a villain and a tool of Delgaun and Berild, in Sinharat he is more intelligent and even tragic. Fianna's breaking of the crowns of the Ramas in Catacombs is a somewhat trite development; her awareness of her own weakness, and her thought for the future in Sinharat is both more tragic and more realistic, and this turn of events gives Stark's last look back at Sinharat an additional meaning that it had not had in Catacombs. The plot structure is enhanced by the delay in Stark's discovery that Berild is a Rama, and the awkward though necessary appearance of Delgaun is better handled in Sinharat. The inconsistency in Catacombs, whereby Fianna is a Rama unknown to anyone but herself, but (being in a very young body) must have undergone the Sending on of Minds very recently, is eliminated in Sinharat. Additional details about the layout of Sinharat are consistent with Brackett's late story The Road to Sinharat (1963).
[edit]
Characters
Eric John Stark, an outlaw mercenary warrior, born on Mercury, acting as a double agent.
Simon Ashton, an official of Earth Police Control, searching for Stark.
Delgaun of Valkis, lord of the wickedest of the Low-canal cities, hiring mercenaries to serve in a war in the Drylands.
Luhar, cashiered officer of the Venusian Guards, with a deadly grudge against Stark
Kynon of Shun, a Martian dryland barbarian with dreams of uniting the desert tribes and establishing an empire over the City-States of Mars.
Freka, a captain loyal to Kynon, but addicted to the terrible vice of shanga.
Berild, a red-haired Shunni woman, consort of Kynon, but actually using him to further her plans and Delgaun's.
Fianna, Berild's servant girl, possessed of wisdom and cunning far beyond her years.
The Ramas, an ancient and evil Martian nation, who had discovered the secret of immortality - at a terrible price, to be paid by others.
[edit]
Publication history
This story was first published under the title Queen of the Martian Catacombs in the pulp magazine Planet Stories, Summer 1949.
In 1964, after considerable revision and expansion, it was republished as The Secret of Sinharat as one part of an Ace Double novel; its companion was another expanded Eric John Stark story, People of the Talisman. The expansion has sometimes been attributed to Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton[1]. For The Secret of Sinharat, there is little internal evidence to support this suggestion.
In 1982, it appeared, again together with People of the Talisman, under the title Eric John Stark, Outlaw of Mars.
In 2005 the original Planet Stories version was republished in Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, Volume 46 in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series. It appeared the same year in the collection Stark and the Star Kings (Haffner Press).
In 2008, the entire Eric John Stark saga was republished, in E-Book form, by Baen Publishing, and is available thru Webscriptions.net.
[edit]
Titles
Queen of the Martian Catacombs is typical of the rather wordy and often misleading titles assigned to stories in Planet Stories, to go along with their colorful, action-packed, but equally misleading cover art. The cover of the Summer 1949 issue of Planet Stories gives the title as Queen of the Martian Catacombs: A Desert-worlds Novel by Leigh Brackett, with the explanatory blurb Across the red sands fought the Terran changeling to reach Berild, beautiful and fey - and blast her into eternal dust.... This is not a very accurate synopsis of the story.
The "catacombs" in question are the tunnels under Sinharat, although they do not play a very important part in either version of the story, and the "Queen" is apparently Berild, though her role is not really central enough to name the story after her. Planet, however, liked cover illustrations of beautiful women, and the Allen Anderson cover of the Summer 1949 issue indeed shows a red-haired woman in blue dress and high heels (!) astride a Martian steed resembling a frightened cartoon seahorse. An inappropriately pale-skinned Stark is shown in the foreground attempting to split the skull of a crouching, red-skinned Martian (?) with his sword—both sword and red Martian existing only in the illustrator's imagination. An architecturally banal Martian city languishes in the background, while the vivid yellow sky boasts over a dozen moons.
The later title, The Secret of Sinharat, is less irrelevant; the "secret" is presumably the Rama's secret method of mind-transference, and although it hardly belongs exclusively to the city of Sinharat, that city's prominent place as the setting for the story's climax is sufficiently important to make its use in the title not inappropriate.
[edit]
Footnotes
[edit]
References
Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 28. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
[edit]
External links
The Secret of Sinharat publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Categories: 1964 novels | Novels by Leigh Brackett | Mars in fiction
5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Sinharat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Secret of Sinharat
Cover of first edition.
Author Leigh Brackett
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date 1964
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 95 pp
ISBN NA
Followed by People of the Talisman
The Secret of Sinharat is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
1.1 Queen of the Martian Catacombs
1.2 The Secret of Sinharat
1.3 Expansion Commentary
2 Characters
3 Publication history
4 Titles
5 Footnotes
6 References
7 External links
[edit]
Plot summary
For the first seven chapters, Queen of the Martian Catacombs and The Secret of Sinharat are almost word-for-word identical; the differences are inconsequential to the plot. In Chapter 1, a brief paragraph is inserted to situate the reader in the Leigh Brackett Solar System and to excuse the presence of non-Terran humans on planets like Mars through the concept of a prehistoric "seeding" - not mentioned elsewhere in Brackett's novels. In Chapter 5, an explicit reference to the events of Brackett's story The Beast-Jewel of Mars (Planet Stories, Winter 1948) has been cut, perhaps on the assumption that readers of the novel would not know or be interested in the earlier story. The Arabic word khamsin is consistently replaced by "storm wind", perhaps on the grounds that readers might not be familiar with the word (or mistake it for a Martian technical term).
Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, fleeing from Venus where he has been running guns to native opponents of a Terro-Venusian mining concern (mining and mineral extraction companies recur as villains in Brackett's stories), has come to Mars to fight as a mercenary in a private war in the Martian Drylands on behalf of Delgaun, lord of the Martian city of Valkis. He is finally pinned down by agents of Earth Police Control. Their leader, Simon Ashton, offers him a deal: lifting of his sentence, if he agrees to act as a spy on Delgaun, whom Ashton claims is plotting a major war together with a barbarian leader called Kynon, of the Dryland tribe of Shun; a war that Ashton says will be disastrous for the drylanders. Stark agrees to go to Valkis as Ashton's agent, and return to report to him in the Martian city of Tarak.
Chapter 2 - Stark enters Valkis late at night and sees the drylanders gathering there. He meets Delgaun and several other mercenaries that Delgaun has hired. One of them is Luhar, an old enemy of Stark from Venus. They challenge each other, but Delgaun separates them. At dawn, Kynon of Shun enters Valkis.
Chapter 3 - Delgaun, Stark and the mercenaries go to see Kynon. In the public square of Valkis, Kynon demonstrates a technology which he claims to have recovered from the lost secrets of the Ramas, an ancient race of Martians who had acquired a form of immortality. Kynon, using two crystal circlets and a glowing rod, appears to transfer the consciousness of an old Martian man into a young Terran boy. The old man collapses and dies. Kynon returns with Delgaun and the others to the council room in the palace.
Chapter 4 - Stark accuses Kynon of an elaborate charade in which the boy was coached in his part and the old man was killed by poison. Kynon admits it, but justifies it as a necessity for uniting the drylanders against the City-States of the Dryland Borders, who are depriving them of water resources. Together with the men of Valkis and the other Low-canal cities, they will conquer the City-States and become fully independent of Terra. Stark goes to his quarters and sleeps through the day. At dusk he goes to the council-room, and finds Delgaun there with Kynon's female companion, Berild. Delgaun asks Stark to bring back one of Kynon's trusted captains, Freka, who is indulging in "a certain vice"; he needs to be back before Kynon sets out at midnight for his desert headquarters. On his way, Stark is stopped by Fianna, Berild's serving girl, who warns him that he is going into a trap set by Delgaun. Stark accepts the warning, but continues anyway.
Chapter 5 - Stark comes to Kala's, a broken-down dive in a mostly uninhabited part of Valkis. He finds Freka there, indulging in shanga, a radiation-induced temporary atavistic regression to a bestial state. Stark realizes that an empty room near Freka probably contains the trap set for him. When he is refused entrance to the room, he leaves Kala's and waits outside. He is followed by Luhar, who had been waiting in the empty room for a chance to attack Stark. Stark jumps Luhar; the fighting goes back into Kala's, where the shanga addicts and Kala herself become involved. Stark knocks Freka out, is stabbed by Luhar, knocks Luhar out, and returns with Freka to Delgaun's palace. Delgaun is surprised and angry; Berild is pleased.
Chapter 6 - At midnight, Kynon leaves Valkis with the drylanders and mercenaries. Kynon orders Stark and Luhar to remain apart from each other. Delgaun remains behind. Luhar and Freka confer. The caravan proceeds across the desert for three days, and on the fourth day they are hit by a sandstorm.
Chapter 7 - Luhar and Freka take advantage of the storm to jump Stark and leave him for dead. He finds himself together with Berild. When the storm blows out, they are lost in the desert. They proceed on foot. After four days, running out of water, they come to a wilderness of rocks.
From chapter 8 on the two versions diverge.
[edit]
Queen of the Martian Catacombs
Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to a ruined monastery. She miraculously discovers a long-buried well. After they have drunk and slept, Stark suggests to Berild that she is actually a surviving immortal Rama, and knew the location of the well from memory. Berild dismisses the accusation. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave.
Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat, the old city of the Ramas, where Kynon has made his headquarters. They find Kynon's army and his mercenaries camped in the desert outside the city. Stark enters Sinharat looking for Luhar, and fatally attacks him when he finds him. Delgaun is also mysteriously there. Kynon arrests Stark and places him in a subterranean cell in Sinharat under Freka's guard. Before Freka can kill Stark, Fianna appears and shoots him. Stark disposes of Freka in a pit in the catacombs. Fianna explains that Delgaun and Berild are both Ramas, and that while Kynon wants empire, Delgaun and Berild want to control Mars - without Kynon - through their mercenary outlander clients.
Chapter 10 - Stark and Fianna proceed to a crypt below Sinharat where Berild is waiting. Kynon is there with her, but drugged and under Berild's hypnotic control. Berild offers to become Stark's lover and to make him a Rama, by exchanging his mind with Kynon's, and disposing of Delgaun after the war. Stark agrees, and Berild produces the real crowns of the Ramas, and puts them on Stark's and Kynon's heads.
Chapter 11 - Stark awakes to find himself in Kynon's body. His own body is still there, alive but with Kynon's mind still under hypnosis. Berild locks Kynon, in Stark's body, in a small cell. Stark-as-Kynon goes with Berild to address the armies assembled at Sinharat from a high ledge in the city. Delgaun is there. Instead of leading them to war, Stark reveals the charade of the false Rama crowns. Berild stabs Stark in the back. Stark reveals Berild's treachery to Delgaun. Delgaun throws Berild from the ledge and attempts to unseat Stark from his steed and flee. Stark, though wounded, grasps Delgaun and throttles him, while Delgaun stabs him repeatedly. Stark kills Delgaun and loses consciousness. Fianna runs to him.
Chapter 12 - Stark awakes and finds himself with Fianna. He is back in the crypt below Sinharat, in his own body. Kynon is next to him, dead. Fianna reveals that she is also a Rama, unknown to Berild and Delgaun. She expresses remorse for her past evil and destroys the rod and crowns of the Ramas. Stark and Fianna leave together and find Sinharat deserted. Fianna decides to stay in Sinharat for a while before she decides what to do. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton.
[edit]
The Secret of Sinharat
Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to an old ruin, where they both collapse. At night, Stark wakes to see Berild tracing her steps to the site of a long-buried well. They uncover it together, drink, and sleep. The next night, Stark suggests to Berild that she must be a witch to have discovered the well. Berild explains that she knew the secret of the well's location from her father, who had crossed the desert in this place years ago. Stark accepts her explanation, but is privately unconvinced. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave.
Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat at dawn and find Kynon's caravan encamped outside. The Dryland armies have not yet arrived, but only Kynon and his mercenaries are in the city itself, which the drylanders regard as taboo. Stark and Berild enter Sinharat looking for Luhar, but Kynon prevents Stark and Luhar from fighting. Berild kills Luhar with a knife. Kynon does not punish Berild, but warns Stark not to fight with Freka, who has gone back to the desert, and condemns the infighting that threatens his plans. Berild lies to Kynon about how she and Stark reached Sinharat, pretending that they had more water than they did. Kynon dismisses Berild and Stark.
Chapter 10 - Stark awakes at dusk and finds Fianna there. She warns him that his life is in danger from Delgaun, when he arrives. Stark refuses to flee. Fianna leads Stark to a chamber where Berild is waiting. She warns him against Delgaun, and expresses her resentment at Kynon. Drums beat announcing the late arrival of Delgaun and his allies to Sinharat, and Stark and Berild part. As Stark leaves, he meets Fianna, who hints that Berild may be a Rama.
Chapter 11 - Kynon unveils the banner of the Ramas before the massed armies of the Drylands and the Low-canals in front of Sinharat. Stark confronts Delgaun as a fellow-follower of Kynon, and forces Delgaun to accept him as comrade-in-arms. Later, in council, Delgaun backs down before Kynon, and they proceed to plot the conquest of the City-States. Kynon warns his confederates not to reveal that they do not really have the secret of the Ramas. Days pass. Freka returns from Shun with more fighters, but Kynon keeps him and Stark from fighting. Later, Stark goes into Sinharat and finds Berild reading an ancient wall-inscription in an unknown language. Stark follows her as she goes to a high window.
Chapter 12 - Stark accuses Berild of being a Rama. Berild dismisses his statement with smooth explanations, but Stark does not accept them. Stark deduces that Delgaun must also be a Rama. Berild leaves suddenly. Stark goes later, and is attacked by Freka who is under the influence of shanga. As they are fighting, Kynon and his fighters discover them. Stark is accused of murdering Freka, and the Shunni demand his blood. Stark is knocked out as he tries to blurt out the truth of Kynon's charade. He awakes in an underground cell, guarded by a Shunni warrior. (This portion of the expansion is a rewrite of the middle of Chapter 9 of Catacombs.)
Chapter 13 - Fianna appears, shoots the Shunni, and frees Stark. Fianna reveals that she, Berild, and Delgaun are all surviving Ramas, though she is dependent upon them for the Sending-on of Minds. She leads him into the catacombs, where Stark disposes of the guard's body in a pit and takes his sword. Fianna describes Delgaun and Berild's plans for empire, and explains that they intend to dispose of Kynon by putting Delgaun's mind into Kynon's body. She asks Stark to help her prevent it, and leads him to Berild's chamber. There they find Kynon in bonds, and Berild preparing the real crowns of the Ramas for the Sending-on of Minds.
Chapter 14 - Stark enters, attacks Delgaun and kills him with the sword. Berild drops the crowns and draws a knife. Fianna frees Kynon, who throttles Berild as she slashes him. Stark tells the wounded Kynon to stop the march of the Drylanders. He and Fianna help Kynon out to the open stairway that leads up to Sinharat. From there, Kynon addresses the tribes, telling them of Delgaun and Berild's treachery and his own lie about having the secret of the Ramas. Then he collapses and dies. The mercenaries and the armies break up and leave. Stark returns to Sinharat and finds Fianna. She explains that she has hidden the crowns of the Ramas, unable to destroy them. She invites Stark to return to Sinharat late in his life, offering to make him a Rama then. He refuses. Fianna says that she will stay in Sinharat. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton, looking back at Sinharat as he goes.
[edit]
Expansion Commentary
The Sinharat expansion is very competently and intelligently written and very much in the mature Brackett style. The characters of Kynon and Fianna are given additional depth. Whereas in Catacombs Kynon was merely a villain and a tool of Delgaun and Berild, in Sinharat he is more intelligent and even tragic. Fianna's breaking of the crowns of the Ramas in Catacombs is a somewhat trite development; her awareness of her own weakness, and her thought for the future in Sinharat is both more tragic and more realistic, and this turn of events gives Stark's last look back at Sinharat an additional meaning that it had not had in Catacombs. The plot structure is enhanced by the delay in Stark's discovery that Berild is a Rama, and the awkward though necessary appearance of Delgaun is better handled in Sinharat. The inconsistency in Catacombs, whereby Fianna is a Rama unknown to anyone but herself, but (being in a very young body) must have undergone the Sending on of Minds very recently, is eliminated in Sinharat. Additional details about the layout of Sinharat are consistent with Brackett's late story The Road to Sinharat (1963).
[edit]
Characters
Eric John Stark, an outlaw mercenary warrior, born on Mercury, acting as a double agent.
Simon Ashton, an official of Earth Police Control, searching for Stark.
Delgaun of Valkis, lord of the wickedest of the Low-canal cities, hiring mercenaries to serve in a war in the Drylands.
Luhar, cashiered officer of the Venusian Guards, with a deadly grudge against Stark
Kynon of Shun, a Martian dryland barbarian with dreams of uniting the desert tribes and establishing an empire over the City-States of Mars.
Freka, a captain loyal to Kynon, but addicted to the terrible vice of shanga.
