Procházková, Emilie
Entry updated 30 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1878-1960) Czech author of several novels, including the ambitious multi-volume V kolobĕhu svĕtů ["As Worlds Circulate"] (1920-1922), which incorporates an abstracted Fantastic Voyage through the ornamented Solar System espoused in Theosophy. Of rather greater sf interest is Marẗané: Psáno Medijné (1922; trans Carleton Bulkin as The Martians: Transcribed from the Beyond 2024), a tale set on a civilized and populous Mars, the narrative being transmitted (as the subtitle indicates) by a means describable as Telepathy or occult message or both; the use of a similar procedure to scrutinize the histories and destinies of interstellar civilizations hints at what, several decades later, could be seen as a combined Ansible and Time Viewer.
The lands of Mars seem almost subaqueous; and issues of Transportation – whose Power Source, as with all energy use, is electricity – are solved by an intricate lacework of bridges. The sexes are equal in this Utopia, which means in effect that females become muses of their own emanating will (see Feminism; Women in SF). The will of the people unanimously excoriates idleness; Suicides, sometimes of the incapable (see Eugenics), are common. The arts are eschewed, though music is understood as the "voices of bridges". Scrutiny of Earth (see above) results in wholesale mockery of a species that could create World War One.[JC]
Emilie Procházková
born Roztoky, Austro-Hungarian Empire [now Czech Republic]: circa June 1878
died Roztoky, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]: 1960
works (selected)
- Marẗané: Psáno Medijné (Prague, Czechoslovakia: Zmatlík a Palicka, 1922) [novella: pb/Vacla Rytíř]
- The Martians: Transcribed from the Beyond (Joshua Tree, California: Space Cowboy Books, 2024) [novella: trans by Carleton Bulkin of the above with introduction by him: pb/adapted from 1922 cover by Vacla Rytíř]
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