Читать книгу CVC Veri A Guide to the Epic of the Martian Empire - Lee CDN Streiff - Страница 4

By Lee Streiff

“In 1937 James Streiff and Bob Parks created ‘the Epic of the Martian Empire’; in 1942 Paul Carter added his vision of the Cosmic Vortex to it, and the Universe was never the same again…” Lee Streiff

It now seems like a long time ago — in those last remaining years before World War II changed our consciousnesses forever. It was an ephemeral, still time; a quiet space in which we could dream about the future without the burden of its consequences: ghastly war — genocide — the atomic bomb.

It was 1937… my brother James was 13, and in the eighth grade at Robinson Junior High School in Wichita, Kansas. And in his mind he was fashioning a cosmic empire filled with strange and wonderful creatures and races — in which a stalwart group of Exiles from the planet Mars were the chief actors and heroes.

This Empire, the Martian Empire, eventually spread over most of the known Universe before it finally faded away in 1948’. During the eleven years it flourished however, the Martian Epic became very elaborate — covering some 15 billion years of Martian history — and Martian technology, manners and morals, art, music, religion, language and literature. And it generated a narrative Epic that encompassed many galaxies.

Although a number of people became involved in this epic — Bob Parks, John Roth, Robert Frickel, Charles Goodrum, and Robert Arnold, among others — it was first and foremost the vision of James, who worked out and brought together the maps, timelines, the celestial spaces, the customs, and the characters that made up the Martian Empire in all its diverse grandeur.

Central to the Epic were the Cultural Hero, The Mighty Moscovitch (whose name should always be written in red ink — or in some other way be made distinctive); The evil Martian Aristocrats (who drove the Exiles who created the Empire off Mars itself); Shultz’s Beer Parlor; Varnish (a virulent elixir); various gods and creatures (Erf and Merf the dragons; KLONO, god of Planets and justice; NOSHABKENNING, god of Space; the Little Men, messengers of KLONO; and on and on); but at the center of it all was The Parks, Streiff Construction Co. — whose partners were the prime movers of most of the action.

In early 1937 I was only four years old — and so it was that most of my childhood and youth were somehow surrounded or suffused with the images and tales of the Epic. However it was not until I reached the age of eleven that I became the brief inheritor of, and participant in the affairs of the Epic itself.

It was during World War II in 1943. that I first took over the job of running the business of the Martian Empire while all of its members were away from Wichita, in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Knowing that he would soon be drafted, James began grooming me for the task early in that year. He reported for active Military duty on June 3, 1943, and that changed the course of my daily life. I was now on my own, with a heavy responsibility,

At first my duties were minimal: receiving correspondence from members of the group and sending them on to James, and keeping The files of the Parks, Streiff Construction Co. up to date.

Increasingly however, my role grew larger, until by July of 1944, when James returned from Africa, I was, to all intents and purposes, in charge, and was responsible for the fate of the whole enterprise: I published The Martian News Letter, the official journal of the group, using carbon paper — and a bit later a hectograph; published, The Order of Shultz, which circulated the business of the inner circle; reorganized The Files; answered correspondence among the far flung Martians scattered around the globe; and did research for a number of topics for James, using my contacts in the world of Science Fiction Fandom.

And I decided to improve on things, as well. Among the first things I did was to try to bring some order to the scattered parts of the legend. In actuality there was much about the origin and development of the Epic itself that I did not know. I had — and was familiar with, the letters, the essays, the pictures, the old copies of “the Martian News Letter,” the assorted documents, the scribbled notes, the obscure messages written in Martian script, and so on, but I did not know exactly how it had all come to be in the first place; and I did not have a mental model of what all the parts were suppose to add up to. And, The Files did not help in this; they were diffuse:

The files were a way of storing bits and pieces for recovery, but they did not tell a connected tale, or even relate things to one another so I chose to do two things: (1) to put the events of the Epic into a chronological narrative order, and (2) to make a sort of encyclopedia of the facts, figures, characters, and events. Encyclopedia’s I understood — I had read most of the two sets our family owned, and much out of The World Book of our neighbor, Mrs. Peggy Easley, as well, by the time I was seven. Thus, the form of an encyclopedia, as a repository of knowledge, made sense to me.

I set to work then culling The Files for data, extracting information from letters, and asking James questions in our extended correspondence. I began to type up some of the papers that were inscribed un James almost indecipherable hand writing, and started writing little transitions that linked some of the material together. I also made various inventories of different areas (music, publications and such) and tried to establish dates for items. I even started a cross-referencing card file that made it easier to find things in The Files.

When James returned from active service in February of 1946, my task had been completed, and in any case, my interests were largely turning in other directions. By 1947, in my sophomore year at East High School, I was even leaving Science Fiction itself behind and was now involved in art and literature. But then that is another story.

In the Following seven Chapters, Lee Streiff describes in his “Guide to the Epic of the Martian Empire” of how the tales and creation of the Epic… all came about.