Berild, a red-haired Shunni woman, consort of Kynon, but actually using him to further her plans and Delgaun's.
Fianna, Berild's servant girl, possessed of wisdom and cunning far beyond her years.
The Ramas, an ancient and evil Martian nation, who had discovered the secret of immortality - at a terrible price, to be paid by others.
[edit]
Publication history
This story was first published under the title Queen of the Martian Catacombs in the pulp magazine Planet Stories, Summer 1949.
In 1964, after considerable revision and expansion, it was republished as The Secret of Sinharat as one part of an Ace Double novel; its companion was another expanded Eric John Stark story, People of the Talisman. The expansion has sometimes been attributed to Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton[1]. For The Secret of Sinharat, there is little internal evidence to support this suggestion.
In 1982, it appeared, again together with People of the Talisman, under the title Eric John Stark, Outlaw of Mars.
In 2005 the original Planet Stories version was republished in Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories, Volume 46 in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series. It appeared the same year in the collection Stark and the Star Kings (Haffner Press).
In 2008, the entire Eric John Stark saga was republished, in E-Book form, by Baen Publishing, and is available thru Webscriptions.net.
[edit]
Titles
Queen of the Martian Catacombs is typical of the rather wordy and often misleading titles assigned to stories in Planet Stories, to go along with their colorful, action-packed, but equally misleading cover art. The cover of the Summer 1949 issue of Planet Stories gives the title as Queen of the Martian Catacombs: A Desert-worlds Novel by Leigh Brackett, with the explanatory blurb Across the red sands fought the Terran changeling to reach Berild, beautiful and fey - and blast her into eternal dust.... This is not a very accurate synopsis of the story.
The "catacombs" in question are the tunnels under Sinharat, although they do not play a very important part in either version of the story, and the "Queen" is apparently Berild, though her role is not really central enough to name the story after her. Planet, however, liked cover illustrations of beautiful women, and the Allen Anderson cover of the Summer 1949 issue indeed shows a red-haired woman in blue dress and high heels (!) astride a Martian steed resembling a frightened cartoon seahorse. An inappropriately pale-skinned Stark is shown in the foreground attempting to split the skull of a crouching, red-skinned Martian (?) with his sword—both sword and red Martian existing only in the illustrator's imagination. An architecturally banal Martian city languishes in the background, while the vivid yellow sky boasts over a dozen moons.
The later title, The Secret of Sinharat, is less irrelevant; the "secret" is presumably the Rama's secret method of mind-transference, and although it hardly belongs exclusively to the city of Sinharat, that city's prominent place as the setting for the story's climax is sufficiently important to make its use in the title not inappropriate.
[edit]
Footnotes
[edit]
References
Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 28. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
[edit]
External links
The Secret of Sinharat publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Categories: 1964 novels | Novels by Leigh Brackett | Mars in fiction
5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Sinharat
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wikipedia.it - Leigh Brackett
Italian encyclopedia entry for the author :-
Leigh Brackett
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera.
Leigh Brackett (Los Angeles, 7 dicembre 1915 – Lancaster, 18 marzo 1978) è stata una scrittrice e sceneggiatrice statunitense.
Ha scritto, oltre a numerosi romanzi di fantasy e fantascientifica, numerose sceneggiature di celebri film, tra cui Il grande sonno (di Howard Hawks, 1946), Un dollaro d'onore (anch'esso di Howard Hawks, 1959), Il lungo addio (di Robert Altman, 1973) e L'Impero colpisce ancora (di Irvin Kershner, 1980).
Il suo primo racconto (Martian Quest, inedito in Italia) fu pubblicato nel febbraio del 1940 sulla rivista Astounding Science-Fiction, mentre il suo primo romanzo, un giallo, fu dato alle stampe nel 1944. Il regista Howard Hawks fu tanto affascinato da questo libro che contattò Brackett perché affiancasse William Faulkner nella stesura della sceneggiatura de Il grande sonno (1946): il film, con protagonista Humphrey Bogart, è considerato uno dei migliori gialli mai realizzati.
Nel 1946 Brackett sposò lo scrittore di fantascienza Edmond Hamilton. Nello stesso anno, la rivista Planet Stories pubblicò uno dei più apprezzati racconti di Brackett, Lorelei delle Rosse Brume, scritto in collaborazione con Ray Bradbury.
Mentre negli anni quaranta Brackett si concentrò soprattutto sulla scrittura di racconti, negli anni cinquanta e nei primi anni sessanta la sua produzione si trasformò: a partire dalla metà degli anni cinquanta, la scrittrice cominciò a lavorare a tempo pieno per il più remunerativo mondo della televisione e del cinema. Tornò a dedicarsi alla fantascienza negli anni settanta, quando pubblicò una trilogia nota con il nome de Il libro di Skaith: i tre volumi, ambientati sul pianeta extrasolare di Skaith, hanno nuovamente come protagonista Eric John Stark, creato nel 1949, il più famoso personaggio uscito dalla penna della scrittrice. Mezzo avventuriero e mezzo predone, Stark, spesso paragonato al Conan il barbaro di Robert E. Howard, presenta in realtà alcuni tratti in comune col Tarzan di Edgar Rice Burroughs o col Mowgli di Rudyard Kipling.
Rispetto ad altri autori di opere fantascientifiche, Brackett ha caratterizzato in modo più specifico l'universo da lei creato. Quasi tutte le sue storie sono ambientate su versioni alternative e romanzate dei pianeti del sistema solare, seguendo alcune credenze tipiche degli anni trenta e quaranta (secondo cui, ad esempio, Marte era un pianeta desertico appena abitabile e Venere un selvaggio mondo ricoperto di giungle), ma aggiungendo numerosi dettagli che contribuivano a rendere verosimili le sue storie.Indice [nascondi]
1 Il lavoro su L'Impero colpisce ancora
2 Opere
3 Voci correlate
4 Collegamenti esterni
Il lavoro su L'Impero colpisce ancora [modifica]
Probabilmente il lavoro più conosciuto di Leigh Brackett è la sceneggiatura per L'Impero colpisce ancora (1980), secondo film della trilogia originale di Guerre Stellari (Star Wars).
L'esatto ruolo che Brackett giocò nella stesura della sceneggiatura è oggetto di una piccola controversia. Ciò che è certo è che George Lucas chiese alla scrittrice di stendere la sceneggiatura del film basandosi sul soggetto da lui scritto. Si sa anche che Brackett scrisse una prima bozza, abbastanza definitiva, della sceneggiatura, che fu consegnata a Lucas poco prima che l'autrice morisse di cancro, il 18 marzo 1978. La bozza fu rivista da Lucas e dall'esordiente Lawrence Kasdan, e sia Brackett che Kasdan (ma non Lucas) furono accreditati come autori della versione finale della sceneggiatura.
Alcuni critici, tuttavia, sostengono che a Lucas non piacque il lavoro di Brackett, la cui bozza fu quindi eliminato del tutto. Lucas, a questo punto, avrebbe riscritto la sceneggiatura e l'avrebbe consegnata a Kasdan, che pertanto non avrebbe lavorato direttamente sul lavoro di Brackett. Seguendo questa linea di pensiero, Lucas avrebbe inserito il nome dell'autrice nei titoli di coda solamente in segno di cortesia nei confronti del lavoro da lei svolto durante la malattia.
Opere [modifica]
Elenco delle opere principali:
Un cadavere di troppo (No Good For A Corpse, 1943)
Il segreto di Sinharat (The Secret of Sinharat, 1949; pubblicato in Italia in I canali di Marte, Classici Urania 248, Mondadori, Milano, 1997)
Il popolo del Talismano (People of the Talisman, 1951)
La legge dei Vardda (The Starmen, 1952)
La spada di Rhiannon (The Sword Of Rhiannon, 1953)
La città proibita (The Long Tomorrow, 1955) altro titolo: Bartorstown. La città proibita
Oltre l'infinito (The Big Jump, 1955)
Il terzo giorno (An Eye For An Eye, 1958)
E su Marte dominerai (The Nemesis Of Terra, 1961)
Alfa del Centauro (Alpha Centauri Or Die, 1963)
La strada per Sinharat (The Secret Of Sinharat/The People Of The Talisman, 1964) altro titolo: I canali di Marte
Storie marziane (The Coming Of The Terrans, 1967) – Antologia
La stella amara (Ginger Star, 1974)
I lupi di Skaith (The Hounds Of Skaith, 1974)
I predoni di Skaith (The Reavers Of Skaith, 1976)
Voci correlate [modifica]
Marte nella fantascienza
Collegamenti esterni [modifica]
Bibliografia italiana di Leigh Brackett nel Catalogo della fantascienza, fantasy e horror a cura di E. Vegetti, P. Cottogni, E. Bertoni
Leigh Brackett poetessa di Marte, articolo di L. Fabriani su Fantascienza.com
4 out of 5
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett
Leigh Brackett
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera.
Leigh Brackett (Los Angeles, 7 dicembre 1915 – Lancaster, 18 marzo 1978) è stata una scrittrice e sceneggiatrice statunitense.
Ha scritto, oltre a numerosi romanzi di fantasy e fantascientifica, numerose sceneggiature di celebri film, tra cui Il grande sonno (di Howard Hawks, 1946), Un dollaro d'onore (anch'esso di Howard Hawks, 1959), Il lungo addio (di Robert Altman, 1973) e L'Impero colpisce ancora (di Irvin Kershner, 1980).
Il suo primo racconto (Martian Quest, inedito in Italia) fu pubblicato nel febbraio del 1940 sulla rivista Astounding Science-Fiction, mentre il suo primo romanzo, un giallo, fu dato alle stampe nel 1944. Il regista Howard Hawks fu tanto affascinato da questo libro che contattò Brackett perché affiancasse William Faulkner nella stesura della sceneggiatura de Il grande sonno (1946): il film, con protagonista Humphrey Bogart, è considerato uno dei migliori gialli mai realizzati.
Nel 1946 Brackett sposò lo scrittore di fantascienza Edmond Hamilton. Nello stesso anno, la rivista Planet Stories pubblicò uno dei più apprezzati racconti di Brackett, Lorelei delle Rosse Brume, scritto in collaborazione con Ray Bradbury.
Mentre negli anni quaranta Brackett si concentrò soprattutto sulla scrittura di racconti, negli anni cinquanta e nei primi anni sessanta la sua produzione si trasformò: a partire dalla metà degli anni cinquanta, la scrittrice cominciò a lavorare a tempo pieno per il più remunerativo mondo della televisione e del cinema. Tornò a dedicarsi alla fantascienza negli anni settanta, quando pubblicò una trilogia nota con il nome de Il libro di Skaith: i tre volumi, ambientati sul pianeta extrasolare di Skaith, hanno nuovamente come protagonista Eric John Stark, creato nel 1949, il più famoso personaggio uscito dalla penna della scrittrice. Mezzo avventuriero e mezzo predone, Stark, spesso paragonato al Conan il barbaro di Robert E. Howard, presenta in realtà alcuni tratti in comune col Tarzan di Edgar Rice Burroughs o col Mowgli di Rudyard Kipling.
Rispetto ad altri autori di opere fantascientifiche, Brackett ha caratterizzato in modo più specifico l'universo da lei creato. Quasi tutte le sue storie sono ambientate su versioni alternative e romanzate dei pianeti del sistema solare, seguendo alcune credenze tipiche degli anni trenta e quaranta (secondo cui, ad esempio, Marte era un pianeta desertico appena abitabile e Venere un selvaggio mondo ricoperto di giungle), ma aggiungendo numerosi dettagli che contribuivano a rendere verosimili le sue storie.Indice [nascondi]
1 Il lavoro su L'Impero colpisce ancora
2 Opere
3 Voci correlate
4 Collegamenti esterni
Il lavoro su L'Impero colpisce ancora [modifica]
Probabilmente il lavoro più conosciuto di Leigh Brackett è la sceneggiatura per L'Impero colpisce ancora (1980), secondo film della trilogia originale di Guerre Stellari (Star Wars).
L'esatto ruolo che Brackett giocò nella stesura della sceneggiatura è oggetto di una piccola controversia. Ciò che è certo è che George Lucas chiese alla scrittrice di stendere la sceneggiatura del film basandosi sul soggetto da lui scritto. Si sa anche che Brackett scrisse una prima bozza, abbastanza definitiva, della sceneggiatura, che fu consegnata a Lucas poco prima che l'autrice morisse di cancro, il 18 marzo 1978. La bozza fu rivista da Lucas e dall'esordiente Lawrence Kasdan, e sia Brackett che Kasdan (ma non Lucas) furono accreditati come autori della versione finale della sceneggiatura.
Alcuni critici, tuttavia, sostengono che a Lucas non piacque il lavoro di Brackett, la cui bozza fu quindi eliminato del tutto. Lucas, a questo punto, avrebbe riscritto la sceneggiatura e l'avrebbe consegnata a Kasdan, che pertanto non avrebbe lavorato direttamente sul lavoro di Brackett. Seguendo questa linea di pensiero, Lucas avrebbe inserito il nome dell'autrice nei titoli di coda solamente in segno di cortesia nei confronti del lavoro da lei svolto durante la malattia.
Opere [modifica]
Elenco delle opere principali:
Un cadavere di troppo (No Good For A Corpse, 1943)
Il segreto di Sinharat (The Secret of Sinharat, 1949; pubblicato in Italia in I canali di Marte, Classici Urania 248, Mondadori, Milano, 1997)
Il popolo del Talismano (People of the Talisman, 1951)
La legge dei Vardda (The Starmen, 1952)
La spada di Rhiannon (The Sword Of Rhiannon, 1953)
La città proibita (The Long Tomorrow, 1955) altro titolo: Bartorstown. La città proibita
Oltre l'infinito (The Big Jump, 1955)
Il terzo giorno (An Eye For An Eye, 1958)
E su Marte dominerai (The Nemesis Of Terra, 1961)
Alfa del Centauro (Alpha Centauri Or Die, 1963)
La strada per Sinharat (The Secret Of Sinharat/The People Of The Talisman, 1964) altro titolo: I canali di Marte
Storie marziane (The Coming Of The Terrans, 1967) – Antologia
La stella amara (Ginger Star, 1974)
I lupi di Skaith (The Hounds Of Skaith, 1974)
I predoni di Skaith (The Reavers Of Skaith, 1976)
Voci correlate [modifica]
Marte nella fantascienza
Collegamenti esterni [modifica]
Bibliografia italiana di Leigh Brackett nel Catalogo della fantascienza, fantasy e horror a cura di E. Vegetti, P. Cottogni, E. Bertoni
Leigh Brackett poetessa di Marte, articolo di L. Fabriani su Fantascienza.com
4 out of 5
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett
Wikipedia.fr - Leigh Brackett
Short French encyclopedia article with brief bibliography.
Leigh Brackett est une romancière et scénariste américaine de science-fiction, de fantasy et de polar noir, née le 7 décembre 1915 à Los Angeles, et morte le 24 mars 1978. Elle était la femme de Edmond Hamilton, lui-même écrivain de SF.
Œuvres [modifier]
Romans [modifier]
Elle a écrit plusieurs romans de SF dont:
Les Hommes Stellaires, 1952
Le Recommencement, 1955
La Porte vers l'Infini, 1957
Alpha ou la mort, 1963
et des cycles de fantasy dont:
Le Livre de Mars
Le Cycle de Skaith
The Ginger Star, 1974 (Le secret de Skaith ou Les voix de Skaith) - Le Masque Science Fiction N°50, 1976
The Hounds of Skaith, 1974 (Les Chiens de Skaith)
The Reavers of Skaith, 1976 (Les Pillards de Skaith)
Cinéma [modifier]
En tant que scénariste, Leigh Brackett a travaillé pour le réalisateur Howard Hawks, participant à l'écriture du Grand Sommeil (The Big Sleep) en 1945, puis de Rio Bravo en 1959 et El Dorado en 1966. Elle a également écrit le scénario du film Le Privé (The Long Goodbye) de Robert Altman en 1973.
En février 1978, quelques semaines avant sa mort, elle remit à George Lucas une première ébauche de scénario pour L'Empire contre-attaque (The Empire Strikes Back). Elle est créditée au générique du film, bien que les versions suivantes aient été écrites par le scénariste Lawrence Kasdan et George Lucas.
3.5 out of 5
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett
Leigh Brackett est une romancière et scénariste américaine de science-fiction, de fantasy et de polar noir, née le 7 décembre 1915 à Los Angeles, et morte le 24 mars 1978. Elle était la femme de Edmond Hamilton, lui-même écrivain de SF.
