Comprehensive information and links about Leigh Brackett

Leigh Brackett (December 7, 1915 - March 18, 1978), was a writer of fantasy and science fiction, mystery novels and - best known to the general public - Hollywood screenplays, most notably

Career overview

Leigh Douglass Brackett was born in Los Angeles, California.

Her first published science fiction story was "Martian Quest", which appeared in the February 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Her first novel, "No Good from a Corpse", published in 1944, was a hard-boiled mystery novel in the tradition of Raymond Chandler. Hollywood director Howard Hawks was so impressed by this novel that he had his secretary call in "this guy Brackett" to help William Faulkner write the (1946). The film, starring Humphrey Bogart and written by Leigh Brackett, William Faulkner, and Jules Furthman, is considered one of the best movies ever made in the genre.

In 1946, Brackett married science fiction author Edmond Hamilton, and may well have had a positive influence on the quality of his own writing, given that the characters in his own Captain Future series became more complex after the marriage. In the same year, Planet Stories published one of Brackett's most influential short fiction works, the novella , a collaboration with Ray Bradbury.

While Brackett published mainly short fiction in the 1940s, she concentrated on longer works of fiction in the fifties and early sixties. By the mid-1950s, however, most of Brackett's writing was for the more lucrative film and television markets. She returned to science fiction in the seventies with the publication of in 1976, reusing an earlier character, Eric John Stark, but setting his adventures upon the extrasolar planet of Skaith instead of in the solar system.

Most of Brackett's science fiction is best characterized as either space opera or planetary romance. Almost all of Brackett's planetary romances take place within a common invented universe, the Leigh Brackett Solar System. Many of these stories take place on fictional versions of Mars and Venus which reflect the science-fictional consensus of the 1930s-1950s (Mars as a marginally habitable desert world, Venus as a primitive, wet jungle planet), but rendered in richer detail than usual among pulp writers. Brackett's Mars is an arid, dying planet, populated by ancient, decadent and mostly humanoid races (see Mars in fiction). Brackett's seventies venue Skaith is less arid but otherwise similar.

The fact that the settings of Brackett's stories range from a rocket-crowded interplanetary space to the superstitious backwaters of primitive or decadent planets allows her a great deal of scope for variation in and subject matter. In a single story, Brackett can veer from space opera to hard-boiled detective fiction to Western to the borders of Celtic-inspired fantasy. Brackett cannot, therefore, be easily classified as a Sword and planet science fantasy writer; though swords and spears may show up in the most primitive regions of her planets, guns, blasters and electric-shock generators are more common weapons.

Despite inevitable comparisons between Brackett and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the differences between their versions of Mars are arguably more significant than the obvious similarities. For one thing, Brackett's Mars is set firmly in a world of interplanetary commerce and competition, and one of the most prominent themes of Brackett's stories is the clash of planetary civilizations; the stories both illustrate and critique the effects of colonialism among both older and younger civilizations than those of the colonizers, and thus have relevance even today. Burroughs' themes are almost the opposite; his stories typically involve an 'enlightened' hero from a familiar culture (usually an American) singlehandedly overthrowing the ostensibly corrupt or false religions and governments of the culture into which he intrudes, with minimal sympathy for opposing viewpoints. Brackett's imaginative cultures are also more consistent, and her characters more psychologically intricate, than is usual in Burroughs' science fiction stories.

Eric John Stark, Brackett's most memorable character, is sometimes compared to Robert E. Howard's Conan, but is in many respects closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan or Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli. Stark, an orphan from earth, is raised by the semi-sentient aboriginals of Mercury, who are later killed by earthmen. He is saved from the same fate by a terran official, who adopts Stark and becomes his mentor. When threatened, however, Eric John Stark frequently reverts to the primitive N'Chaka, the "man without a tribe" he was on Mercury. Thus, Stark is the archetypical modern man—a beast with a thin veneer of civilization.

Brackett's critically most acclaimed science fiction novels are ion of Mars before its oceans evaporated. The latter describes an agrarian, deeply technophobic society that develops after a nuclear war, and is singled out for praise because of its more obvious relevance to the present rather than its stylistic merits.

The Empire Strikes Back

Brackett received the Hugo award posthumously for her work on the screenplay for was a departure for Brackett, since until then, all of her science fiction had been in the form of novels and short stories rather than screenplays.

The exact role which Brackett played in writing the is the subject of a small controversy. What is agreed on by all is that George Lucas asked Brackett to write the screenplay for based on his story outline. It is also known that Brackett wrote a finished first draft of the screenplay, which was delivered to Lucas shortly before Brackett's death from cancer in March 18, 1978. The screenplay was revised for filming by Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, and both Brackett and Kasdan (though not Lucas) were given credit for the final is not agreed on at all. Many reviewers have believed that they could detect traces of Brackett's influence in both the dialogue and the treatment of the space opera genre in [1]. Some have declared that the concept of Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father originated as a story idea proposed by Brackett. In general, the better reception that and Lucas' other movies) has been attributed to Brackett's writing.

However, Laurent Bouzereau in his book states that Lucas disliked the direction of Brackett's screenplay and discarded it. He then produced two screenplays before turning the results over to Kasdan, who did not work directly with Brackett's at all [2]. According to this scenario, Lucas' assignment of credit to Brackett was a mere courtesy or homage (or, less charitably, an attempt to improve s critical reception by associating it with a well-respected screenwriter). Support for this view comes from Stephen Haffner, owner of the press that printed , and claims that -- outside Lucas' storyline -- nothing of Brackett's personal contributions to the survives into the finished movie. [3] [4]

Brackett's screenplay has never been published. According to Haffner, it can be read at the library of the Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM, but may not be copied or borrowed off-site.