Eric John Stark
Encyclopedia
Erik John Stark is a character created by science fiction
author Leigh Brackett
. Stark is the hero of a series of pulp
adventures set in a time when the Solar System has been colonized. His origin-story shares some characteristics with feral characters such as Mowgli
and Tarzan
; his adventures take place in the shared space opera
planets of 1940s and 1950s science fiction.
. His parents were employees of the mineral extraction company Mercury Metals and Mining. After his parents died in a cave-in caused by a quake, Stark was adopted by a tribe of humanoid Mercurian aborigines. They gave him the name N'Chaka, meaning "the man without a tribe." He believed himself to be one of them, rather than a human, and endured their rigorous way of life in the Mercurian Twilight Belt, surviving by hunting rock-lizards.
Before Stark was fully grown, another group of human miners exterminated his tribe, captured Stark and imprisoned him in a cage. They would ultimately have killed him if he had not been rescued by the police official Simon Ashton, who raised Stark to adulthood.
The stories of the adult Stark are fast-paced adventures, but Brackett manages to insert more pathos than most authors. Because of his background, Stark is keenly aware of the injustices visited on the planetary "primitives" by the colonialist Earth, and tends to side with them against official bodies. At the opening of the story in which he first appears, Stark is evading a twenty-year sentence placed on him for running guns to a Venusian native group that has been resisting Terran colonizers.
Planet Stories
linehttp://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZO8010_500.jpeg: like Brackett's other Mercurian characters (e.g. Jaffa Storm in The Nemesis from Terra), Stark has a very dark, almost black skin. His skin is "almost as dark as his black hair" and an antagonist refers to him scornfully as a "great black ape". The darkness of Stark's skin is reiterated in Enchantress of Venus.
Illustrators, on the other hand, have universally drawn Stark as white, even sometimes blondhttp://images.google.com/images?q=%22Eric+John+Stark%22&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images. Brackett's use of a strong, independent, and attractive black-skinned character as hero for several of her stories was very unusual for the 1940s and 50s. The artists' choice, however, to ignore her verbal description and substitute for it a generic white blond pulp hero even as late as 1982, reflects the much stronger and more common prejudice against such characters. The effect of these misleading illustrations has been such that Stark is never remembered or referred to by critics as a black-skinned character, though he is clearly described as such in the stories.
Planet Stories
. These were: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" (Summer 1949); "Enchantress of Venus" (Fall 1949), once published as "City of the Lost Ones"; and "Black Amazon of Mars" (March 1951). The first and last stories were expanded into short novels: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" as The Secret of Sinharat
and "Black Amazon of Mars" as People of the Talisman
. The expanded versions were first published in 1964 as an Ace
Double paperback, and again in 1982 under the title Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars. The internal chronology of the stories is different from the publishing order; in "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" Stark is on Mars, having fled capture on Venus; "Black Amazon of Mars" takes place soon after, but in an unexplored and barbaric area close to the north pole of Mars; and in "Enchantress of Venus", Stark has returned from Mars to Venus to look for a missing friend.
The two expanded novels have inconsistencies with their novella originals. The Secret of Sinharat is almost identical with "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" up to the point at which Stark arrives at Sinharat, but a crucial plot point is revealed earlier in the novella, and further developments diverge from (while occasionally overlapping) the storyline of "Catacombs." "Black Amazon of Mars" is largely different from People of the Talisman, though founded on a similar premise.
set on a distant but primitive extrasolar planet
, since Stark's original Solar System
venue had become unacceptable to publishers. As a result, although the character's personality and origins are retained, there are few other links between the Skaith novels and the earlier Stark novellas.
's Star Kings series, making it a rare collaboration between the two.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author Leigh Brackett
Leigh Brackett
Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...
. Stark is the hero of a series of pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
adventures set in a time when the Solar System has been colonized. His origin-story shares some characteristics with feral characters such as Mowgli
Mowgli
Mowgli is a fictional character from India who originally appeared in Rudyard Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then went on to become the most prominent and memorable character in his fantasies, The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book , which also featured stories about other...
and Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
; his adventures take place in the shared space opera
Space opera
Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...
planets of 1940s and 1950s science fiction.
Back-story
Stark was born on MercuryMercury in the fiction of Leigh Brackett
right|250px|MercuryThe planet Mercury appears frequently as a setting for many of the stories of Leigh Brackett, and Mercury and Mercurians are frequently mentioned in other stories of the Leigh Brackett Solar System...
. His parents were employees of the mineral extraction company Mercury Metals and Mining. After his parents died in a cave-in caused by a quake, Stark was adopted by a tribe of humanoid Mercurian aborigines. They gave him the name N'Chaka, meaning "the man without a tribe." He believed himself to be one of them, rather than a human, and endured their rigorous way of life in the Mercurian Twilight Belt, surviving by hunting rock-lizards.