Œuvres [modifier]
Romans [modifier]
Elle a écrit plusieurs romans de SF dont:
Les Hommes Stellaires, 1952
Le Recommencement, 1955
La Porte vers l'Infini, 1957
Alpha ou la mort, 1963
et des cycles de fantasy dont:
Le Livre de Mars
Le Cycle de Skaith
The Ginger Star, 1974 (Le secret de Skaith ou Les voix de Skaith) - Le Masque Science Fiction N°50, 1976
The Hounds of Skaith, 1974 (Les Chiens de Skaith)
The Reavers of Skaith, 1976 (Les Pillards de Skaith)
Cinéma [modifier]
En tant que scénariste, Leigh Brackett a travaillé pour le réalisateur Howard Hawks, participant à l'écriture du Grand Sommeil (The Big Sleep) en 1945, puis de Rio Bravo en 1959 et El Dorado en 1966. Elle a également écrit le scénario du film Le Privé (The Long Goodbye) de Robert Altman en 1973.
En février 1978, quelques semaines avant sa mort, elle remit à George Lucas une première ébauche de scénario pour L'Empire contre-attaque (The Empire Strikes Back). Elle est créditée au générique du film, bien que les versions suivantes aient été écrites par le scénariste Lawrence Kasdan et George Lucas.
3.5 out of 5
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Leigh Brackett (1915-1978) - Lee Server
Brackett, Leigh (1915-1978)
Server, Lee
in: Server, Lee. Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Facts on File, 2002. p. 30-32.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/browse/69777/
Server, Lee
in: Server, Lee. Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Facts on File, 2002. p. 30-32.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/browse/69777/
Leigh Brackett - John L. Carr
Leigh Brackett
Carr, John L.
in: Bleiler, E. F., ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's, 1985. pp.909-916.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/browse/14517/
Carr, John L.
in: Bleiler, E. F., ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's, 1985. pp.909-916.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/browse/14517/
Leigh Brackett - Robert E. Morsberger
Leigh Brackett
No author listed
in: Morsberger, Robert E., ed. American Screenwriters. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. pp. 40-46.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/search/subject/410/?q=BRACKETT,%20LEIGH&page=1
No author listed
in: Morsberger, Robert E., ed. American Screenwriters. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. pp. 40-46.
Unseen.
http://web08.library.tamu.edu/search/subject/410/?q=BRACKETT,%20LEIGH&page=1
Leigh Brackett - Karen Hall
Brackett, Leigh,
Hall, Karen
in: Reid, Robin A., ed. Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2009. Volume 2, p. 35-36.
Unseen.
Hall, Karen
in: Reid, Robin A., ed. Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2009. Volume 2, p. 35-36.
Unseen.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Wikipedia.de - Leigh Brackett
As of today :-
Leigh Brackett
aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie
Wechseln zu: Navigation, Suche
Leigh Douglass Brackett (* 7. Dezember 1915 in Los Angeles, Kalifornien; † 17. März 1978 in Lancaster, Kalifornien) war eine US-amerikanische Schriftstellerin und Drehbuchautorin. Einen Teil ihrer Werke verfasste sie unter dem Pseudonym V. E. Thiessen.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
[Verbergen]
* 1 Leben
* 2 Leistungen
* 3 Werke
* 4 Literatur
* 5 Weblinks
Leben [Bearbeiten]
Bracketts Vater starb während der Grippe-Epidemie von 1918. Brackett wuchs in Santa Monica im Haus ihres Großvaters zusammen mit ihrer Mutter und einer Tante auf. Brackett, die in ihrer Jugend ein Fan von Robert E. Howard und Edgar Rice Burroughs' John-Carter-Geschichten war, belegte einen Schreibkurs bei Laurence D'Orsay, wodurch Henry Kuttner ihre Arbeiten kennenlernte und ihr seinen Agenten Julius Schwartz empfahl. Im Jahr 1946 heiratete Brackett Edmond Moore Hamilton, einen Science-Fiction-Autor, der zu seiner Zeit als der "World Saver" bekannt war. Die Hamiltons lebten abwechselnd in Ohio und in Kalifornien. Nach dem Tod ihres Mannes 1977 zog Brackett dauerhaft nach Kalifornien, wo sie bis zu ihrem Tod lebte. Neben fast 200 Science-Fiction- und Fantasy-Romanen und -Kurzgeschichten schrieb Brackett zahlreiche Drehbücher für Film und Fernsehen sowie Kurzgeschichten und drei Kriminalromane.
Leistungen [Bearbeiten]
Leigh Brackett arbeitete seit 1939 als freie Schriftstellerin und veröffentlichte ihre erste Kurzgeschichte, Martian Quest, im Jahr 1940 in Astounding. In den 1940er-Jahren veröffentlichte sie zusammen mit Ray Bradbury regelmäßig in Planet Stories. Viele der in diesen Jahren veröffentlichten Stories waren Abenteuergeschichten, deren Handlung in unserem Sonnensystem spielt, unter anderem The Dragon-Queen of Jupiter, dessen Handlung auf der Venus angesiedelt ist. 1944 veröffentlichte sie einen Kriminalroman (No Good from a Corpse), der stark an Raymond Chandler und Black Mask erinnerte. Howard Hawks engagierte den Autor, der zu seiner Überraschung eine Frau war, für das Drehbuch zu Tote schlafen fest (The Big Sleep). Zusammen mit William Faulkner stellte Brackett das Drehbuch fertig. Weitere Drehbücher für Filme von Howard Hawks folgten, unter anderem für Rio Bravo, El Dorado und Rio Lobo sowie für Hatari!. Brackett selbst bezeichnete das Drehbuch zu El Dorado als ihr bestes, während Hawks die Geschichte zu tragisch fand. Vor der Zusammenarbeit mit Hawks hatte Brackett schon das Drehbuch zu The Vampire's Ghost (1945) verfasst. Weitere Drehbücher folgten, so zu Der Tod kennt keine Wiederkehr von Robert Altman im Jahr 1973. Ihr letztes Drehbuch schrieb Brackett zu Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (dt. Das Imperium schlägt zurück). Der Film wurde ihr gewidmet.
Neben ihren Drehbüchern verfasste Brackett zahlreiche Romane, zumeist sogenannte Sword and Sorcery Geschichten, darunter The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), aber auch Space Operas wie The Starmen.
Werke [Bearbeiten]
Stand Februar 2009: Science Fiction Titel vollständig
* No Good from a Corpse, 1944
* Stranger At Home, 1946 (als Ghostwriter für George Sanders)
* Enchantress of Venus, 1949 (Revolte der Verlorenen, Pabel, 1957)
* The Starmen, auch als The Galactic Breed, 1951 (gek. Das Schiff von Orthis, Moewig, 1960)
* The Big Jump, 1953 (Der grosse Sprung, Moewig, 1960)
* The Sword of Rhiannon, 1953 (Das Erbe der Marsgötter, Pabel, 1957)
* The Long Tomorrow, 1955 (Am Morgen einer anderen Zeit, Pabel, 1959)
* The Tiger Among Us, 1957 (Raubtiere unter uns, Union, 1999)
* An Eye for an Eye, 1957
* Rio Bravo, 1959 (Rio Bravo (Romanversion des Drehbuchs),1985, ISBN 3-453-20591-X)
* The Nemesis from Terra, 1961 (Schatten über dem Mars, Moewig, 1977)
* Follow The Free Wind, 1963
* Alpha Centauri or Die!, 1963 (Alpha Centauri sehen und sterben, Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1978, ISBN 3-404-01104-X)
* People of the Talisman, 1964 (Wächter am Todestor, Pabel, 1977)
* The Secret of Sinharat, 1964 (Krieg der Unsterblichen, Pabel, 1968)
* The Coming of the Terrans, 1967 (gek. Hände weg vom Mars, Moewig, 1977)
* Silent Partner,1969
* The Ginger Star, 1974 (Der sterbende Stern, Erich Pabel, Rastatt 1979)
* The Hounds of Skaith, 1974 (Dämon aus dem All, Pabel, 1980)
* The Reavers of Skaith, 1976 (Planet im Aufbruch, Pabel, 1980)
* The Best of Leigh Brackett, 1977 (Die besten Stories von Leigh Brackett, Moewig, München 1981, ISBN 3-8118-6715-6)
Literatur [Bearbeiten]
* Hans Joachim Alpers, Werner Fuchs, Ronald M. Hahn (Hrsg.): Reclams Science Fiction Führer. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6, S. 54-55.
* Edmond Hamilton: Vorwort. In: Die besten Stories von Leigh Brackett. Moewig, München 1981, ISBN 3-8118-6715-6, S. 7-17.
Weblinks [Bearbeiten]
* Leigh Brackett in der deutschen und englischen Version der Internet Movie Database
* Literatur von und über Leigh Brackett im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Leigh Brackett
aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie
Wechseln zu: Navigation, Suche
Leigh Douglass Brackett (* 7. Dezember 1915 in Los Angeles, Kalifornien; † 17. März 1978 in Lancaster, Kalifornien) war eine US-amerikanische Schriftstellerin und Drehbuchautorin. Einen Teil ihrer Werke verfasste sie unter dem Pseudonym V. E. Thiessen.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
[Verbergen]
* 1 Leben
* 2 Leistungen
* 3 Werke
* 4 Literatur
* 5 Weblinks
Leben [Bearbeiten]
Bracketts Vater starb während der Grippe-Epidemie von 1918. Brackett wuchs in Santa Monica im Haus ihres Großvaters zusammen mit ihrer Mutter und einer Tante auf. Brackett, die in ihrer Jugend ein Fan von Robert E. Howard und Edgar Rice Burroughs' John-Carter-Geschichten war, belegte einen Schreibkurs bei Laurence D'Orsay, wodurch Henry Kuttner ihre Arbeiten kennenlernte und ihr seinen Agenten Julius Schwartz empfahl. Im Jahr 1946 heiratete Brackett Edmond Moore Hamilton, einen Science-Fiction-Autor, der zu seiner Zeit als der "World Saver" bekannt war. Die Hamiltons lebten abwechselnd in Ohio und in Kalifornien. Nach dem Tod ihres Mannes 1977 zog Brackett dauerhaft nach Kalifornien, wo sie bis zu ihrem Tod lebte. Neben fast 200 Science-Fiction- und Fantasy-Romanen und -Kurzgeschichten schrieb Brackett zahlreiche Drehbücher für Film und Fernsehen sowie Kurzgeschichten und drei Kriminalromane.
Leistungen [Bearbeiten]
Leigh Brackett arbeitete seit 1939 als freie Schriftstellerin und veröffentlichte ihre erste Kurzgeschichte, Martian Quest, im Jahr 1940 in Astounding. In den 1940er-Jahren veröffentlichte sie zusammen mit Ray Bradbury regelmäßig in Planet Stories. Viele der in diesen Jahren veröffentlichten Stories waren Abenteuergeschichten, deren Handlung in unserem Sonnensystem spielt, unter anderem The Dragon-Queen of Jupiter, dessen Handlung auf der Venus angesiedelt ist. 1944 veröffentlichte sie einen Kriminalroman (No Good from a Corpse), der stark an Raymond Chandler und Black Mask erinnerte. Howard Hawks engagierte den Autor, der zu seiner Überraschung eine Frau war, für das Drehbuch zu Tote schlafen fest (The Big Sleep). Zusammen mit William Faulkner stellte Brackett das Drehbuch fertig. Weitere Drehbücher für Filme von Howard Hawks folgten, unter anderem für Rio Bravo, El Dorado und Rio Lobo sowie für Hatari!. Brackett selbst bezeichnete das Drehbuch zu El Dorado als ihr bestes, während Hawks die Geschichte zu tragisch fand. Vor der Zusammenarbeit mit Hawks hatte Brackett schon das Drehbuch zu The Vampire's Ghost (1945) verfasst. Weitere Drehbücher folgten, so zu Der Tod kennt keine Wiederkehr von Robert Altman im Jahr 1973. Ihr letztes Drehbuch schrieb Brackett zu Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (dt. Das Imperium schlägt zurück). Der Film wurde ihr gewidmet.
Neben ihren Drehbüchern verfasste Brackett zahlreiche Romane, zumeist sogenannte Sword and Sorcery Geschichten, darunter The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), aber auch Space Operas wie The Starmen.
Werke [Bearbeiten]
Stand Februar 2009: Science Fiction Titel vollständig
* No Good from a Corpse, 1944
* Stranger At Home, 1946 (als Ghostwriter für George Sanders)
* Enchantress of Venus, 1949 (Revolte der Verlorenen, Pabel, 1957)
* The Starmen, auch als The Galactic Breed, 1951 (gek. Das Schiff von Orthis, Moewig, 1960)
* The Big Jump, 1953 (Der grosse Sprung, Moewig, 1960)
* The Sword of Rhiannon, 1953 (Das Erbe der Marsgötter, Pabel, 1957)
* The Long Tomorrow, 1955 (Am Morgen einer anderen Zeit, Pabel, 1959)
* The Tiger Among Us, 1957 (Raubtiere unter uns, Union, 1999)
* An Eye for an Eye, 1957
* Rio Bravo, 1959 (Rio Bravo (Romanversion des Drehbuchs),1985, ISBN 3-453-20591-X)
* The Nemesis from Terra, 1961 (Schatten über dem Mars, Moewig, 1977)
* Follow The Free Wind, 1963
* Alpha Centauri or Die!, 1963 (Alpha Centauri sehen und sterben, Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1978, ISBN 3-404-01104-X)
* People of the Talisman, 1964 (Wächter am Todestor, Pabel, 1977)
* The Secret of Sinharat, 1964 (Krieg der Unsterblichen, Pabel, 1968)
* The Coming of the Terrans, 1967 (gek. Hände weg vom Mars, Moewig, 1977)
* Silent Partner,1969
* The Ginger Star, 1974 (Der sterbende Stern, Erich Pabel, Rastatt 1979)
* The Hounds of Skaith, 1974 (Dämon aus dem All, Pabel, 1980)
* The Reavers of Skaith, 1976 (Planet im Aufbruch, Pabel, 1980)
* The Best of Leigh Brackett, 1977 (Die besten Stories von Leigh Brackett, Moewig, München 1981, ISBN 3-8118-6715-6)
Literatur [Bearbeiten]
* Hans Joachim Alpers, Werner Fuchs, Ronald M. Hahn (Hrsg.): Reclams Science Fiction Führer. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-15-010312-6, S. 54-55.
* Edmond Hamilton: Vorwort. In: Die besten Stories von Leigh Brackett. Moewig, München 1981, ISBN 3-8118-6715-6, S. 7-17.
Weblinks [Bearbeiten]
* Leigh Brackett in der deutschen und englischen Version der Internet Movie Database
* Literatur von und über Leigh Brackett im Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Mars In the Fiction Of Leigh Brackett - Various Various
Mars in the fiction of Leigh Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The planet Mars appears frequently as a setting for many of the stories of Leigh Brackett, and Mars and Martians are frequently mentioned in other stories of the Leigh Brackett Solar System. Brackett's Mars shares some characteristics with the astronomical Mars, but in other respects functions as a consistent fantasy world with recurring landmarks and characteristics that reappear from story to story. Some of these fantasy characteristics are of Brackett's own invention; others reflect some of the scientific theories about Mars that were current before the early 1960s, although certain of the astronomical and scientific details described in this article are not true of the real planet Mars.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in our solar system. In Brackett's Solar System, Mars has two moons, Denderon (Phobos) and Vashna (Deimos). Mars is one of the three "Triangle Worlds" and a founding member of both the League of Worlds and the United Worlds. It is the site of the headquarters of the Interworld Space Authority.Contents [hide]
1 Physical characteristics
1.1 Atmosphere
1.2 Geography
1.2.1 Topography
1.2.2 Canals
2 Political Geography
2.1 Low-Canal Cities
2.1.1 Barrakesh
2.1.2 Jekkara
2.1.3 Valkis
2.2 Kahora
2.3 Drylands
3 History
3.1 Oceanic Mars
3.2 The Coming of the Terrans
3.2.1 Martian Rebellions
3.3 The Interplanetary Wars
4 Anthropology and Ethnology
4.1 Human Martians
4.1.1 Ancient Races
4.1.2 Modern Races
4.2 Halflings
4.3 Martian Languages
4.4 Martian Religion
5 Archaeology
6 Government
6.1 Symbols of Mars
7 The moons of Mars
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Core Mars stories
9.2 Marginal Mars stories
9.3 Non-Mars stories
[edit]
Physical characteristics
Mars has only a quarter the surface area of the Earth and only one-tenth the mass, though its surface area is approximately equal to that of the Earth's dry land because Mars no longer possesses oceans. The solar day on Mars is very close to Earth's day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds.
[edit]
Atmosphere
The atmosphere of Mars is thinner than that of Earth or Venus, comparable to the high plateaus of the Andes or Himalayas on earth, but is oxygen-rich and presents few difficulties to offworlders after a period of acclimatization.
Image of Mars showing northern Drylands (ochre) and southern dry ocean basins (dark).
