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Brackett, Leigh

Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.

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(1915-1978) US scriptwriter and author, for most of her career deeply involved in the writing of fantasy and sf, for which she perhaps remains best known, though her detective novels and her 16 film and television scenarios have been justly praised. Her film work includes screenplays forThe Vampire's Ghost (1945) andThe Long Goodbye (1973); and for Howard Hawks'sThe Big Sleep (1946) andRio Bravo (1958), novelizing her own script asRio Bravo (1959). Hawks had been impressed by her first novel, the detective thrillerNo Good from a Corpse (1944), and famously (as a Hollywood tale puts it) told his secretary to locate "this guy Brackett" (Hawks, noted for his filming competent women coping with slightly less competent men, was undismayed when Brackett turned out to be female). Her last film work, a draft scenario forStar Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), for which she posthumously received a 1981Hugo, was not typical of her efforts in this field, though she clearly felt at home with theWestern-derived elements in the overall story; the original script was published asThe Empire Strikes Back (1978; exp vtThe Empire Strikes Back: The Complete, Fully Illustrated Script1999) with Larry Kasdan. None of her television work is in the fields of the fantastic. In 1946 she married EdmondHamilton, who had been active as an sf writer from the 1920s; her influence may have affected his writing, which improved markedly in the late 1940s.

Brackett began publishing stories of genre interest in February 1940 with "Martian Quest" forAstounding, beginning her period of greatest activity in the sf magazines; most of the forty or so stories of genre interest published in her first decade as a professional writer were assembled asMartian Quest: The Early Brackett (coll dated 2002 but2003) andLorelei of the Red Mist: Planetary Romances (coll2007). The title story of the second collection –Lorelei of the Red Mist (Summer 1946Planet Stories; rev Fall 1953Tops in Science Fiction; original text2017 dos) – was written in collaboration with RayBradbury, who introduced the volume. Her work appeared mostly inPlanet Stories,Thrilling Wonder Stories and others that offered space for what rapidly became her speciality: swashbuckling but literatePlanetary Romances, usually set on aMars not dissimilar to Edgar RiceBurroughs's pioneering creation of a romantic venue out of the speculations of PercivalLowell and others about the possibility of canals – and hence civilizations, presumably ancient – on that planet. Brackett used something like Burroughs's Mars in much of her work, though there is only an occasional geographical or "historical" continuity linking her various venues.

From the mid-1940s she tended to move into somewhat longer forms; non-series novels set onMars includeShadow over Mars (Fall 1944Startling;1951; vtThe Nemesis from Terra1961 dos) and, perhaps the finest of them all,The Sword of Rhiannon (June 1949Thrilling Wonder as "Sea-Kings of Mars";1953 dos). Understood in conjunction with the connected "The Sorcerer of Rhiannon" (February 1942Astounding), this concisely and eloquently written novel admirably combines adventure with a strongly romantic vision of an ancient sea-girt Martian civilization, which is described with a remarkable combination of freshness and nostalgia (seeTime Abyss). Where Burroughs's Mars had been characterized by naive barbaric energy, Brackett's represents – without unctuousness – the last gasp of aDecadence endlessly nostalgic for the even more remote past. Some further stories of this sort are assembled inThe Coming of the Terrans (coll of linked stories1967), though these tales are less intense than the Mars-based tales at the heart of herEric John Stark series:The Secret of Sinharat (Summer 1949Planet Stories as "Queen of the Martian Catacombs"; rev1964 dos),People of the Talisman (March 1951Planet Stories asBlack Amazon of Mars [2010 ebook]; rev1964 dos) – both reportedly expanded for book publication by Edmond Hamilton, the latter of the two being significantly changed from its magazine version; both being later assembled asEric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars (omni1982) – plusEnchantress of Venus (Fall 1949Planet Stories; vt "City of the Lost Ones" inThe Giant Anthology of Science Fiction, anth1954, ed Oscar JFriend & LeoMargulies;2011 dos), this last title being collected inThe Halfling and Other Stories (coll1973). Stark concentrates all the virtues of the sword-and-sorcery hero in his lean figure, rather like Robert EHoward'sConan, though Stark – an orphan of advanced civilization raised by aboriginals of Mercury – is considerably more complex than his mentor; dozens of snarling, indomitable mesomorphs, in many subsequent series by later authors, attempt to emulate Stark's brooding fortitude. The fullest assembly of earlyEric John Stark tales isSea-Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories (2005), which incorporates all threeStark novels, plus other material. In the 1970s Brackett revivedStark, the new series being conveniently transferred to an interstellar venue (as Mars andVenus were no longer readily usable as venues for thePlanetary Romance); it comprisesThe Ginger Star (1974),The Hounds of Skaith (1974) andThe Reavers of Skaith (1976), all three being assembled asThe Book of Skaith (omni1976). Stark makes a final appearance inStark and the Star Kings (coll2008) with EdmondHamilton, the title story of this collection – which was originally written for «The Last Dangerous Visions» (seeDangerous Visions) – being the only credited collaboration between Brackett and Hamilton. The latter revealed in "An Interview with Leigh Brackett & Edmond Hamilton" (Summer 1976Tangent #5) that Brackett, uncredited, had also written three chapters of his well-regarded novelThe Valley of Creation (July 1948Startling; rev1964).

