Martian Quest: The Early Brackett - Hardcover

Brackett, Leigh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1893887111 ISBN 13: 9781893887114

Publisher: Haffner Press, 2002

Synopsis

Martian Quest: The Early Brackett is a collection of the twenty earliest stories by the undisputed "Queen of Space-Opera."

On a Venus that never was, on a Mars that can never be (but should have been), Leigh Brackett’s early stories laid the foundation for her later classic adventures, The Sword of Rhiannon, The Nemesis from Terra, and the "Eric John Stark" series.

Other stories in this collection draw inspiration from such diverse sources as the lost-race novels of H. Rider Haggard, the lush fantasies of A. Merritt, and the planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs. With an appreciation for Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, Brackett’s prose is a unique display of vigorous swashbuckling adventure tempered with a harsh, hard-boiled economy.

Martian Quest: The Early Brackett also features a revealing introduction by acclaimed author Michael Moorcock, recent recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

About this title

About the Author

Leigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy — playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard — she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the sf personalities then living in California, including Robert A. Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton — and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.

In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).

Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year’s Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.

Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.

From the Back Cover

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy -- playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard -- she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the sf personalities then living in California, including Robert A. Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton -- and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.

In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).

Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.

Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.

Currently in preparation at Haffner Press is another Brackett collection, Lorelei of the Red Mist: Planetary Romances.

From the Inside Flap

Martian Quest: The Early Brackett is a long-overdue collection of the twenty earliest stories by the undisputed "Queen of Space-Opera."

On a Venus that never was, on a Mars that can never be (but should have been), Leigh Brackett's early stories laid the foundation for her later classic adventures, The Sword of Rhiannon, The Nemesis from Terra, and the "Eric John Stark" series.

Other stories in this collection draw inspiration from such diverse sources as the lost-race novels of H. Rider Haggard, the lush fantasies of A. Merritt, and the planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs. With an appreciation for Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, Brackett's prose is a unique display of vigorous swashbuckling adventure tempered with a harsh, hard-boiled economy.

Martian Quest: The Early Brackett also features a revealing introduction by acclaimed author Michael Moorcock, recent recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Edition details

• Publisher: Haffner Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1893887111
• ISBN 13: 9781893887114
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 504