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Geography
[edit]
Topography
The dichotomy of Martian topography is telescopically observable from a great distance: pale northern plains (or "drylands") covered with reddish sands contrast with the darker southern lowlands. The north represents Mars' ancient continents, while the equatorial and southern dark patches are the dry sea-beds of ancient oceans.
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Canals
The disappearance of Mars' ancient surface water has governed the history of Mars; there is too little water on Mars to support thick clusters of population or abundant life on the surface. Martian civilization was only maintained in existence by the construction of numerous canals by means of a now-forgotten technology. The canals act as aqueducts, carrying meltwater from the polar ice-caps to the temperate and equatorial regions of Mars. In the southern hemisphere, the canals preserve the remnant waters of the ancient Martian seas, and serve to connect the remnants of Mars' former harbor cities; these canals are collectively known as the Low Canals.
For further information on the hypothetical linear structures believed by some astronomers to exist on Mars before 1964, see Martian canals.
Mars with polar ice caps visible.
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Political Geography
Although to the casual visitor to spaceports such as Kahora and Jekkara Port, Mars may seem little different from the modern urban life of Earth or Venus, beyond the big cities the life of Mars proceeds much as it has for thousands of years, based upon the ancient units of canal town and desert tribe.
The Martian Planetary Government, unlike the World Government of Terra, is a federal government whose primary units are the Martian City-States, represented in the Council of City-States. These States are largely self-governed and admit little interference in their internal affairs. The states are mostly clustered in the moister lowlands of equatorial and southern Mars, although some (the Polar Cities) are grouped in the areas close to the northern polar ice cap. The following are only some of the more prominent City-States:
Karappa
Kathuun
Kushat (polar)
Narrissan
Ruh
Tarak
Varl
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Low-Canal Cities
The Low-Canal cities, Barrakesh, Jekkara, and Valkis, are a group apart, in history and culture.
[edit]
Barrakesh
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Jekkara
Jekkara was formerly a port city and a prominent kingdom in ancient Mars. It stood on the eastern shores of the White Sea, below a range of hills immediately to its east. These hills were chosen by the ancient Quiru as the site of the tomb in which their errant compatriot, Rhiannon, was imprisoned. Thousands of years later it came under the control of the Dhuvian-supported empire of Sark, before that kingdom suddenly collapsed.
This original city of Jekkara is no longer inhabited, and is known as the "Old Town"; its lighthouse and stone and marble quays are still visible above the old waterline. As the White Sea retreated, during the 17th Dynasty of the Khalide kings (c. 16,000-14,000 ybp) Jekkara's position as a maritime power dwindled. The Khalide palace atop the cliffs that formerly lined the sea-basin (now desert) still exists, though in ruin.
The "New Town" is the still living part of Jekkara. Its center is the great square that fronts the Jekkaran Low-canal which runs, roughly north-to-south, immediately to the west of the town, by the old bridge across the canal. Jekkara's businesses are chiefly drinking, gambling, and other vices; for a long time, however, non-Martians were prohibited entry into the town, and travellers are still advised to be cautious in its back-blocks.
Jekkara also retains some quaint but little-known customs, such as the propitiatory rites to the chthonic 'Dark Lord' said to dwell in a cave in the hills above Jekkara. These have been reported to involve human sacrifice, but experts currently believe it to be a harmless, vestigial ritual, whatever its origins may have been.
Modern Jekkara is known for its pit mining, and its wealth has given it a modern spaceport (Jekkara Port), two miles from New Town. The best known of Jekkara's many entertainment establishments is Madam Kan's, boasting beautiful dancing girls, exquisitely prepared thil liquor or desert-cactus brandy, and gambling at getak.
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Valkis
Travelling south along Jekkara's Low-canal brings you to the city of Valkis, at an intersection with another canal and the cliffs that formerly lined the sea bottom. Valkis is even more archaic and conservative than Jekkara, and consequently more dangerous.
Valkis stood on a gentler slope than Jekkara's cliffs, and in consequence one can see no fewer than five different Valkises, each built below the others as the sea retreated. As in Jekkara, the highest city contains the ancient royal palace.
The hills back of Valkis are home to Shunni nomads, who cooperate with the Valkisians on certain matters.
Valkis was formerly the center of the addictive vice of shanga, the going-back, a technology inducing euphoria as part of a temporary evolutionary regression. This practice was for a while very popular among Terrans, and brought a great deal of money, some of which was used to partially restore Valkis' ruins. It was found that in some cases the regression might be more than temporary, and could go well beyond merely primitive humanity. After it was discovered that the Lady Fand of Valkis was abusing shanga to brutalize and degrade Earth humans, whose presence was resented, it was outlawed; however, in some disreputable quarters of Valkis a modified form of it has remained available (The Beast-Jewel of Mars, Queen of the Martian Catacombs).
Under a later lord, Delgaun, Valkis was the center of a plot to use the Dryland nomads of Kesh and Shun to attack the border City-States, to the profit of Valkis. The failure of the plot, involving the death of both Delgaun and Kynon of Shun, destroyed Valkis' chance to lead Mars (Queen of the Martian Catacombs). Valkisian hostility to Terrans remained, and it was a center of the Pan-Martian faction.
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Kahora
The Trade City of Kahora is a Terran foundation, and now serves as the administrative capital for the Martian Planetary Government (MPG). It thus does not count as a City-State, though it is one of the most populous and busy places on the planet.
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Drylands
The stretches of uncultivated land between the canals and City-States belong to the Martian Dryland nomads, who are grouped into two large and frequently antagonistic tribes, the nations of Kesh and Shun. There are a few other nomadic bands, such as the Norland tribe of Mekh, who do not belong to these two tribes.
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History
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Oceanic Mars
The present desiccated state of Mars is historically abnormal, and represents the outcome of a long period of drought beginning perhaps 20,000 years ago. Before that, Mars -- as testified to by numerous physical and historical evidences -- was an oceanic world similar to Earth.
The earliest known inhabitants of Mars were the Quiru. Their exact date is unknown: conventional dates such as "one million years ago" are at best approximate and are probably exaggerated. The ancestry of the Quiru is unknown, though they seem to have been human in form. They possessed a high technology of which little survives; but they remained in the memories of the Martians as a race of gods. Prior to all recorded history they vanished from Mars. The only name of the Quiru that is remembered, however, is that of Rhiannon, a renegade who was punished for sharing the technology of the Quiru with other, less developed Martian races, most notably the reptilian Dhuvians.
Thousands of years later, those same Dhuvians were able to create a short-lived empire around the White Sea of Mars, which included such later significant cities as Valkis and Barrakesh. They did this through manipulating the nearby human kingdom of Sark; their opponents were driven back to such refuges as Khondor, ruled by the Sea-kings. The Khonds and their allies, the halfling Swimmers and Sky Folk, were ultimately able to defeat Sark and liberate her vassal cities; the Dhuvian city of Caer Dhu was destroyed (Sea-kings of Mars).
About the same time the city of Shandakor was flourishing. Shandakor was the home of another non-human race, and possessed an advanced technology similar, though not quite as advanced, as that of the Quiru, which they shared to a judicious extent with their human neighbors. Their self-imposed isolation from the humans, some of whom they used as slaves, earned them the enmity of other humans; and though the people of Shandakor lived to see the Terran presence on Mars, their city -- already depopulated and dilapidated -- tragically fell when the neighboring nomad tribes cut their water supply (The Last Days of Shandakor).
The Thinkers, who lived in domed cities near the polar cap, were another non-human race of the time of the Sea-kings. They are thought to have withdrawn from the rest of Mars at about the time that humans became numerous, although they intervened from time to time in moments of crisis, such as the Inter-hemispheric War of 62,007 (n.b., the synchrony of this dating system with Earth reckonings is uncertain). This may have been the same war in which Sark was overthrown, although in other accounts of it the Thinkers are not mentioned (Shadow Over Mars).
Another technologically advanced race were the human Prira Cen, who lived about 40,000 years ago. They were overthrown by a nomadic people of raiders whom they had helped civilize about 400 years earlier; these people founded the empire of the Seven Kingdoms, encompassing about half of the land surface of Mars, seated at Rhiannon, an island group in the Sea of Kesh, later known as the "Lost Islands". It is uncertain if there is any connection between the islands of Rhiannon and Rhiannon of the Quiru (The Sorcerer of Rhiannon).
A more malign influence on Martian history were the Ramas, or "Immortals" of the island city of Sinharat, who developed or inherited a technology that allowed minds to be exchanged between bodies; by placing their minds into younger bodies when they became old, they acquired a sort of immortality, at the cost of thousands of lives (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat).
The causes of the long drought that desiccated Mars are not fully known; they may have had something to do with a temporary expansion of the ice cap that occurred about that time (Black Amazon of Mars). The Ramas, attempting to preserve the civilization of nearby Kharif (from which they had stolen most of their bodies), provided resources and technologies which gave them access to desalinated water. For a while Kharif flourished, but as the overall desiccation of Mars could not be halted, the end result was to create a greater population to eventually die of thirst. The remnant peoples of Kharif eventually adapted to living in a hostile, dry climate, and their descendants are the Dryland tribes of Kesh and Shun (The Road to Sinharat).
The long-term remedy for the drying-up of Mars was found in the construction of the canal system, which brought water from the polar caps to the equator, and channeled what remained of the original sea water. Access to the water of the northern polar cap, at this time greatly extended, was achieved by the Martian hero Ban Cruach. According to some legends he defeated a group of psychrophilic non-humans who had used artificial means to drain the planet's heat, and made polar melt-water available for the canals (Black Amazon of Mars).
The technology used to create the canal system has long since been lost, but the Martians who live by the canals regard keeping them clear as a traditional obligation (Mars Minus Bisha, The Road to Sinharat).
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The Coming of the Terrans
Until the later 20th century, it was widely believed that Mars was a lifeless, barren desert; astronomers such as Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell who claimed to have telescopically detected Martian life were generally disregarded. It took direct contact with Mars and its civilized peoples to vindicate their observations. Terran exploration of Mars rapidly followed the initial contacts, and the Trade City of Kahora was founded under the "Umbrella Treaty" with the Federation of Martian City-States in 1981 (Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon).
Terran influence spread slowly from Kahora, starting with spaceship crews and less savory types, thieves and mercenaries who embroiled themselves in the last-gasp wars of the older civilizations. Later they were joined by others with scientific interests: physicians, anthropologists, archaeologists, trying to make sense of the history of Mars and of its peoples. Within a few centuries, however, Terrans could be seen all over Mars.
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Martian Rebellions
The Terran presence was strongly resented by the more tradition-minded Martians. On three occasions in the early years after the coming of the Terrans, pan-Martian coalitions joining the Dryland tribes to the Low-canal towns attempted to beat back Terran culture and political dominance.
The first rebellion was that of Kynon of Shun, who together with Delgaun of Valkis and a number of criminal leaders from across the System sought to make an attack on the Dryland Border States. The rebellion fizzled when it became apparent that Kynon was in fact the tool of a conspiracy with quite different motives (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat).
The second rebellion was in opposition to a Terran-inspired scheme to replace Mars' traditional canal technology with a new technology intended to water large areas of the Drylands. The rebellion came to an end when the government abandoned the project (The Road to Sinharat).
The third rebellion for the first time combined Martian traditionalists ("pan-Martians") with Martian moderates and Terran transplants ("Unionists"), largely in response to the policies of Ed Fallon's Terran Exploitations Company, a mineral-extraction venture based in the city-state of Ruh which was very powerful. The rebellion was successful in terms of toppling the leadership of the T.E.C. and leading to a new Unionist planetary government under Hugh St. John; however, the traditionalist project of bringing to power the heir of an ancient line of Martian kings failed (Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
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The Interplanetary Wars
Mars played a significant role in each of the three major interplanetary wars. In each of them, its primary concern was protecting its access to offworld water.
In the Earth-Venus war, Mars maintained neutrality, though it was careful to keep good relations with Venus as most of its water was obtained from that planet (No Man's Land in Space). In the Jovian War, when the inhabitants of the satellites of Jupiter attacked the Triangle Worlds, Mars fought alongside Earth and Venus (Outpost on Io).
Mars' role in the Interplanetary War of the 26th century was less creditable. Emerging from its own World War in 2504, Mars attempted to reclaim large areas of the Drylands for farming -- an operation that was extremely water-intensive. To break Venus' monopoly on shipping water to Mars, the Martians sought to obtain water-rich asteroids controlled by Jupiter. With the outbreak of war between Venus and Jupiter, Mars sought to aggravate the war and improve its own position with regard to the warring parties by bombing Venus' Trade City of Vhia under the guise of a Jovian attack. Mars' role in the bombing was, however, detected by representatives of Interplanetary Press (Interplanetary Reporter).
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Anthropology and Ethnology
[edit]
Human Martians
The majority of native Martians are 'humans', not of proximate Terran stock, but (despite differences in color and build) genetically compatible with Terran humans. The historical nature of the connection remains uncertain, but the presumption is that at some point in the past an ancestral human stock had "seeded" many of the worlds of the Solar System (The Secret of Sinharat).
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Ancient Races
Some of the ancient human races of Mars have disappeared, leaving only memory and legend behind them, though rumors of their survival have occasionally surfaced.
The Quiru were perhaps the earliest known group of human Martians, possessed of a technology and knowledge so advanced that they were regarded as gods. The best known of the Quiru was Rhiannon, who taught some of the Quiru technology to the reptilians of Caer Dhu, and was therefore cast out and reviled as a diabolical figure (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Prira Cen were a wise and technologically advanced race, distinguished from the other humans of Mars by their golden eyes and blue hair. They were destroyed 40,000 years ago by the Sorcerers of the Lost Islands of Rhiannon (The Sorcerer of Rhiannon).
The Ramas were the rulers of the island city-state of Sinharat, who possessed a technology that allowed them to live on in the body of another person -- at the cost of that person's life (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat, The Road to Sinharat).
[edit]
Modern Races
Perhaps the best preserved, and certainly the most distinctive, of the ancient cultures on Mars is that of the Dryland barbarians, who are for the most part divided into the two tribes of Kesh and Shun.
The Drylanders are adept at forcing a living out of the brutally extreme climate of the desert, dryer than the Sahara on earth. They can survive desert crossings that would kill a Terran, or even a Martian of the City-States or Low-canals.
The Keshi warriors wear their tawny hair long, braided up in a kind of crown by thin metal chains. Both Keshi men and women can become warriors. Their dark brown faces are tanned to the appearance of hard wood or metal by the harsh sun, far away but barely filtered by the thin atmosphere. Their eyes are amber-yellow or blue. Their usual garment is a kilt ornamented with metal bosses.
The Shunni wear bright kilts and leather harness. Their weapons are barbed spears and knives. Their skin is olive-brown and their hair olive-purple. They live in hill-caves wherever there is an available water source.
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Halflings
Mars has possessed an unusual number of very variable non-human or semi-human (halfling) species, intelligent but alien and genetically dissimilar to the humans (Martian or Terran). Some of these are extinct, but others can be found in out-of-the-way corners of Mars.
The Swimmers were an aquatic halfling race, gifted with telepathy, living in the ancient Martian seas. They did not survive the drying up of the ocean beds and are now extinct (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Sky Folk were a winged halfling species living on islands in the sea. Originally of fully human size, their descendants on present-day Mars have dwindled to only four feet tall, and are only found in such former island fortresses as Caer Hebra (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon, Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The Dhuvians were a reptilian species that long possessed an advanced technological equipment even when the rest of Mars was limited to early Iron Age technology. Their efforts to establish an empire over the other Martian races failed, and they vanished thousands of years ago -- though it is possible that some of the vaguely reptilian races, such as the people of Shandakor, might have some connection with them (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Thinkers were a humanoid species who lived in cities near the northern polar ice-cap. They intervened from time to time in the affairs of Mars, notably during the era of the Sea-Kings, but eventually retreated to a realm of pure thought, leaving their useless bodies behind (Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The Anthropoids, or ape-men, are a sub-human, semi-intelligent race of apelike beings that roam the sea-bottoms of Mars. Whether they are an offshoot from the same root as the human Martians, or a degenerate human sub-group is uncertain. The Terran Exploitations Company employed them as trackers, kidnappers and killers (Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The People of Shandakor were a tall, golden-skinned humanoid species, with black eyes, a silver crest of wiry fibres on the scalp, similar silvery tufts on their pointed ears, and traces of scales, perhaps pointing to a reptilian ancestor. They restricted themselves to the single city of Shandakor, but their technological skills, to the degree that they agreed to share them, had a great influence on the rest of Martian civilization. Shandakor in its heyday was a great trading center visited by halflings (Swimmers, Sky Folk, Dhuvians), but as the older civilizations vanished it became increasingly remote and detached from Martian affairs, lost in its own memories of the past. Relations with the Martian humans became distant and hostile. Shandakor finally fell when its water supply was cut by one of the neighboring Dryland tribes; none of the people of Shandakor survived (The Last Days of Shandakor).
