Chaz Brenchley: Mars Imperial
The Crater School
"English girls' boarding-school stories. On Mars."
That was the original elevator pitch for Chaz'z Patreon: a very focused project, to let him write something from the heart that was not likely to prove commercially viable. His lifelong love for the Chalet School books of Elinor M Brent-Dyer is an open secret: one morning that coupled in his head with the Old Mars that he was already writing stories about, and he simply couldn't resist. "If Mars were a province of the British Empire," he argues, "of course it would need boarding-schools for girls (it was already canonical in the stories that boys were sent back to England for their education, but girls were not). Hence the Crater School, on the rim of a crater lake, taking girls from all over the colony, from the great cities of Marsport and New Victoria and Cassini to the pioneer farms on the frontier. With all the concomitant mischief-making, fire and flood, alarms and excursions, encounters with aliens and more. Sickly parents in the sanatorium across the lake. Old girls marrying doctors. Picnics and midnight feasts, secret tunnels and great revelations. Oh, and Russian spies for good measure."
"Only in the laboratory of Chaz Brenchley could the British school story be lovingly sutured together with the Old Mars of the pulps, animated with the crackling static of a planetary dust storm, and sent lumbering down to the village. No - skipping down to the village, with a beret, and a paper bag full of bulls'-eyes, and a wholesome desire to excel at lacrosse."
Francis Spufford
The Crater School books are published by Wizard's Tower Press: publisher Cheryl Morgan says "I have been a fan of Chaz's work for a very long time. I am absolutely delighted to welcome him to Wizard's Tower, and be able to bring the Crater School books to the wider audience that they deserve."
All about the Crater School | Three Twins at the Crater School | Dust Up at the Crater School | Radhika Rages at the Crater School
Start here: Three Twins at the Crater School: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Elsewhere on Mars Imperial
Schoolgirls - even the Crater School's legendary Head Firl, Rowany de Vere - must eventually grow up and leave school. And here is the tale of What Rowany Did Next. It comes prefaced by a content warnings: this is not your standard schoolgirl-adjacent Rowany kind of story. Marsport is a grimdark kind of place, and Rowany is being thrust head-under into it. Unpleasantness ensues. If you don't like dark crime thrillers, you probably won't like this. If you do, though, read more here; or simply buy Rowany de Vere and a Fair Degree of Frost through the publisher's website
To stay up to date wuth the latest news from Mars, head over to Chaz'z Patreon.
For a culinary sidelight on Imperial Mars, visit 'Mrs Bailey's Martian Kitchen', recipes from the Crater Schoolo's redoubtable cook (downsized when necessary for the family table, rather than two hundred famished adolescents) which Chaz has been posting at Medium.
The directory of short fiction by Chaz Brenchley includes several tales of Mars Imperial (and where to find them): the first of these was The Burial of Sir John Mawe at Cassini, followed by The Astrakhan, the Homburg and the Red Red Coal,
For the latest updates from Mars, join Chaz'z Patreon.