Leigh Brackett

After another hiatus of nearly a decade Brackett returned to science fiction in the seventies with the publication of The Ginger Star (1974) The Hounds of Skaith (1974) and The Reavers of Skaith (1976) collected as The Book of Skaith in 1976. Brackett's stories thereafter adopted a more elegiac tone. In 1963 and 1964 Leigh Brackett briefly returned to her old Martian milieu with a pair of stories; "The Road to Sinharat" can be regarded as an affectionate farewell to the world of "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" while the other – with the intentionally ridiculous title of "Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon" – borders on parody.

She was also a screenwriter known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep (1945) Rio Bravo (1959) The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Leigh Douglass Brackett (December 7 1915 – March 18 1978) was an American author particularly of science fiction.