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Martian Languages
Although there are no doubt a wide variety of vernaculars spoken in the various City-States of Mars, all human Martian languages appear to be related, and two forms are widely used or recognized in all civilized areas of Mars. These are generally known as High Martian and Low Martian.
High Martian is an ancient language, which has been compared to Terran Sanskrit, though it is far older; the characters in which it is written have not changed for thousands of years. It has been retained in use as a polite and formal means of expression.
Low Martian, by contrast is the ordinary vernacular of the Low-canal towns, and can be widely understood throughout Mars.
[edit]
Martian Religion
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Archaeology
Given the Mars has, by some estimates, at least a million years of past history, archaeology is a very fruitful field. Many of the earlier archaeologists were little more than tomb robbers, less interested in scientific research than in gaining a high price for their plunder. Archaeology is now, however, carried on under the auspices of a number of Martian and Terran foundations, including the Martian Archeological Foundation, the Society for the Preservation of Martian Relics, and the Martian Antiquities department in Kahora.
Researchers into Martian antiquities have discovered many "lost cities" belonging to earlier phases of Martian history, both human and alien. These include:
Lhak
Ptakuth
Shandakor
Sinharat
Ruins near the Wells of Tamboina
In addition, productive work has been done in the vicinity of old sites that are still inhabited, like Jekkara.
[edit]
Government
[edit]
Symbols of Mars
Before the formation of the Martian Planetary Government, the only symbols representing Mars as a whole were either archaic ones from ancient Mars, or found on standards of would-be pan-Martian rebellions. The Banner of Death and Life borne in Kynon of Shun's rebellion was one such; modelled on the symbols of the ancient Ramas, it bore on a black field two white crowns above a red sword. More general in its application was the Banner of the Twin Moons raised for the planned revolt on behalf of Haral of Karadoc. It is probable that this was the inspiration for the current Martian planetary emblem of twin circles, representing the moons.
[edit]
The moons of Mars
Mars has two tiny natural moons, Denderon and Vashna, which orbit very close to the planet. Terrans generally call them by the Latin names Phobos and Deimos. Phobos, the larger, closer, and faster-moving of the two moons shows evidence of the presence of an unknown race in the distant past that has left monuments that are still little-known. In Low-canal culture, Phobos is sometimes known as the "Mad Moon" and plays an important part in certain rituals (Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon).
Photograph of a Martian sunset
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See also
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett Solar System
Mars in fiction
[edit]
References
[edit]
Core Mars stories
Martian Quest (Astounding Science Fiction February 1940)
The Treasure of Ptakuth (Astounding April 1940)
The Sorcerer of Rhiannon (novelette; Astounding February 1942)
Shadow Over Mars (Startling Stories Fall 1944) published in book form as The Nemesis from Terra
The Beast-Jewel of Mars (novelette; Planet Stories Winter 1948)
Quest of the Starhope (Thrilling Wonder Stories April 1949)
Sea-Kings of Mars (Thrilling Wonder Stories June 1949) published in book form as The Sword of Rhiannon
Queen of the Martian Catacombs (Planet Stories Summer 1949) published in book form as The Secret of Sinharat
Black Amazon of Mars (Planet Stories March 1951) published in book form as People of the Talisman
The Last Days of Shandakor (novelette; Startling Stories April 1952)
Mars Minus Bisha (Planet Stories January 1954)
The Road to Sinharat (novelette; Amazing Stories May 1963)
Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction October 1964)
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Marginal Mars stories
Water Pirate (Super Science Stories January 1941)
The Veil of Astellar (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories Spring 1944)
The Ark of Mars (Planet Stories September 1953) later published as part of the book Alpha Centauri or Die!
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Non-Mars stories
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
No Man's Land in Space (novelette; Amazing Stories July 1941)
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)[hide]
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The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
Categories: Mars in fiction | Leigh Brackett
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The planet Mars appears frequently as a setting for many of the stories of Leigh Brackett, and Mars and Martians are frequently mentioned in other stories of the Leigh Brackett Solar System. Brackett's Mars shares some characteristics with the astronomical Mars, but in other respects functions as a consistent fantasy world with recurring landmarks and characteristics that reappear from story to story. Some of these fantasy characteristics are of Brackett's own invention; others reflect some of the scientific theories about Mars that were current before the early 1960s, although certain of the astronomical and scientific details described in this article are not true of the real planet Mars.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in our solar system. In Brackett's Solar System, Mars has two moons, Denderon (Phobos) and Vashna (Deimos). Mars is one of the three "Triangle Worlds" and a founding member of both the League of Worlds and the United Worlds. It is the site of the headquarters of the Interworld Space Authority.Contents [hide]
1 Physical characteristics
1.1 Atmosphere
1.2 Geography
1.2.1 Topography
1.2.2 Canals
2 Political Geography
2.1 Low-Canal Cities
2.1.1 Barrakesh
2.1.2 Jekkara
2.1.3 Valkis
2.2 Kahora
2.3 Drylands
3 History
3.1 Oceanic Mars
3.2 The Coming of the Terrans
3.2.1 Martian Rebellions
3.3 The Interplanetary Wars
4 Anthropology and Ethnology
4.1 Human Martians
4.1.1 Ancient Races
4.1.2 Modern Races
4.2 Halflings
4.3 Martian Languages
4.4 Martian Religion
5 Archaeology
6 Government
6.1 Symbols of Mars
7 The moons of Mars
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Core Mars stories
9.2 Marginal Mars stories
9.3 Non-Mars stories
[edit]
Physical characteristics
Mars has only a quarter the surface area of the Earth and only one-tenth the mass, though its surface area is approximately equal to that of the Earth's dry land because Mars no longer possesses oceans. The solar day on Mars is very close to Earth's day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds.
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Atmosphere
The atmosphere of Mars is thinner than that of Earth or Venus, comparable to the high plateaus of the Andes or Himalayas on earth, but is oxygen-rich and presents few difficulties to offworlders after a period of acclimatization.
Image of Mars showing northern Drylands (ochre) and southern dry ocean basins (dark).
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Geography
[edit]
Topography
The dichotomy of Martian topography is telescopically observable from a great distance: pale northern plains (or "drylands") covered with reddish sands contrast with the darker southern lowlands. The north represents Mars' ancient continents, while the equatorial and southern dark patches are the dry sea-beds of ancient oceans.
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Canals
The disappearance of Mars' ancient surface water has governed the history of Mars; there is too little water on Mars to support thick clusters of population or abundant life on the surface. Martian civilization was only maintained in existence by the construction of numerous canals by means of a now-forgotten technology. The canals act as aqueducts, carrying meltwater from the polar ice-caps to the temperate and equatorial regions of Mars. In the southern hemisphere, the canals preserve the remnant waters of the ancient Martian seas, and serve to connect the remnants of Mars' former harbor cities; these canals are collectively known as the Low Canals.
For further information on the hypothetical linear structures believed by some astronomers to exist on Mars before 1964, see Martian canals.
Mars with polar ice caps visible.
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Political Geography
Although to the casual visitor to spaceports such as Kahora and Jekkara Port, Mars may seem little different from the modern urban life of Earth or Venus, beyond the big cities the life of Mars proceeds much as it has for thousands of years, based upon the ancient units of canal town and desert tribe.
The Martian Planetary Government, unlike the World Government of Terra, is a federal government whose primary units are the Martian City-States, represented in the Council of City-States. These States are largely self-governed and admit little interference in their internal affairs. The states are mostly clustered in the moister lowlands of equatorial and southern Mars, although some (the Polar Cities) are grouped in the areas close to the northern polar ice cap. The following are only some of the more prominent City-States:
Karappa
Kathuun
Kushat (polar)
Narrissan
Ruh
Tarak
Varl
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Low-Canal Cities
The Low-Canal cities, Barrakesh, Jekkara, and Valkis, are a group apart, in history and culture.
[edit]
Barrakesh
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Jekkara
Jekkara was formerly a port city and a prominent kingdom in ancient Mars. It stood on the eastern shores of the White Sea, below a range of hills immediately to its east. These hills were chosen by the ancient Quiru as the site of the tomb in which their errant compatriot, Rhiannon, was imprisoned. Thousands of years later it came under the control of the Dhuvian-supported empire of Sark, before that kingdom suddenly collapsed.
This original city of Jekkara is no longer inhabited, and is known as the "Old Town"; its lighthouse and stone and marble quays are still visible above the old waterline. As the White Sea retreated, during the 17th Dynasty of the Khalide kings (c. 16,000-14,000 ybp) Jekkara's position as a maritime power dwindled. The Khalide palace atop the cliffs that formerly lined the sea-basin (now desert) still exists, though in ruin.
The "New Town" is the still living part of Jekkara. Its center is the great square that fronts the Jekkaran Low-canal which runs, roughly north-to-south, immediately to the west of the town, by the old bridge across the canal. Jekkara's businesses are chiefly drinking, gambling, and other vices; for a long time, however, non-Martians were prohibited entry into the town, and travellers are still advised to be cautious in its back-blocks.
Jekkara also retains some quaint but little-known customs, such as the propitiatory rites to the chthonic 'Dark Lord' said to dwell in a cave in the hills above Jekkara. These have been reported to involve human sacrifice, but experts currently believe it to be a harmless, vestigial ritual, whatever its origins may have been.
Modern Jekkara is known for its pit mining, and its wealth has given it a modern spaceport (Jekkara Port), two miles from New Town. The best known of Jekkara's many entertainment establishments is Madam Kan's, boasting beautiful dancing girls, exquisitely prepared thil liquor or desert-cactus brandy, and gambling at getak.
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Valkis
Travelling south along Jekkara's Low-canal brings you to the city of Valkis, at an intersection with another canal and the cliffs that formerly lined the sea bottom. Valkis is even more archaic and conservative than Jekkara, and consequently more dangerous.
Valkis stood on a gentler slope than Jekkara's cliffs, and in consequence one can see no fewer than five different Valkises, each built below the others as the sea retreated. As in Jekkara, the highest city contains the ancient royal palace.
The hills back of Valkis are home to Shunni nomads, who cooperate with the Valkisians on certain matters.
Valkis was formerly the center of the addictive vice of shanga, the going-back, a technology inducing euphoria as part of a temporary evolutionary regression. This practice was for a while very popular among Terrans, and brought a great deal of money, some of which was used to partially restore Valkis' ruins. It was found that in some cases the regression might be more than temporary, and could go well beyond merely primitive humanity. After it was discovered that the Lady Fand of Valkis was abusing shanga to brutalize and degrade Earth humans, whose presence was resented, it was outlawed; however, in some disreputable quarters of Valkis a modified form of it has remained available (The Beast-Jewel of Mars, Queen of the Martian Catacombs).
Under a later lord, Delgaun, Valkis was the center of a plot to use the Dryland nomads of Kesh and Shun to attack the border City-States, to the profit of Valkis. The failure of the plot, involving the death of both Delgaun and Kynon of Shun, destroyed Valkis' chance to lead Mars (Queen of the Martian Catacombs). Valkisian hostility to Terrans remained, and it was a center of the Pan-Martian faction.
[edit]
Kahora
The Trade City of Kahora is a Terran foundation, and now serves as the administrative capital for the Martian Planetary Government (MPG). It thus does not count as a City-State, though it is one of the most populous and busy places on the planet.
[edit]
Drylands
The stretches of uncultivated land between the canals and City-States belong to the Martian Dryland nomads, who are grouped into two large and frequently antagonistic tribes, the nations of Kesh and Shun. There are a few other nomadic bands, such as the Norland tribe of Mekh, who do not belong to these two tribes.
[edit]
History
[edit]
Oceanic Mars
The present desiccated state of Mars is historically abnormal, and represents the outcome of a long period of drought beginning perhaps 20,000 years ago. Before that, Mars -- as testified to by numerous physical and historical evidences -- was an oceanic world similar to Earth.
The earliest known inhabitants of Mars were the Quiru. Their exact date is unknown: conventional dates such as "one million years ago" are at best approximate and are probably exaggerated. The ancestry of the Quiru is unknown, though they seem to have been human in form. They possessed a high technology of which little survives; but they remained in the memories of the Martians as a race of gods. Prior to all recorded history they vanished from Mars. The only name of the Quiru that is remembered, however, is that of Rhiannon, a renegade who was punished for sharing the technology of the Quiru with other, less developed Martian races, most notably the reptilian Dhuvians.
Thousands of years later, those same Dhuvians were able to create a short-lived empire around the White Sea of Mars, which included such later significant cities as Valkis and Barrakesh. They did this through manipulating the nearby human kingdom of Sark; their opponents were driven back to such refuges as Khondor, ruled by the Sea-kings. The Khonds and their allies, the halfling Swimmers and Sky Folk, were ultimately able to defeat Sark and liberate her vassal cities; the Dhuvian city of Caer Dhu was destroyed (Sea-kings of Mars).
About the same time the city of Shandakor was flourishing. Shandakor was the home of another non-human race, and possessed an advanced technology similar, though not quite as advanced, as that of the Quiru, which they shared to a judicious extent with their human neighbors. Their self-imposed isolation from the humans, some of whom they used as slaves, earned them the enmity of other humans; and though the people of Shandakor lived to see the Terran presence on Mars, their city -- already depopulated and dilapidated -- tragically fell when the neighboring nomad tribes cut their water supply (The Last Days of Shandakor).
The Thinkers, who lived in domed cities near the polar cap, were another non-human race of the time of the Sea-kings. They are thought to have withdrawn from the rest of Mars at about the time that humans became numerous, although they intervened from time to time in moments of crisis, such as the Inter-hemispheric War of 62,007 (n.b., the synchrony of this dating system with Earth reckonings is uncertain). This may have been the same war in which Sark was overthrown, although in other accounts of it the Thinkers are not mentioned (Shadow Over Mars).
Another technologically advanced race were the human Prira Cen, who lived about 40,000 years ago. They were overthrown by a nomadic people of raiders whom they had helped civilize about 400 years earlier; these people founded the empire of the Seven Kingdoms, encompassing about half of the land surface of Mars, seated at Rhiannon, an island group in the Sea of Kesh, later known as the "Lost Islands". It is uncertain if there is any connection between the islands of Rhiannon and Rhiannon of the Quiru (The Sorcerer of Rhiannon).
A more malign influence on Martian history were the Ramas, or "Immortals" of the island city of Sinharat, who developed or inherited a technology that allowed minds to be exchanged between bodies; by placing their minds into younger bodies when they became old, they acquired a sort of immortality, at the cost of thousands of lives (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat).
The causes of the long drought that desiccated Mars are not fully known; they may have had something to do with a temporary expansion of the ice cap that occurred about that time (Black Amazon of Mars). The Ramas, attempting to preserve the civilization of nearby Kharif (from which they had stolen most of their bodies), provided resources and technologies which gave them access to desalinated water. For a while Kharif flourished, but as the overall desiccation of Mars could not be halted, the end result was to create a greater population to eventually die of thirst. The remnant peoples of Kharif eventually adapted to living in a hostile, dry climate, and their descendants are the Dryland tribes of Kesh and Shun (The Road to Sinharat).
The long-term remedy for the drying-up of Mars was found in the construction of the canal system, which brought water from the polar caps to the equator, and channeled what remained of the original sea water. Access to the water of the northern polar cap, at this time greatly extended, was achieved by the Martian hero Ban Cruach. According to some legends he defeated a group of psychrophilic non-humans who had used artificial means to drain the planet's heat, and made polar melt-water available for the canals (Black Amazon of Mars).
The technology used to create the canal system has long since been lost, but the Martians who live by the canals regard keeping them clear as a traditional obligation (Mars Minus Bisha, The Road to Sinharat).
[edit]
The Coming of the Terrans
Until the later 20th century, it was widely believed that Mars was a lifeless, barren desert; astronomers such as Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell who claimed to have telescopically detected Martian life were generally disregarded. It took direct contact with Mars and its civilized peoples to vindicate their observations. Terran exploration of Mars rapidly followed the initial contacts, and the Trade City of Kahora was founded under the "Umbrella Treaty" with the Federation of Martian City-States in 1981 (Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon).
Terran influence spread slowly from Kahora, starting with spaceship crews and less savory types, thieves and mercenaries who embroiled themselves in the last-gasp wars of the older civilizations. Later they were joined by others with scientific interests: physicians, anthropologists, archaeologists, trying to make sense of the history of Mars and of its peoples. Within a few centuries, however, Terrans could be seen all over Mars.
[edit]
Martian Rebellions
The Terran presence was strongly resented by the more tradition-minded Martians. On three occasions in the early years after the coming of the Terrans, pan-Martian coalitions joining the Dryland tribes to the Low-canal towns attempted to beat back Terran culture and political dominance.
