The Life & Histories of J.P. Homer 

     The most well known of the Ornian writers, J.P. Homer, lived from 2148-2026 BE (Before Enlightenment, approximately Earth’s 14,516 BC), and he has an impressive 2,027 histories and historical plays attributed to him.  Although human, J.P. Homer was orphaned at an early age and raised by a breed of silly, green, large-nosed humanoids known as dar mofts.  This strange upbringing apparently had a great effect upon his writings and undoubtedly shaped the philosophy with which he founded the School of Lesser Historians when he was just 12 years old.  He named this school George, after the uncle he never had. 

     During the early period of Homer's life, the so-called “Green Years”, it is said that he wrote one of his most profound works, The Ichthyad.  It is the recounting of the tale of a beautiful peasant woman of Snetha who, while trying to buy a nice fish for her father at the market, realizes that she is to be kidnapped by warriors from Sturg.  The fish, although not a sturgeon, becomes a metaphor for the Sturgeon War of 2225 BE.  Although none of Homer's facts could be substantiated in his lifetime (or anyone else’s), this lost work was hailed in its day as "mildly interesting" and was possibly a vague influence upon The Iliad by Earth's own Homer.  The titles of some of J.P. Homer's other early works have been discovered, unfortunately without any details about the stories, so we can only guess at the topics.  These include Of Dar Mofts and Men, The Three Guys (and Another One) with Swords, The Wizard of Orn, and Alice in Underwhere, as well as dozens of others with themes or titles that often appear similar to later Earthly writings. 

     Sad though it might be that we Earthlings have missed out on J.P. Homer’s early body of work, we are lucky enough to have discovered a handful of his later stories.  Generally, they have been discovered in rather nasty states, usually lining old trunks, wrapped around fish, on the bottoms of bird cages, or moldering in vaults of obscure museums.  Homer’s earliest discovered "birdcage" work is The Thesoddy (2048 BE), the tale of an epic and unnecessary voyage by Thesod of Freeny to save his country from the wrath of the gods.  Since then his "trunk-work", The Big Pang Theory of the Creating of the Universe, and the "Fish-works", The Creating of the Gods and Man, and Untrue Love, Ad Nauseam (all written in 2046 BE), have been found, chronicling the minority [a minority of at least one] Ornian beliefs of how Orn, its gods, its people, and True Love were created.  A recent dig in a landfill in the plains of Nebraska has also found the long lost Frankenmoft, mummified in a wrapping of old banana peels, and newspapers from the 1920’s.  It was once thought to be an early work, but preliminary translation suggests that it falls within J.P. Homer’s later “Early Myth” period, perhaps revealing the origin of the very first dar moft.

      In the last decade of his life, Homer believed that his impressive body of work of over 2000 histories from his first 100 years of writing was sure to seal the reputation of his School of Lesser Historians (named George).  Unfortunately, he was right, and very few enrolled at George during his lifetime.  At the age of 116, Homer was forced to get a job as the 17th Court Historian of Nartha (Planetary Capital of Orn), a job that ended as quickly as it began. The reason for Homer's precipitous exit was his writing of the events leading up to King Flembol’s initiation of the failed Continental War I in 2036 BE.  Homer decided that the King’s decision had been based entirely upon the negative effects of some particularly bad Gorf-pea stew he had eaten for lunch, and he wrote this tale from the perspective of Wyno, the Court’s apprentice assistant sub-cook.  He entitled it, appropriately enough, War and Peas (2032 BE).  He worked there just one month and was forced to leave rapidly (many believe without his shoes).  [This led to his scathing series of Shoeless in Nartha editorials in which a stale biscuit represented himself, and a patch of weeds represented the Court of Nartha.  Since no one understood these metaphors, very little controversy arose.]

     Artistically satisfied, yet penniless (and perhaps shoeless), Homer returned to George for his last years of life.  It was during this time that George took on its first students, inspiring Homer to move into a new form of literature.  He decided to devote his talents to the writing of plays, his first including A Dinghy Named Desire (2031 BE), The Philosophy of Neeste (2030 BE), The Guy Who Liked to Look at Himself (2028 BE), and Erikus Miteus (2027 BE).  These plays of J.P. Homer are as diverse as they are strangely written, however they are fine examples of Lesser Histories at their most humorous.  This is amusing (if not sad), since many historians suspect that Homer's plays were serious attempts in his old age at writing moving character studies. 

Without the original text of these plays, it is difficult to determine what Homer was trying to say, and unfortunately none of these plays, nor his unseen final play, The Gods Smell Badly, have been read by anyone alive today.  (This final work was said to be his greatest . . . had it ever been read.  However, the angered gods turned him into a newt and destroyed his masterwork with a lightning bolt.  It remains to be determined whether Homer continued to write as a newt.)  We have to rely on sparse references by even sparser historians of his day to help us to understand J.P. Homer.  Recently, however, one of his later plays, Erik Miteus, was discovered (encased in concrete on the bottom of Lake Michigan) in surprisingly good condition.  Months of translating the ancient Ornian writing has revealed yet another serious attempt at a character study. 

J.D. Peterson