By the 1950s, Brackett was beginning to concentrate more on interstellar space operas, includingThe Starmen (1952; cut vtThe Galactic Breed1955 dos; text restored vtThe Starmen of Llyrdis1976),The Big Jump (1955 dos) andAlpha Centauri – or Die! (main story September 1953Planet Stories as "The Ark of Mars"; fixup1963 dos). All three are efficient but seem somewhat routine when set beside Brackett's best single pure-sf work,The Long Tomorrow (1955), which is set in a strictly controlled, technophobic,Ruined-Earth USA, many years after the destruction of theCities and of theTechnology that brought mankind to ruin. It is the slow, impressively warm and detailed epic of two boys and their finally successful attempts to find Bartorstown, where people are secretly reestablishing science andTechnology. It was a best novel finalist for the 1956Hugo awards, in a strong year; Brackett was the first woman novelist to be so recognized. Twenty-first-century readers of the book may be less hopeful than its author about Bartorstown's aspirations, but on its own terms the novel is a glowing success.

After 1955, Brackett generally preferred to work inCinema andTelevision, though several of her late tales are both assured and bleak – an example being "All the Colors of the Rainbow" (November 1957Venture Science Fiction), where anAlien woman, part of a Galactic Centre team engaged in aWeather Control exercise on Earth, is raped by citizens of a southern American town who think of her as a "nigger" (seeRace in SF). Brackett was a highly professional writer, working with extreme competence within generic moulds that she occasionally stretched to their limits.The Long Tomorrow and her film scripts for Howard Hawks did suggest broader horizons for her work; but her production of shorter fiction tapered off. A summatory collection, edited by her husband,The Best of Leigh Brackett (coll1977), confirms the muscular panache of her work and its haunting refusal to transcend her ample competence; as do the non-Mars stories assembled inShannach – The Last: Farewell to Mars (coll2011), which contains all her late short work. Although advertised as forthcoming in 2015, the two titles «The Book of Stark» and «The Leigh Brackett Centennial» were never published.

She was inducted into theScience Fiction Hall of Fame in 2014. [JC]

see also:Anti-Intellectualism in SF;Colonization of Other Worlds;Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award;Fantasy;Galactic Empires;Generation Starships;Jupiter;Mercury;Mythology;Pastoral;Spaceships;Ultrawave;Women SF Writers.

Leigh Douglass Brackett

born Los Angeles, California: 7 December 1915

died Lancaster, California: 18 March 1978

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Mars

Mars: Stark

Skaith: Stark

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