Before Stark was fully grown, another group of human miners exterminated his tribe, captured Stark and imprisoned him in a cage. They would ultimately have killed him if he had not been rescued by the police official Simon Ashton, who raised Stark to adulthood.
The stories of the adult Stark are fast-paced adventures, but Brackett manages to insert more pathos than most authors. Because of his background, Stark is keenly aware of the injustices visited on the planetary "primitives" by the colonialist Earth, and tends to side with them against official bodies. At the opening of the story in which he first appears, Stark is evading a twenty-year sentence placed on him for running guns to a Venusian native group that has been resisting Terran colonizers.
Appearance
A point about Stark's physical appearance which has been studiously ignored by every one of his illustrators until the James Ryman's covers from the Paizo PublishingPaizo Publishing
Paizo Publishing is an American publishing company in Redmond, Washington that specializes in game aids and adventures for "the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game" and its flagship spin-off game and setting, Pathfinder...
Planet Stories
Planet Stories
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71...
linehttp://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/PZO/PZO8010_500.jpeg: like Brackett's other Mercurian characters (e.g. Jaffa Storm in The Nemesis from Terra), Stark has a very dark, almost black skin. His skin is "almost as dark as his black hair" and an antagonist refers to him scornfully as a "great black ape". The darkness of Stark's skin is reiterated in Enchantress of Venus.
Illustrators, on the other hand, have universally drawn Stark as white, even sometimes blondhttp://images.google.com/images?q=%22Eric+John+Stark%22&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images. Brackett's use of a strong, independent, and attractive black-skinned character as hero for several of her stories was very unusual for the 1940s and 50s. The artists' choice, however, to ignore her verbal description and substitute for it a generic white blond pulp hero even as late as 1982, reflects the much stronger and more common prejudice against such characters. The effect of these misleading illustrations has been such that Stark is never remembered or referred to by critics as a black-skinned character, though he is clearly described as such in the stories.
Solar System
Stark first appeared in a group of novellas published in the pulp magazinePulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
Planet Stories
Planet Stories
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71...
. These were: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" (Summer 1949); "Enchantress of Venus" (Fall 1949), once published as "City of the Lost Ones"; and "Black Amazon of Mars" (March 1951). The first and last stories were expanded into short novels: "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" as The Secret of Sinharat
The Secret of Sinharat
The Secret of Sinharat is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.-Plot summary:...
and "Black Amazon of Mars" as People of the Talisman
People of the Talisman
People of the Talisman is a science fiction novel by Leigh Brackett set on the planet Mars, whose protagonist is Eric John Stark.-Plot introduction:...
. The expanded versions were first published in 1964 as an Ace
Ace Books
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
Double paperback, and again in 1982 under the title Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars. The internal chronology of the stories is different from the publishing order; in "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" Stark is on Mars, having fled capture on Venus; "Black Amazon of Mars" takes place soon after, but in an unexplored and barbaric area close to the north pole of Mars; and in "Enchantress of Venus", Stark has returned from Mars to Venus to look for a missing friend.
The two expanded novels have inconsistencies with their novella originals. The Secret of Sinharat is almost identical with "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" up to the point at which Stark arrives at Sinharat, but a crucial plot point is revealed earlier in the novella, and further developments diverge from (while occasionally overlapping) the storyline of "Catacombs." "Black Amazon of Mars" is largely different from People of the Talisman, though founded on a similar premise.
Skaith
Many years later Brackett returned to the character in a trilogy of books titled The Ginger Star (1974), The Hounds of Skaith (1974) and The Reavers of Skaith (1976). These stories are science fantasiesScience fantasy
Science fantasy is a mixed genre within speculative fiction drawing elements from both science fiction and fantasy. Although in some terms of its portrayal in recent media products it can be defined as instead of being a mixed genre of science fiction and fantasy it is instead a mixing of the...
set on a distant but primitive extrasolar planet
Extrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
, since Stark's original Solar System
Leigh Brackett Solar System
The Leigh Brackett Solar System is a fictional analogue to the real-world Solar System in which a majority of the planetary romances of Leigh Brackett take place....
venue had become unacceptable to publishers. As a result, although the character's personality and origins are retained, there are few other links between the Skaith novels and the earlier Stark novellas.
Other
A final story Stark and the Star Kings (2005) places Stark into the world of her husband Edmond HamiltonEdmond Hamilton
Edmond Moore Hamilton was an American author of science fiction stories and novels during the mid-twentieth century. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania...
's Star Kings series, making it a rare collaboration between the two.