The first rebellion was that of Kynon of Shun, who together with Delgaun of Valkis and a number of criminal leaders from across the System sought to make an attack on the Dryland Border States. The rebellion fizzled when it became apparent that Kynon was in fact the tool of a conspiracy with quite different motives (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat).
The second rebellion was in opposition to a Terran-inspired scheme to replace Mars' traditional canal technology with a new technology intended to water large areas of the Drylands. The rebellion came to an end when the government abandoned the project (The Road to Sinharat).
The third rebellion for the first time combined Martian traditionalists ("pan-Martians") with Martian moderates and Terran transplants ("Unionists"), largely in response to the policies of Ed Fallon's Terran Exploitations Company, a mineral-extraction venture based in the city-state of Ruh which was very powerful. The rebellion was successful in terms of toppling the leadership of the T.E.C. and leading to a new Unionist planetary government under Hugh St. John; however, the traditionalist project of bringing to power the heir of an ancient line of Martian kings failed (Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
[edit]
The Interplanetary Wars
Mars played a significant role in each of the three major interplanetary wars. In each of them, its primary concern was protecting its access to offworld water.
In the Earth-Venus war, Mars maintained neutrality, though it was careful to keep good relations with Venus as most of its water was obtained from that planet (No Man's Land in Space). In the Jovian War, when the inhabitants of the satellites of Jupiter attacked the Triangle Worlds, Mars fought alongside Earth and Venus (Outpost on Io).
Mars' role in the Interplanetary War of the 26th century was less creditable. Emerging from its own World War in 2504, Mars attempted to reclaim large areas of the Drylands for farming -- an operation that was extremely water-intensive. To break Venus' monopoly on shipping water to Mars, the Martians sought to obtain water-rich asteroids controlled by Jupiter. With the outbreak of war between Venus and Jupiter, Mars sought to aggravate the war and improve its own position with regard to the warring parties by bombing Venus' Trade City of Vhia under the guise of a Jovian attack. Mars' role in the bombing was, however, detected by representatives of Interplanetary Press (Interplanetary Reporter).
[edit]
Anthropology and Ethnology
[edit]
Human Martians
The majority of native Martians are 'humans', not of proximate Terran stock, but (despite differences in color and build) genetically compatible with Terran humans. The historical nature of the connection remains uncertain, but the presumption is that at some point in the past an ancestral human stock had "seeded" many of the worlds of the Solar System (The Secret of Sinharat).
[edit]
Ancient Races
Some of the ancient human races of Mars have disappeared, leaving only memory and legend behind them, though rumors of their survival have occasionally surfaced.
The Quiru were perhaps the earliest known group of human Martians, possessed of a technology and knowledge so advanced that they were regarded as gods. The best known of the Quiru was Rhiannon, who taught some of the Quiru technology to the reptilians of Caer Dhu, and was therefore cast out and reviled as a diabolical figure (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Prira Cen were a wise and technologically advanced race, distinguished from the other humans of Mars by their golden eyes and blue hair. They were destroyed 40,000 years ago by the Sorcerers of the Lost Islands of Rhiannon (The Sorcerer of Rhiannon).
The Ramas were the rulers of the island city-state of Sinharat, who possessed a technology that allowed them to live on in the body of another person -- at the cost of that person's life (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat, The Road to Sinharat).
[edit]
Modern Races
Perhaps the best preserved, and certainly the most distinctive, of the ancient cultures on Mars is that of the Dryland barbarians, who are for the most part divided into the two tribes of Kesh and Shun.
The Drylanders are adept at forcing a living out of the brutally extreme climate of the desert, dryer than the Sahara on earth. They can survive desert crossings that would kill a Terran, or even a Martian of the City-States or Low-canals.
The Keshi warriors wear their tawny hair long, braided up in a kind of crown by thin metal chains. Both Keshi men and women can become warriors. Their dark brown faces are tanned to the appearance of hard wood or metal by the harsh sun, far away but barely filtered by the thin atmosphere. Their eyes are amber-yellow or blue. Their usual garment is a kilt ornamented with metal bosses.
The Shunni wear bright kilts and leather harness. Their weapons are barbed spears and knives. Their skin is olive-brown and their hair olive-purple. They live in hill-caves wherever there is an available water source.
[edit]
Halflings
Mars has possessed an unusual number of very variable non-human or semi-human (halfling) species, intelligent but alien and genetically dissimilar to the humans (Martian or Terran). Some of these are extinct, but others can be found in out-of-the-way corners of Mars.
The Swimmers were an aquatic halfling race, gifted with telepathy, living in the ancient Martian seas. They did not survive the drying up of the ocean beds and are now extinct (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Sky Folk were a winged halfling species living on islands in the sea. Originally of fully human size, their descendants on present-day Mars have dwindled to only four feet tall, and are only found in such former island fortresses as Caer Hebra (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon, Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The Dhuvians were a reptilian species that long possessed an advanced technological equipment even when the rest of Mars was limited to early Iron Age technology. Their efforts to establish an empire over the other Martian races failed, and they vanished thousands of years ago -- though it is possible that some of the vaguely reptilian races, such as the people of Shandakor, might have some connection with them (Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon).
The Thinkers were a humanoid species who lived in cities near the northern polar ice-cap. They intervened from time to time in the affairs of Mars, notably during the era of the Sea-Kings, but eventually retreated to a realm of pure thought, leaving their useless bodies behind (Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The Anthropoids, or ape-men, are a sub-human, semi-intelligent race of apelike beings that roam the sea-bottoms of Mars. Whether they are an offshoot from the same root as the human Martians, or a degenerate human sub-group is uncertain. The Terran Exploitations Company employed them as trackers, kidnappers and killers (Shadow over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra).
The People of Shandakor were a tall, golden-skinned humanoid species, with black eyes, a silver crest of wiry fibres on the scalp, similar silvery tufts on their pointed ears, and traces of scales, perhaps pointing to a reptilian ancestor. They restricted themselves to the single city of Shandakor, but their technological skills, to the degree that they agreed to share them, had a great influence on the rest of Martian civilization. Shandakor in its heyday was a great trading center visited by halflings (Swimmers, Sky Folk, Dhuvians), but as the older civilizations vanished it became increasingly remote and detached from Martian affairs, lost in its own memories of the past. Relations with the Martian humans became distant and hostile. Shandakor finally fell when its water supply was cut by one of the neighboring Dryland tribes; none of the people of Shandakor survived (The Last Days of Shandakor).
[edit]
Martian Languages
Although there are no doubt a wide variety of vernaculars spoken in the various City-States of Mars, all human Martian languages appear to be related, and two forms are widely used or recognized in all civilized areas of Mars. These are generally known as High Martian and Low Martian.
High Martian is an ancient language, which has been compared to Terran Sanskrit, though it is far older; the characters in which it is written have not changed for thousands of years. It has been retained in use as a polite and formal means of expression.
Low Martian, by contrast is the ordinary vernacular of the Low-canal towns, and can be widely understood throughout Mars.
[edit]
Martian Religion
[edit]
Archaeology
Given the Mars has, by some estimates, at least a million years of past history, archaeology is a very fruitful field. Many of the earlier archaeologists were little more than tomb robbers, less interested in scientific research than in gaining a high price for their plunder. Archaeology is now, however, carried on under the auspices of a number of Martian and Terran foundations, including the Martian Archeological Foundation, the Society for the Preservation of Martian Relics, and the Martian Antiquities department in Kahora.
Researchers into Martian antiquities have discovered many "lost cities" belonging to earlier phases of Martian history, both human and alien. These include:
Lhak
Ptakuth
Shandakor
Sinharat
Ruins near the Wells of Tamboina
In addition, productive work has been done in the vicinity of old sites that are still inhabited, like Jekkara.
[edit]
Government
[edit]
Symbols of Mars
Before the formation of the Martian Planetary Government, the only symbols representing Mars as a whole were either archaic ones from ancient Mars, or found on standards of would-be pan-Martian rebellions. The Banner of Death and Life borne in Kynon of Shun's rebellion was one such; modelled on the symbols of the ancient Ramas, it bore on a black field two white crowns above a red sword. More general in its application was the Banner of the Twin Moons raised for the planned revolt on behalf of Haral of Karadoc. It is probable that this was the inspiration for the current Martian planetary emblem of twin circles, representing the moons.
[edit]
The moons of Mars
Mars has two tiny natural moons, Denderon and Vashna, which orbit very close to the planet. Terrans generally call them by the Latin names Phobos and Deimos. Phobos, the larger, closer, and faster-moving of the two moons shows evidence of the presence of an unknown race in the distant past that has left monuments that are still little-known. In Low-canal culture, Phobos is sometimes known as the "Mad Moon" and plays an important part in certain rituals (Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon).
Photograph of a Martian sunset
[edit]
See also
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett Solar System
Mars in fiction
[edit]
References
[edit]
Core Mars stories
Martian Quest (Astounding Science Fiction February 1940)
The Treasure of Ptakuth (Astounding April 1940)
The Sorcerer of Rhiannon (novelette; Astounding February 1942)
Shadow Over Mars (Startling Stories Fall 1944) published in book form as The Nemesis from Terra
The Beast-Jewel of Mars (novelette; Planet Stories Winter 1948)
Quest of the Starhope (Thrilling Wonder Stories April 1949)
Sea-Kings of Mars (Thrilling Wonder Stories June 1949) published in book form as The Sword of Rhiannon
Queen of the Martian Catacombs (Planet Stories Summer 1949) published in book form as The Secret of Sinharat
Black Amazon of Mars (Planet Stories March 1951) published in book form as People of the Talisman
The Last Days of Shandakor (novelette; Startling Stories April 1952)
Mars Minus Bisha (Planet Stories January 1954)
The Road to Sinharat (novelette; Amazing Stories May 1963)
Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction October 1964)
[edit]
Marginal Mars stories
Water Pirate (Super Science Stories January 1941)
The Veil of Astellar (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories Spring 1944)
The Ark of Mars (Planet Stories September 1953) later published as part of the book Alpha Centauri or Die!
[edit]
Non-Mars stories
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
No Man's Land in Space (novelette; Amazing Stories July 1941)
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)[hide]
v • d • e
The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
Categories: Mars in fiction | Leigh Brackett
4.5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
Jupiter In the Fiction Of Leigh Brackett - Various Various
Jupiter in the fiction of Leigh Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jupiter, the fifth and largest planet of the Solar System, and its moons play a significant role in the Solar System fiction of Leigh Brackett. In Brackett's stories, Jupiter's largest moons are inhabited by a variety of exotic intelligent species; the system serves as a frontier region, beyond the explored and settled Triangle worlds of Venus, Earth, and Mars.
As in real life, in Brackett's Solar System Jupiter is a massive, heavy-gravity world swathed in a cloak of poisonous gases, uninhabited as far as anyone knows.Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Natural satellites
3 Io (Jupiter I)
4 Europa (Jupiter II)
5 Ganymede (Jupiter III)
6 Callisto (Jupiter IV)
7 References
7.1 Stories set in the Jovian system
7.2 Other stories
[edit]
History
Even after Terra had sent spaceships to Venus and Mars, it took many years before a manned expedition was sent to Jupiter; concerns involved not only distance, time, and energy, but also the dangers of crossing the Asteroid Belt in the time before effective anti-impact deflectors were built. The impenetrable area around Jupiter was then known as the "Jovian Gulf" (Cube from Space). The first manned expedition to Jupiter was launched from Mars, and included Stephen Vance. Even after this expedition, however, travel to Jupiter was very difficult; crossing the Asteroid Belt was dangerous, and several ships disappeared in the mysterious "Veil", which was a menace for three hundred years. It was not until the invention of the Rosson deflector and the disappearance of the Veil that it was possible for large numbers of people to travel to Jupiter safely (The Veil of Astellar).
For a long time, the human settlements on the Jovian moons were mere colonial outposts, in conflict with the natives of Jupiter's moons and dependent upon the Inner Worlds for supplies. Abortive attempts were made to organize the colonies from an early date, such as the Brotherhood of the Little Worlds (really a criminal enterprise masquerading as a political movement) of Arrod of Callisto (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat); there were also native uprisings, such as the one led by the Mercurian Eric John Stark (Enchantress of Venus). But it was not until the much later influx of settlers that Jupiter acquired its own identity and nationhood.
This new unity was powerfully expressed in the Jovian war, fought against all of the Triangle Worlds, in which the Jovians had the advantage due to their possession of Jovium, an isotope capable of disintegrating metal (Outpost on Io).
Jupiter obtained control of a considerable number of asteroids (the "Jovian Mandate"), including three of the most water-rich planetoids, as well as a forward base on Ceres. Conflicts over this territory led to a brief war with Venus (Interplanetary Reporter).
[edit]
Natural satellites
Jupiter's 4 largest moons: from top to bottom, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.
When Brackett's stories were written, Jupiter was known to have twelve moons orbiting it. The four largest of these are Io (Jupiter I), Europa (Jupiter II), Ganymede (Jupiter III), and Callisto (Jupiter IV). They are among the largest moons in the solar system, and only these four are permanently inhabited. Several other moons orbit Jupiter, but none play a significant role in the stories.
Although the diminished heat of the Sun at Jupiter's distance would be expected to leave the moons cold and frozen, Jupiter's gravity causes tidal heating of the three moons' cores, causing internal heating and vulcanism.
[edit]
Io (Jupiter I)
Io is the innermost and third largest of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter.
Other than a small amount found on Jupiter XI, Io is the only source of Jovium, a radioactive isotope that can trigger a progressive breakdown in metallic atoms. Jovium is extracted from certain blue-green "muds" found on the surface of Io, which also have the property of crystallizing carbon wherever they come into contact with it—including living flesh. It was used as a weapon in the Jovian War, but production of Jovium abruptly halted after the explosive destruction of the Jovians' primary extraction plant.
Due to the instability of its surface, Io is uninhabited by intelligent beings other than military personnel and others involved in mineral extraction. The only significant animal indigenous to Io is the indescribable quag.
[edit]
Europa (Jupiter II)
Europa is a moon of the planet Jupiter. It is the fourth largest by diameter and mass of Jupiter's satellites. It is the smallest of the four Galilean moons.
Europa is home to a number of species, including two intelligent ones, the Europan birdmen and the tentacled Europans.
The tentacled Europans stand approximately eight feet tall. They move about on four "rubbery" legs, which support a body with smooth black skin. Their tentacles are manipulative and sensory appendages that sprout in a crown from the top of their body. Being extremely strong, they are often used as soldiers, though they have a propensity to motion sickness (Outpost on Io).
The Europan birdmen are basically humanoid, but with small, wiry bodies and wings spanning twenty feet. They are light enough to be capable of flight both on Europa and on Earth (The Halfling).
[edit]
Ganymede (Jupiter III)
Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon, and indeed the largest moon in the entire solar system; it is larger in diameter than Mercury but only about half its mass.
Ganymede is one of Jovian moons most hospitable to life. Its internal heat raises its temperature higher than would be expected from solar radiation, while interactions between its ocean, volcanoes and biosphere have produced an oxygen-rich atmosphere, though one that also has a high sulfur content.
[edit]
Callisto (Jupiter IV)
Callisto is a moon of the planet Jupiter. It is the third-largest moon in the solar system, and the second largest satellite of Jupiter, about the same size as the planet Mercury.
Callisto possesses two quite distinct intelligent species. One type is humanoid, though smaller and thinner than humans, and with four arms. These Callistans have scarlet eyes, white fur, and scarlet feather-like antennae atop their heads. They possess psionic abilities that they can project through the music of specially designed instruments (The Citadel of Lost Ships).
The other intelligent species, the cat-men, descend from a feline ancestor. In shape they closely resemble humans, and except for their tails, clawed feet, and a mane of fur across their shoulders and down their backs to the tail could pass for human. They are, however, forbidden to mix with humans and will retaliate against any member of their species who does so. Their most significant weakness is the propensity to become addicted to coffee (The Halfling).
[edit]
References
[edit]
Stories set in the Jovian system
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Dancing Girl of Ganymede (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1950)
[edit]
Other stories
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
Cube from Space (Super Science Stories August 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)
The Citadel of Lost Ships (Planet Stories March 1943)
Shadow Over Mars (Startling Stories Fall 1944) published in book form as The Nemesis from Terra
The Veil of Astellar (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories Spring 1944)
Queen of the Martian Catacombs (Planet Stories Summer 1949) published in book form as The Secret of Sinharat
City of the Lost Ones (novella; Planet Stories Fall 1949) also published as Enchantress of Venus[hide]
v • d • e
The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
Categories: Jupiter in fiction | Leigh Brackett
4.5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jupiter, the fifth and largest planet of the Solar System, and its moons play a significant role in the Solar System fiction of Leigh Brackett. In Brackett's stories, Jupiter's largest moons are inhabited by a variety of exotic intelligent species; the system serves as a frontier region, beyond the explored and settled Triangle worlds of Venus, Earth, and Mars.
