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| For the first time, National Geographic captures on film the elusive Stasheff in his natural habitat. |
Christopher Stasheff's true history is a well-kept secret. He was actually born on the planet Venus almost three million years ago. About 2.7 million years ago, he was forced to emigrate to Earth when all the air conditioners on Venus broke in the Great Venusian Disaster that resulted in the destruction of their world. Global warming sucks, it really does.
Attempting to blend in with prehistoric humans was not an easy task for Christopher, and so he spent the next two million years or more hibernating in the Swiss Alps (they had great chocolate, even back then). Eventually, he emerged from seclusion around the time of the ancient Sumerian civilization, and often went out drinking with Gilgamesh and Enkidu. It was then that Christopher Stasheff wrote his first novel, The Epic of Gilgamesh, on some clay tablets—not all of which have survived, unfortunately. If you meet Chris at a con, ask him to fill in the missing bits for you. It's really quite amusing.
Also, you really need to read it in the original cuneiform. In English, all of Chris's horrible puns get lost in translation... and that breaks his heart. It really does.
Anyway, over the millennia, Christopher Stasheff has adjusted to each society he has lived in. He has inspired individuals from Shakespeare to Ben Franklin, and even influenced whole empires from the Romans to the Aztecs. (He deeply regrets the whole human sacrifice thing, by the way. He maintains to this day that he honestly never thought the Aztecs would have that strong a reaction to a few bad puns.)
Perhaps Stasheff's most famous influence on modern society comes in the form of his superhero alter ego that he dons once a year on Christmas Eve. He uses his super Venusian powers to deliver gifts as he flies around the world in a red and black Ford Windstar (it used to be a sleigh with reindeer, but they weren't Y2K compatible). The best part of his generosity is that it's all tax deductible.
His current identity is as a science fantasy writer living in two places at once with a wife and four children and several costumes and cats (not his, of course, but they amuse the wife and kids). His fondest goal is to someday journey into outer space to see his beloved home planet Venus one last time, and to mourn once again the loss of his security deposit on the condo he had there. Did I mention global warming sucks?
Stasheff's greatest success is, of course, his four children. One in particular—the one blessed with natural beauty, a fantastic imagination, and is writing this bio—would only like to add that if you want to read a truthful biography of Chris Stasheff, ask him to write his own bio next time.
— Eleanore Stasheff, 2002
Click here for the (mostly) serious biography.