Leigh Brackett Solar System - Chronology

Chronology

It is difficult, if not impossible, to provide a fixed chronology for the Solar System stories; they were not, of course, written at first with the intention of being parts of a coherent universe, but rather reflect an accumulating re-use of detail and scene from one story to the next, until a universe with common characteristics had been built up after the fact.

However, some generalizations about the relative order of some of the stories can be made, which may help improve one's appreciation of them; some of the differences in tone and treatment of the story backgrounds can be justified as reflecting changes that have taken place in the universe over time.

Only two of the stories contain internal dates: Water Pirate is given the date 2418, and Interplanetary Reporter is set sometime in the early 26th century (i.e., about a hundred years later).

The table of contents and story headers in the collection The Coming of the Terrans provides dates for five of the Martian stories. They are:

• 1998 The Beast-Jewel of Mars
• 2016 Mars Minus Bisha
• 2024 The Last Days of Shandakor
• 2031 Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon
• 2038 The Road to Sinharat

There are some grounds for doubting whether these dates can be taken very seriously as part of a consistent future chronology. First, none of the dates appears within the stories themselves, or was associated with the stories as first published in various science fiction magazines. Second, the dates stretch credibility as to the rapidity of progress in exploring the planets; according to Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon, Earth people founded the Trade City of Kahora fifty years before the date of the story, but 1981 is only 14 years after 1967, when The Coming of the Terrans was published; the dates are now, of course, impossible. Third, the technological milieu described, and sometimes named, in these stories and others of the same time-period is consistent with the milieu of other stories that are set at least 300 years in the future. Even if it is not possible to take these dates at face value, however, it is still possible that they represent Brackett's intentions as to the relative chronology and spacing of the stories.

The three Eric John Stark stories have an internal chronology which shows their proper order to be Queen of the Martian Catacombs/The Secret of Sinharat, Black Amazon of Mars/People of the Talisman (a short space of time after the previous story), and Enchantress of Venus. Queen of the Martian Catacombs clearly takes place within the same time-frame as The Coming of the Terrans; Queen of the Martian Catacombs explicitly refers back to The Beast-Jewel of Mars (in the first published version; the expanded book version is more obscure on this point), while The Road to Sinharat refers back to Queen of the Martian Catacombs, and appears to take place many years later. The revised version, The Secret of Sinharat, in turn incorporates details from The Road to Sinharat.

The five stories in The Coming of the Terrans and the two Martian Stark stories constitute one large group among Brackett's Mars stories. Another group seems to take place at least a few decades later, when the Terran presence on Mars is greater, even in formerly closed Martian cities like Jekkara -- which has now acquired an interplanetary spaceport. This group includes Sea-Kings of Mars/The Sword of Rhiannon, Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra, and The Veil of Astellar. All three of these stories (and, among the Venus stories, The Stellar Legion) share references to the disreputable Jekkaran vice den called Madam(e) Kan's, although the proprietress herself is only briefly mentioned in The Veil of Astellar. The last-named story has one internal date, though not a specific one; it takes place 300 years after the first trip from Mars to Jupiter. It may be noted that in Queen of the Martian Catacombs, colonies on Jupiter's moons seem to have been established for some time.

The earlier stories, The Treasure of Ptakuth, Water Pirate, (which introduce the tribes of Shun and Kesh) and The Sorcerer of Rhiannon could fit in almost anywhere. Martian Quest, the least closely linked of these stories, seems to come from a later period of wider settlement by humans from Earth and Venus.

The Venus stories have even fewer internal indications of time than the Martian ones. The companion pieces Lorelei of the Red Mist and Enchantress of Venus synchronize with the Martian Stark stories; The Stellar Legion with the "Madam Kan" stories. Other stories (The Vanishing Venusians, Terror Out of Space, Dragon-Queen of Venus and The Moon that Vanished) reflect a chaotic period of settlement and conflict with native Venusian peoples, human and non-human, which fits with the setting of The Stellar Legion. The Citadel of Lost Ships seems to be later in date, showing a more dominant Terran presence, reorganizing the administration of Venusian lands. Interplanetary Reporter takes place on a Venus of a later date (ostensibly the early 26th century). Several other stories not set on Venus feature native Venusians as soldiers, settlers, and spacemen working off their own planet.

The Mercury stories are even harder to put in order. Cube from Space, evidently the earliest, takes place at a time when humans have not yet reached Jupiter, and the space around it is an empty zone. Shannach — the Last is much later, 300 years after colonization of Mercury began. The Demons of Darkside and A World Is Born are unplaceable; the latter refers to a "Second Interplanetary War", but that war is unplaceable.

In addition to Cube from Space, Quest of the Starhope also reflects a world in which travel beyond the asteroids has not taken place. In most other stories, however, Jupiter and Saturn are sites of human colonies (e.g. The Secret of Sinharat, Enchantress of Venus, The Stellar Legion, The Citadel of Lost Ships) or are wild frontier regions, still being explored (Shadow Over Mars). In some stories, however, Jupiter is a united state of its own, capable of making war on the Inner Worlds; these stories are Outpost on Io and Interplanetary Reporter, which together with No Man's Land In Space form a group of space operas that seem to take place at a later date than most of the other stories. They reflect a time when Mars and Venus are well-integrated into an interplanetary order, while most of Brackett's stories describe an earlier period of exploration and conflict on still wild planets.