As in real life, in Brackett's Solar System Jupiter is a massive, heavy-gravity world swathed in a cloak of poisonous gases, uninhabited as far as anyone knows.Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Natural satellites
3 Io (Jupiter I)
4 Europa (Jupiter II)
5 Ganymede (Jupiter III)
6 Callisto (Jupiter IV)
7 References
7.1 Stories set in the Jovian system
7.2 Other stories
[edit]
History
Even after Terra had sent spaceships to Venus and Mars, it took many years before a manned expedition was sent to Jupiter; concerns involved not only distance, time, and energy, but also the dangers of crossing the Asteroid Belt in the time before effective anti-impact deflectors were built. The impenetrable area around Jupiter was then known as the "Jovian Gulf" (Cube from Space). The first manned expedition to Jupiter was launched from Mars, and included Stephen Vance. Even after this expedition, however, travel to Jupiter was very difficult; crossing the Asteroid Belt was dangerous, and several ships disappeared in the mysterious "Veil", which was a menace for three hundred years. It was not until the invention of the Rosson deflector and the disappearance of the Veil that it was possible for large numbers of people to travel to Jupiter safely (The Veil of Astellar).
For a long time, the human settlements on the Jovian moons were mere colonial outposts, in conflict with the natives of Jupiter's moons and dependent upon the Inner Worlds for supplies. Abortive attempts were made to organize the colonies from an early date, such as the Brotherhood of the Little Worlds (really a criminal enterprise masquerading as a political movement) of Arrod of Callisto (Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat); there were also native uprisings, such as the one led by the Mercurian Eric John Stark (Enchantress of Venus). But it was not until the much later influx of settlers that Jupiter acquired its own identity and nationhood.
This new unity was powerfully expressed in the Jovian war, fought against all of the Triangle Worlds, in which the Jovians had the advantage due to their possession of Jovium, an isotope capable of disintegrating metal (Outpost on Io).
Jupiter obtained control of a considerable number of asteroids (the "Jovian Mandate"), including three of the most water-rich planetoids, as well as a forward base on Ceres. Conflicts over this territory led to a brief war with Venus (Interplanetary Reporter).
[edit]
Natural satellites
Jupiter's 4 largest moons: from top to bottom, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.
When Brackett's stories were written, Jupiter was known to have twelve moons orbiting it. The four largest of these are Io (Jupiter I), Europa (Jupiter II), Ganymede (Jupiter III), and Callisto (Jupiter IV). They are among the largest moons in the solar system, and only these four are permanently inhabited. Several other moons orbit Jupiter, but none play a significant role in the stories.
Although the diminished heat of the Sun at Jupiter's distance would be expected to leave the moons cold and frozen, Jupiter's gravity causes tidal heating of the three moons' cores, causing internal heating and vulcanism.
[edit]
Io (Jupiter I)
Io is the innermost and third largest of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter.
Other than a small amount found on Jupiter XI, Io is the only source of Jovium, a radioactive isotope that can trigger a progressive breakdown in metallic atoms. Jovium is extracted from certain blue-green "muds" found on the surface of Io, which also have the property of crystallizing carbon wherever they come into contact with it—including living flesh. It was used as a weapon in the Jovian War, but production of Jovium abruptly halted after the explosive destruction of the Jovians' primary extraction plant.
Due to the instability of its surface, Io is uninhabited by intelligent beings other than military personnel and others involved in mineral extraction. The only significant animal indigenous to Io is the indescribable quag.
[edit]
Europa (Jupiter II)
Europa is a moon of the planet Jupiter. It is the fourth largest by diameter and mass of Jupiter's satellites. It is the smallest of the four Galilean moons.
Europa is home to a number of species, including two intelligent ones, the Europan birdmen and the tentacled Europans.
The tentacled Europans stand approximately eight feet tall. They move about on four "rubbery" legs, which support a body with smooth black skin. Their tentacles are manipulative and sensory appendages that sprout in a crown from the top of their body. Being extremely strong, they are often used as soldiers, though they have a propensity to motion sickness (Outpost on Io).
The Europan birdmen are basically humanoid, but with small, wiry bodies and wings spanning twenty feet. They are light enough to be capable of flight both on Europa and on Earth (The Halfling).
[edit]
Ganymede (Jupiter III)
Ganymede is Jupiter's largest moon, and indeed the largest moon in the entire solar system; it is larger in diameter than Mercury but only about half its mass.
Ganymede is one of Jovian moons most hospitable to life. Its internal heat raises its temperature higher than would be expected from solar radiation, while interactions between its ocean, volcanoes and biosphere have produced an oxygen-rich atmosphere, though one that also has a high sulfur content.
[edit]
Callisto (Jupiter IV)
Callisto is a moon of the planet Jupiter. It is the third-largest moon in the solar system, and the second largest satellite of Jupiter, about the same size as the planet Mercury.
Callisto possesses two quite distinct intelligent species. One type is humanoid, though smaller and thinner than humans, and with four arms. These Callistans have scarlet eyes, white fur, and scarlet feather-like antennae atop their heads. They possess psionic abilities that they can project through the music of specially designed instruments (The Citadel of Lost Ships).
The other intelligent species, the cat-men, descend from a feline ancestor. In shape they closely resemble humans, and except for their tails, clawed feet, and a mane of fur across their shoulders and down their backs to the tail could pass for human. They are, however, forbidden to mix with humans and will retaliate against any member of their species who does so. Their most significant weakness is the propensity to become addicted to coffee (The Halfling).
[edit]
References
[edit]
Stories set in the Jovian system
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Dancing Girl of Ganymede (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1950)
[edit]
Other stories
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
Cube from Space (Super Science Stories August 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)
The Citadel of Lost Ships (Planet Stories March 1943)
Shadow Over Mars (Startling Stories Fall 1944) published in book form as The Nemesis from Terra
The Veil of Astellar (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories Spring 1944)
Queen of the Martian Catacombs (Planet Stories Summer 1949) published in book form as The Secret of Sinharat
City of the Lost Ones (novella; Planet Stories Fall 1949) also published as Enchantress of Venus[hide]
v • d • e
The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
Categories: Jupiter in fiction | Leigh Brackett
4.5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
Venus In the Fiction Of Leigh Brackett - Various Various
Venus in the fiction of Leigh Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Venus and Venusians are frequently appearing settings and characters for many of the Solar System stories of Leigh Brackett. Brackett's Venus shares some characteristics with the astronomical Venus, but in other respects functions as a consistent fantasy world with recurring landmarks and characteristics that reappear from story to story. Some of these fantasy characteristics are of Brackett's own invention; others reflect some of the scientific theories about Venus that were current before the early 1960s.Contents [hide]
1 Astronomical characteristics
2 Physical characteristics
2.1 Atmosphere
2.2 Geography
3 History of Venus
3.1 Prehistory
3.2 Terran invasions
3.3 Interplanetary Wars
4 Biology
4.1 Fauna
4.2 Flora
5 Anthropology and Ethnology
5.1 Venusian humans
5.2 Venusian humanoids
6 Government
7 Venus' moon
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Core Venus stories
9.2 Marginal Venus stories
9.3 Non-Venus stories
[edit]
Astronomical characteristics
In Brackett's Solar System, Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is very similar in size and composition to the Earth, and is even wetter and possesses a richer biosphere.
Venus circles the Sun in a Venusian year of 224.7 Earth-days. The day of Brackett's Venus is longer than Earth's (The Moon That Vanished) but the length is unspecified; it is clear, however, that Venus is not tidally locked to the Sun and undergoes a regular day-night cycle. The axial tilt of Venus is likely small, as there appears to be little in the way of seasonal variation.
[edit]
Physical characteristics
[edit]
Atmosphere
Venus possesses a very dense, oxygen-rich, water-saturated atmosphere. This produces a dense cloud-layer around the planet, which prevents direct observation of the surface from above the cloud tops. From the surface, the stars are never visible, and the sun only indirectly so. Venus' atmosphere is highly charged, and the magnetic interference makes navigation difficult.
[edit]
Geography
Most of Venus is very low-lying, shallow seas and swamps just below or near sea level. The mountain and plateau country -- the only parts of Venus inhabitable by Terrans, and preferred by the native Venusian humans -- is rare and extremely valuable. Some of the highlands reach high enough to penetrate the cloud layer and receive some direct sunlight.
The inhabited southern hemisphere is dominated by the Sea of Morning Opals, one of Venus' deeper seas. Towards the north this sea narrows to the strait called the "Dragon's Throat", beyond which lie the Upper Seas which lie along the equator. The Upper Seas are landlocked, very shallow and filled with dangerous reefs. Somewhere in the Upper Seas lies the fabulous and forbidden Moonfire (The Moon that Vanished).
The continental areas are for the most part low-lying swamp, brackish near the coasts, but also discharging fresh water into the littoral zones. These swamps have been in place for hundreds of millions of years, and the vegetation beneath them has compacted to form thick deposits of coal, which can be mined.
Venus' main continent is divided by the range called the Mountains of White Cloud. These mountains form a formidable barrier; air travel across them is considered impossible, due to their great (literally stratospheric) height and the local magnetic anomalies near them that render instrumental flying impossible (Lorelei of the Red Mist). Travel across these mountains by land is extraordinarily dangerous. The far side of the mountains is little known; the only securely recognized landmark in transmontane Venus is the Red Sea, a huge lake filled with a red gas. The gas is heavy enough not to diffuse into the atmosphere, and buoyant enough to float watercraft or to swim in; but it is mixed with oxygen, and can be inhaled without immediate ill effect, though prolonged exposure is discouraged.
The area around the Red Sea is barbarous and dangerous, dominated by thieves and pirates who infest such strongholds as Shuruun, Falga and Crom Dhu (Enchantress of Venus, Lorelei of the Red Mist).
[edit]
History of Venus
[edit]
Prehistory
No Venusian people ever developed its own system of writing, so little or nothing is known about the history of Venus before the coming of the Terrans. The Venusian humans, closely akin to Earth humans and unlike the mainly reptilian denizens of the rest of Venus, evidently were transplanted to Venus from outside, though by what agency remains unknown. They have no recollection in their traditions of a time before they arrived on Venus.
The myths of the Venusian humans do, however, recall the impact of fragments of Venus' former moon on the surface of the planet. If this could be dated precisely, it would provide a lower limit for the arrival of humans on Venus; however, the sites of the impacts are either unknown or unapproachable due to high levels of residual radioactivity.
[edit]
Terran invasions
The initial Terran presence on Venus involved far more violence than the comparable presence on Mars. The Martians continued the traditions of an ancient civilization, and the Terrans could at least pretend to deal with them from a position of equality; but the natives Venusians appeared, from the Terran point of view, to be no more than savages. Terran attempts to obtain a foothold on Venus were met with brutal Venusian violence and even more ruthless reprisals. Although the Venusians could not match the Terran level of technology, their superior knowledge of Venus' terrain and its exotic biology often gave them an edge in conflicts with the Terrans.
[edit]
Interplanetary Wars
Venus was for some time under the control of the powerful Terra-Venusian coalition, in which the Terrans were the dominant partner, and the exploitation of Venusian resources was carried out quickly despite the objections of Venusian natives.
Venusian independence brought Venus into a wider world of interplanetary conflict. In a war with Earth, Venus bombarded Earth from space, but failed to complete its secret weapon: an army of radio-telepathically controlled zombies (No Man's Land in Space).
Venus also sided with the other Triangle Worlds against the Jovians, but found itself in conflict with both Jupiter and Mars in a later war over territory in the Asteroid Belt. Venus' Trade City of Vhia was bombarded from space; this bombardment was initially believed to be the work of the Jovians, but turned out to be a Martian ploy to aggravate Venusian-Jovian tensions to the point of no return (Interplanetary Reporter).
[edit]
Biology
Venus' plentiful water and oxygen combined with tropic heat make it a very favorable site for the growth of life. Venus boasts the densest and most diverse array of biota in the Solar System. Only a few of Venus' millions of species can be described below.
[edit]
Fauna
Despite Venus' diversity, Venusian fauna has, for the most part, not yet evolved beyond the reptilian stage. Most of the native higher fauna are scaly predators, carnivorous or omnivorous. Insect life is even more common.
Bird-lizards - flying gray-green reptiles with feathery wings. These creatures grow large enough to carry a fully-grown human as a mount, and are used in war by the Venusian barbarian tribes (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
Golden hounds – aquatic creatures inhabiting the gaseous Red Sea. They are quadrupeds of a pale golden, phosphorescent color, with large, jewel-like eyes. They move through the thick gas with the thrust of their flat tails, and are guided by wing-like membranes along their flanks. They can be trained to act like hunting or herding dogs (Lorelei of the Red Mist).
Green snakes - most of the mass of these creatures, normally about 3m in length, is made up of water. They change size relative to the amount of water available, however, and if artificially deprived of water can shrink to a decimeter or less in length. If they obtain a new water source they can quickly return to their full length They are blood-feeders and inject a venom that causes a temporary insanity in their victims. (The Dragon-Queen of Venus.)
Guardians of the Upper Seas – Aquatic carnivorous scale-backed reptiles of monstrous size, capable of destroying a ship and devouring the crew. No Guardian has ever been seen in its entirety (The Moon that Vanished).
Leshen (swamp-dragons) – these swamp-dwelling carnivores are nocturnal hunters. They are hunted and their skins made into a kind of leather (The Citadel of Lost Ships, The Vanishing Venusians).
Scarlet beetles – these large, crawling beetles are scavengers and flesh-eaters; a colony of them can strip the flesh from a body, living or dead, in less than a minute, leaving nothing but bones (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
Reptilians – sea-dwelling reptiles who live among the seaweed, and feed upon sea-dragon eggs (The Moon that Vanished).
Sea-dragons – small flying reptiles, with bright jewel-like scales and red eyes. They fly inland, but lay their eggs in masses of weed out on the open seas. They can be made pets, but never become truly domesticated. (The Moon that Vanished, The Vanishing Venusians, Terror Out of Space.)
Swamp-rhinos – a poorly known animal, which bears horns used for ornament by the Venusian barbarians (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
War-dogs – these reptiles actually resemble miniature carnosaurs, being bipedal with grasping hands. They take their name from being used as attack beasts by the barbarian tribes, who attach bone spikes to their tails as an additional weapon (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
[edit]
Flora
In addition to normal sessile plant life, Venus possesses a highly evolved group of motile plants, or "planimals" (colloquially "plannies"), some of which have attained a degree of intelligence.
Planimals
Kelp-beasts are among the most dangerous planimals, living in the depths of the Venusian oceans but periodically raiding the shallower seas for food. They are agile swimmers, with a body plan something between a ray and a squid; they have dark red-brown bulb-like bodies, with leafy ray-fins, a fishtail-like flange at the rear for steering, and stinging tentacles (Terror Out of Space).
Plant-men live in the shallow seas, near ruined cities. They are 3 to 4 feet tall. They have pixie-like faces, large round golden eyes with brown pupils, webs for swimming on their hands and feet, but with the main swimming locomotion provided by a long, fluttering membrane between the arms and legs. They also have multicolored petal-like growths on their heads. Their color ranges from blue-grey to warm green, depending upon emotion. They begin life as plants rooted in the shallow sea-sand, but as they grow they unroot and learn to swim (Terror Out of Space).
Swimmers live in the freshwater streams of highland caverns. They are also humanoid, with a golden phosphorescent color. Their eyes are lidless and black. When young hey have multiple growths capable of their own movement around their faces, resembling the petals of a dandelion; as they age, these turn into flat, coiled, fungus-like growths. Their thorn-like claws carry a toxin (The Vanishing Venusians).
Forest people live on the highlands. They have a pale, translucent greenish skin, blue eyes and short curly petal=hair of various colors such as deep blue, scarlet and white. They are intelligent and possess telepathic and telekinetic powers but have little in the way of cultural attainments, with no clothes, buildings, or rituals (The Vanishing Venusians).
Other plants
liha-trees
[edit]
Anthropology and Ethnology
[edit]
Venusian humans
The highlands of Venus are dominated by humans, genetically close to Earth humans and capable of interbreeding with them -- and so, presumably, sharing the same origin, though the exact relationship is uncertain. Due to the filtering of the sun through the thick clouds, little ultraviolet reaches the surface, and there is no need for high levels of protective melanin. Venusians are accordingly very pale, with hair ranging in color from blond to white.
