Leigh Brackett

The Queen of Space Opera, whose lush, romantic Mars stories ran from the pulps to The Empire Strikes Back.

Leigh Brackett was a trailblazing American author dubbed the “Queen of Space Opera,” celebrated for richly atmospheric planetary romance. Her vivid, melancholy tales of a dying, romantic Mars — and her hero Eric John Stark — brought lyrical color and emotional depth to pulp adventure, influencing generations of writers.

Brackett was also a major Hollywood screenwriter (The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo) and famously wrote an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back near the end of her life. Married to fellow author Edmond Hamilton, she helped define the romance and grandeur of the space-opera tradition. Expect lush prose, exotic dying worlds, and brooding, larger-than-life adventure. For readers who want the genre's pulp roots at their most beautiful and evocative — sword-and-planet romance elevated by real craft — Brackett is essential, a foundational figure whose Martian tales still cast a powerful spell.