[edit]
Venusian humanoids
Nahali
The Nahali are intelligent reptilian humanoids who inhabit the Venusian Deep Swamps. They are tall (averaging about 2m), have bright red eyes, and are covered in greenish iridescent scales. Their bodies also carry a powerful electric charge, which makes them dangerous to touch. Although their general anatomy resembles the human, their faces are very different, having no noses and triangular mouths. They are capable of breathing under water, since their skin cells extract oxygen directly from the water. They are dependent, however, upon a high degree of atmospheric humidity, which keeps them bound to the swamps except during the rainy season. (The Stellar Legion)
Kraylens
The Kraylens are closer to human than the Nahali, with bluish-white skin, opalescent eyes, broad cheeks and pointed chins. Their most notable mark is the featherlike crest that extends from the brow ridges, across the top of the head, and down the spine to the waist. The Kraylens live on the swamp-edges and practice a form of agriculture. (The Citadel of Lost Ships)
Lohari
Not much is known about this rare reptilian species; they live in the Lohari swamps, have four arms each, and crawl like serpents. (The Citadel of Lost Ships)
Sea-folk
These are an amphibious people living in or around the gaseous Red Sea, beyond the Mountains of White Cloud. Descended from a fish-like ancestor, they have pale white skin, with a hint of scales, but their hair, lips, eyes, and nipples are light green or aquamarine. They divided into two peoples, one land-dwelling and one sea-dwelling; the sea-dwellers are more like their piscine ancestors, having webbed hands and feet and visible gill slits. (Lorelei of the Red Mist)
[edit]
Government
[edit]
Venus' moon
The belief that Venus once had a moon that vanished at some point in the distant past is common among the peoples and tribes of Venus. The religion known as the "Mysteries of the Moon" is centered upon a story of this lost moon. According to the myth, the god of this moon was the ruler of all the other gods, but because of their jealousy they destroyed his palace and killed him. His body fell from the skies onto the surface of Venus, where, unable to truly die, it sleeps and breathes. The shining cloud that surrounds his body is known as the Moonfire, and those who attempt to penetrate it to gain godhead from the sleeping god will be cursed by all the gods of Venus. The priests who call themselves the Children of the Moon will seek vengeance upon anyone who seeks to invade the Moonfire, but anyone who goes and successfully returns is sacrosanct.
The reality behind the myth is disputed, but may reflect the impaction of a portion of a small, unstable orbiting body upon the surface of Venus, leaving there a powerful radioactive source with strange effects upon the human mind.
[edit]
See also
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett Solar System
Venus in fiction
[edit]
References
[edit]
Core Venus stories
The Stellar Legion (Planet Stories Winter 1940)
The Dragon-Queen of Jupiter (Planet Stories Summer 1941) also published as The Dragon-Queen of Venus
Terror Out of Space (Planet Stories Summer 1944)
The Vanishing Venusians (novelette; Planet Stories Spring 1945)
Lorelei of the Red Mist (novella; Planet Stories Summer 1946), with Ray Bradbury
The Moon That Vanished (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories October 1948)
Enchantress of Venus (novella; Planet Stories Fall 1949) also published as City of the Lost Ones
[edit]
Marginal Venus stories
The Demons of Darkside (Startling Stories January 1941)
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
The Citadel of Lost Ships (Planet Stories March 1943)
The Blue Behemoth (Planet Stories May 1943)
[edit]
Non-Venus stories
No Man's Land in Space (novelette; Amazing Stories July 1941)
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)[hide]
v • d • e
The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
4.5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Venus and Venusians are frequently appearing settings and characters for many of the Solar System stories of Leigh Brackett. Brackett's Venus shares some characteristics with the astronomical Venus, but in other respects functions as a consistent fantasy world with recurring landmarks and characteristics that reappear from story to story. Some of these fantasy characteristics are of Brackett's own invention; others reflect some of the scientific theories about Venus that were current before the early 1960s.Contents [hide]
1 Astronomical characteristics
2 Physical characteristics
2.1 Atmosphere
2.2 Geography
3 History of Venus
3.1 Prehistory
3.2 Terran invasions
3.3 Interplanetary Wars
4 Biology
4.1 Fauna
4.2 Flora
5 Anthropology and Ethnology
5.1 Venusian humans
5.2 Venusian humanoids
6 Government
7 Venus' moon
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Core Venus stories
9.2 Marginal Venus stories
9.3 Non-Venus stories
[edit]
Astronomical characteristics
In Brackett's Solar System, Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is very similar in size and composition to the Earth, and is even wetter and possesses a richer biosphere.
Venus circles the Sun in a Venusian year of 224.7 Earth-days. The day of Brackett's Venus is longer than Earth's (The Moon That Vanished) but the length is unspecified; it is clear, however, that Venus is not tidally locked to the Sun and undergoes a regular day-night cycle. The axial tilt of Venus is likely small, as there appears to be little in the way of seasonal variation.
[edit]
Physical characteristics
[edit]
Atmosphere
Venus possesses a very dense, oxygen-rich, water-saturated atmosphere. This produces a dense cloud-layer around the planet, which prevents direct observation of the surface from above the cloud tops. From the surface, the stars are never visible, and the sun only indirectly so. Venus' atmosphere is highly charged, and the magnetic interference makes navigation difficult.
[edit]
Geography
Most of Venus is very low-lying, shallow seas and swamps just below or near sea level. The mountain and plateau country -- the only parts of Venus inhabitable by Terrans, and preferred by the native Venusian humans -- is rare and extremely valuable. Some of the highlands reach high enough to penetrate the cloud layer and receive some direct sunlight.
The inhabited southern hemisphere is dominated by the Sea of Morning Opals, one of Venus' deeper seas. Towards the north this sea narrows to the strait called the "Dragon's Throat", beyond which lie the Upper Seas which lie along the equator. The Upper Seas are landlocked, very shallow and filled with dangerous reefs. Somewhere in the Upper Seas lies the fabulous and forbidden Moonfire (The Moon that Vanished).
The continental areas are for the most part low-lying swamp, brackish near the coasts, but also discharging fresh water into the littoral zones. These swamps have been in place for hundreds of millions of years, and the vegetation beneath them has compacted to form thick deposits of coal, which can be mined.
Venus' main continent is divided by the range called the Mountains of White Cloud. These mountains form a formidable barrier; air travel across them is considered impossible, due to their great (literally stratospheric) height and the local magnetic anomalies near them that render instrumental flying impossible (Lorelei of the Red Mist). Travel across these mountains by land is extraordinarily dangerous. The far side of the mountains is little known; the only securely recognized landmark in transmontane Venus is the Red Sea, a huge lake filled with a red gas. The gas is heavy enough not to diffuse into the atmosphere, and buoyant enough to float watercraft or to swim in; but it is mixed with oxygen, and can be inhaled without immediate ill effect, though prolonged exposure is discouraged.
The area around the Red Sea is barbarous and dangerous, dominated by thieves and pirates who infest such strongholds as Shuruun, Falga and Crom Dhu (Enchantress of Venus, Lorelei of the Red Mist).
[edit]
History of Venus
[edit]
Prehistory
No Venusian people ever developed its own system of writing, so little or nothing is known about the history of Venus before the coming of the Terrans. The Venusian humans, closely akin to Earth humans and unlike the mainly reptilian denizens of the rest of Venus, evidently were transplanted to Venus from outside, though by what agency remains unknown. They have no recollection in their traditions of a time before they arrived on Venus.
The myths of the Venusian humans do, however, recall the impact of fragments of Venus' former moon on the surface of the planet. If this could be dated precisely, it would provide a lower limit for the arrival of humans on Venus; however, the sites of the impacts are either unknown or unapproachable due to high levels of residual radioactivity.
[edit]
Terran invasions
The initial Terran presence on Venus involved far more violence than the comparable presence on Mars. The Martians continued the traditions of an ancient civilization, and the Terrans could at least pretend to deal with them from a position of equality; but the natives Venusians appeared, from the Terran point of view, to be no more than savages. Terran attempts to obtain a foothold on Venus were met with brutal Venusian violence and even more ruthless reprisals. Although the Venusians could not match the Terran level of technology, their superior knowledge of Venus' terrain and its exotic biology often gave them an edge in conflicts with the Terrans.
[edit]
Interplanetary Wars
Venus was for some time under the control of the powerful Terra-Venusian coalition, in which the Terrans were the dominant partner, and the exploitation of Venusian resources was carried out quickly despite the objections of Venusian natives.
Venusian independence brought Venus into a wider world of interplanetary conflict. In a war with Earth, Venus bombarded Earth from space, but failed to complete its secret weapon: an army of radio-telepathically controlled zombies (No Man's Land in Space).
Venus also sided with the other Triangle Worlds against the Jovians, but found itself in conflict with both Jupiter and Mars in a later war over territory in the Asteroid Belt. Venus' Trade City of Vhia was bombarded from space; this bombardment was initially believed to be the work of the Jovians, but turned out to be a Martian ploy to aggravate Venusian-Jovian tensions to the point of no return (Interplanetary Reporter).
[edit]
Biology
Venus' plentiful water and oxygen combined with tropic heat make it a very favorable site for the growth of life. Venus boasts the densest and most diverse array of biota in the Solar System. Only a few of Venus' millions of species can be described below.
[edit]
Fauna
Despite Venus' diversity, Venusian fauna has, for the most part, not yet evolved beyond the reptilian stage. Most of the native higher fauna are scaly predators, carnivorous or omnivorous. Insect life is even more common.
Bird-lizards - flying gray-green reptiles with feathery wings. These creatures grow large enough to carry a fully-grown human as a mount, and are used in war by the Venusian barbarian tribes (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
Golden hounds – aquatic creatures inhabiting the gaseous Red Sea. They are quadrupeds of a pale golden, phosphorescent color, with large, jewel-like eyes. They move through the thick gas with the thrust of their flat tails, and are guided by wing-like membranes along their flanks. They can be trained to act like hunting or herding dogs (Lorelei of the Red Mist).
Green snakes - most of the mass of these creatures, normally about 3m in length, is made up of water. They change size relative to the amount of water available, however, and if artificially deprived of water can shrink to a decimeter or less in length. If they obtain a new water source they can quickly return to their full length They are blood-feeders and inject a venom that causes a temporary insanity in their victims. (The Dragon-Queen of Venus.)
Guardians of the Upper Seas – Aquatic carnivorous scale-backed reptiles of monstrous size, capable of destroying a ship and devouring the crew. No Guardian has ever been seen in its entirety (The Moon that Vanished).
Leshen (swamp-dragons) – these swamp-dwelling carnivores are nocturnal hunters. They are hunted and their skins made into a kind of leather (The Citadel of Lost Ships, The Vanishing Venusians).
Scarlet beetles – these large, crawling beetles are scavengers and flesh-eaters; a colony of them can strip the flesh from a body, living or dead, in less than a minute, leaving nothing but bones (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
Reptilians – sea-dwelling reptiles who live among the seaweed, and feed upon sea-dragon eggs (The Moon that Vanished).
Sea-dragons – small flying reptiles, with bright jewel-like scales and red eyes. They fly inland, but lay their eggs in masses of weed out on the open seas. They can be made pets, but never become truly domesticated. (The Moon that Vanished, The Vanishing Venusians, Terror Out of Space.)
Swamp-rhinos – a poorly known animal, which bears horns used for ornament by the Venusian barbarians (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
War-dogs – these reptiles actually resemble miniature carnosaurs, being bipedal with grasping hands. They take their name from being used as attack beasts by the barbarian tribes, who attach bone spikes to their tails as an additional weapon (The Dragon-Queen of Venus).
[edit]
Flora
In addition to normal sessile plant life, Venus possesses a highly evolved group of motile plants, or "planimals" (colloquially "plannies"), some of which have attained a degree of intelligence.
Planimals
Kelp-beasts are among the most dangerous planimals, living in the depths of the Venusian oceans but periodically raiding the shallower seas for food. They are agile swimmers, with a body plan something between a ray and a squid; they have dark red-brown bulb-like bodies, with leafy ray-fins, a fishtail-like flange at the rear for steering, and stinging tentacles (Terror Out of Space).
Plant-men live in the shallow seas, near ruined cities. They are 3 to 4 feet tall. They have pixie-like faces, large round golden eyes with brown pupils, webs for swimming on their hands and feet, but with the main swimming locomotion provided by a long, fluttering membrane between the arms and legs. They also have multicolored petal-like growths on their heads. Their color ranges from blue-grey to warm green, depending upon emotion. They begin life as plants rooted in the shallow sea-sand, but as they grow they unroot and learn to swim (Terror Out of Space).
Swimmers live in the freshwater streams of highland caverns. They are also humanoid, with a golden phosphorescent color. Their eyes are lidless and black. When young hey have multiple growths capable of their own movement around their faces, resembling the petals of a dandelion; as they age, these turn into flat, coiled, fungus-like growths. Their thorn-like claws carry a toxin (The Vanishing Venusians).
Forest people live on the highlands. They have a pale, translucent greenish skin, blue eyes and short curly petal=hair of various colors such as deep blue, scarlet and white. They are intelligent and possess telepathic and telekinetic powers but have little in the way of cultural attainments, with no clothes, buildings, or rituals (The Vanishing Venusians).
Other plants
liha-trees
[edit]
Anthropology and Ethnology
[edit]
Venusian humans
The highlands of Venus are dominated by humans, genetically close to Earth humans and capable of interbreeding with them -- and so, presumably, sharing the same origin, though the exact relationship is uncertain. Due to the filtering of the sun through the thick clouds, little ultraviolet reaches the surface, and there is no need for high levels of protective melanin. Venusians are accordingly very pale, with hair ranging in color from blond to white.
[edit]
Venusian humanoids
Nahali
The Nahali are intelligent reptilian humanoids who inhabit the Venusian Deep Swamps. They are tall (averaging about 2m), have bright red eyes, and are covered in greenish iridescent scales. Their bodies also carry a powerful electric charge, which makes them dangerous to touch. Although their general anatomy resembles the human, their faces are very different, having no noses and triangular mouths. They are capable of breathing under water, since their skin cells extract oxygen directly from the water. They are dependent, however, upon a high degree of atmospheric humidity, which keeps them bound to the swamps except during the rainy season. (The Stellar Legion)
Kraylens
The Kraylens are closer to human than the Nahali, with bluish-white skin, opalescent eyes, broad cheeks and pointed chins. Their most notable mark is the featherlike crest that extends from the brow ridges, across the top of the head, and down the spine to the waist. The Kraylens live on the swamp-edges and practice a form of agriculture. (The Citadel of Lost Ships)
Lohari
Not much is known about this rare reptilian species; they live in the Lohari swamps, have four arms each, and crawl like serpents. (The Citadel of Lost Ships)
Sea-folk
These are an amphibious people living in or around the gaseous Red Sea, beyond the Mountains of White Cloud. Descended from a fish-like ancestor, they have pale white skin, with a hint of scales, but their hair, lips, eyes, and nipples are light green or aquamarine. They divided into two peoples, one land-dwelling and one sea-dwelling; the sea-dwellers are more like their piscine ancestors, having webbed hands and feet and visible gill slits. (Lorelei of the Red Mist)
[edit]
Government
[edit]
Venus' moon
The belief that Venus once had a moon that vanished at some point in the distant past is common among the peoples and tribes of Venus. The religion known as the "Mysteries of the Moon" is centered upon a story of this lost moon. According to the myth, the god of this moon was the ruler of all the other gods, but because of their jealousy they destroyed his palace and killed him. His body fell from the skies onto the surface of Venus, where, unable to truly die, it sleeps and breathes. The shining cloud that surrounds his body is known as the Moonfire, and those who attempt to penetrate it to gain godhead from the sleeping god will be cursed by all the gods of Venus. The priests who call themselves the Children of the Moon will seek vengeance upon anyone who seeks to invade the Moonfire, but anyone who goes and successfully returns is sacrosanct.
The reality behind the myth is disputed, but may reflect the impaction of a portion of a small, unstable orbiting body upon the surface of Venus, leaving there a powerful radioactive source with strange effects upon the human mind.
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See also
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett Solar System
Venus in fiction
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References
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Core Venus stories
The Stellar Legion (Planet Stories Winter 1940)
The Dragon-Queen of Jupiter (Planet Stories Summer 1941) also published as The Dragon-Queen of Venus
Terror Out of Space (Planet Stories Summer 1944)
The Vanishing Venusians (novelette; Planet Stories Spring 1945)
Lorelei of the Red Mist (novella; Planet Stories Summer 1946), with Ray Bradbury
The Moon That Vanished (novelette; Thrilling Wonder Stories October 1948)
Enchantress of Venus (novella; Planet Stories Fall 1949) also published as City of the Lost Ones
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Marginal Venus stories
The Demons of Darkside (Startling Stories January 1941)
Interplanetary Reporter (Startling Stories May 1941)
The Citadel of Lost Ships (Planet Stories March 1943)
The Blue Behemoth (Planet Stories May 1943)
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Non-Venus stories
No Man's Land in Space (novelette; Amazing Stories July 1941)
Outpost on Io (Planet Stories November/Winter 1942)
The Halfling (novelette; Astonishing Stories February 1943)[hide]
v • d • e
The Leigh Brackett Solar System
Planets Mercury - Venus - Mars - Jupiter
4.5 out of 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_the_fiction_of_Leigh_Brackett
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