I’m no stranger to Brackett’s fiction, having been a fan for a number of years – ever since reading the collection, Sea-Kings of Mars, in the Fantasy Masterworks series, in fact. The stories in that collection are not fantasy, of course. But Sea-Kings of Mars was not the only book in the Fantasy Masterworks series that was actually science fiction. There are ten stories in The Best of Leigh Brackett, and they’re all, well, typical Brackett. Some I had read before. They’re set on planets and moons of the Solar System which share names with the planets and moons we know but otherwise bear no resemblance – Mars is a desert world, inhabited by ancient dying races; Venus is a jungle world, also, er, inhabited by dying ancient races; the moons of Jupiter are inhabited; as is Mercury… In fact, Brackett pretty much turned every planet and moon on the Solar System into the sort of exotic location used in a Humphrey Bogart movie. It’s always the same – a dying race, a dead culture, a degraded society, and a jaded hero from Earth – pretty much always the US – who overcomes local taboos and superstitions to win the prize. It’s pure Hollywood, so it’s no surprise Brackett worked extensively in movies, her best-known scripts being Rio Bravo (my favourite western) and The Empire Strikes Back. Leigh Brackett and CL Moore were female pioneers in sf – not the only ones, by any means, and it could be argued Gertrude Barrows Bennett was more of a pioneer – but Moore and Brackette were big names in the genre fiction back in the 1940s, and while their style of science fiction is no longer popular, there’s no doubt they were very good at what they did. Perhaps too good, in some respects – some of stories in The Best of Leigh Brackett are dismayingly misogynist. It’s nothing unusual when you compare it to, say, EE ‘Doc’ Smith (it continues to amuse me that ‘Doc’ is always presented in quotes), but I’d expected better of Bracket – and she has indeed done better in other stories. Despite the title, The Best of Leigh Brackett does not contain any of her more celebrated stories, except perhaps ‘The Jewel of Bas’ – but since those stories appear in plenty of other Brackett collections, that’s to its advantage. I’d also dispute the stories here were her best – I thought the aforementioned Sea-Kings of Mars a better selection. Nonetheless, Brackett is always worth reading. ( )

Just not my style. After slogging through [b:The Halfling: And Other Stories|1257496|The Halfling And Other Stories|Leigh Brackett|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|1246303] I was hoping this, the best of" would be cooler. I should have known from the Boris Vallejo cover that it was going to be more of that, um, stuff. Ok, I only read three of the stories, but the other reviews don't encourage me to read the rest. Btw, my edition doesn't have 'Mars.'"

Incredibly dated: 10 variants of the same theme. Repetitive "poetry of the pulps". Examine the mag. pub dates, plus the forgotten magazines i.e. Planet Stories, etc SEL

I didn't realize quite how good this collection would turn out to be. There is a literary quality to the writing that shines through even when the stories themselves are rather preposterous. These are all shorter works, most seem novella length, and Brackett wrote these during the golden age of science fiction pulps. There was a period in my life when I loved reading stuff like this and which I have mostly outgrown. It was still fun to read these. Here's a listing of the stories and the dates:

The Jewel of Bas • (1944) • novelette
The Vanishing Venusians • (1945) • novelette
The Veil of Astellar • (1944) • novelette
The Moon That Vanished • (1948) • novelette
Enchantress of Venus • Eric John Stark • (1949) • novella
The Woman from Altair • (1951) • novelette
The Last Days of Shandakor • (1952) • novelette
Shannach - The Last • (1952) • novella
The Tweener • (1955) • shortstory
The Queer Ones • (1957) • novelette

This book was one of a series published by the Science Fiction Book club in the 1970's as "Best of", putting together some excellent collections in the process. Del Rey soon after published paperback versions of these collections with different cover artwork. I doubt I would have ever read a single one of these stories without this collection. The book includes an excellent introduction by Edmond Hamilton (Leigh Brackett's husband) as well as a very good afterword by Brackett. The collection was published in July 1977, just in the nick of time. Hamilton would pass away in January 1977 before this reached print. Brackett would die too young at 62 soon after from cancer in March 1978. Despite being married for 30+ years and both being writers they had never officially collaborated on a story. Brackett was active a number of years as a screenwriter on some very big movies; I recently watched the John Wayne-Robert Mitchum flick "El Dorado" in the midst of reading this book and in the opening credits saw "screenplay by Leigh Brackett." You'll also find her credited on the second Star Wars film "The Empire Strikes Back.

Hamilton reveals in the introduction (dated July 7, 1976) that they had finally written a story together (to be published the following year) for Harlan Ellison's anthology "Last Dangerous Visions." The story was titled "Stark and the Star Kings". Ellison's notorious and infamous final anthology was never published. The story would possibly have never been published at all but it somehow managed to appear in a combined omnibus of Brackett and Hamilton in 2005. The intro also notes that after writing some of these stories Brackett collaborated with William Faulkner on the screenplay for "The Big Sleep" with Humphrey Bogart. Her husband opines that one of the stories in here has a very Bogart character in it and he doesn't think it a coincidence.

I didn't read these stories all at once. I spread several of them out in between other books over many months. I enjoyed each of these stories, even the somewhat weaker ones. The writing, in my opinion, is very good for the era. On the other hand, these old science fantasies aren't really the sort of stories I want to gulp down. Despite being written by a woman, these stories tend to portray women in a very old fashioned way, nurturing women or femme fatale sorts, inherently fragile with fainting and screams and such. There are a few strong female characters that don't fit these types scattered throughout but they are not the norm.

A few comments on the stories:

When I started the first story, 'The Jewel of Bas' I briefly thought I had stepped into some cutesy fantasy - but the story drew me in and although I thought it stretched out, it is one of the better ones. Most of these stories have interesting well developed characters and they vary quite a bit. I'd recommend this as one of the better examples of older science fiction for those who enjoy reading that era. These stories at their core are fun adventure stories. Although they have science fictional and/or fantasy settings many could just as easily be westerns or mysteries or horror stories or crime potboilers or other fictions with a few changes to settings and storyline.

I generally like to name at least a favorite story or two from collections such as this, but sometimes that isn't the easiest thing to do if there isn't a real standout. I think "The Veil of Astellar" from the Spring 1944 issue of "Thrilling Wonder Stories" is one of those favorites. It is told in such an old-fashioned way, and it reveals itself slowly for what it is. I think this might be the story with the Bogart character that Hamilton referred to in the introduction. Inventive story!

Another favorite of the collection is "Enchantress of Venus." The writing here is very good and the imagery wonderfully vivid. The story opens with Stark crossing the Red Sea of Venus, a gaseous sea that metal boats can float on and his destination is Shuruun. There is much attention to detail in the storytelling. Stark goes there to find a friend, but the piratical closed society hides secrets and Stark is captured to become a slave. There is a nasty ruling class and Stark very quickly finds out. Eventually he becomes a pawn in a power play of the elite but not an entirely unwilling pawn. This is something of a dark story, and I thought it didn't quite live up to the initial promise. I don't recall that I have read one of Brackett's "Stark" stories before, although that seems unlikely. I will have to try more of them. He's an interesting character.

The story that followed, "The Woman From Altair," was a very different piece where a spacer returns from Altair with something like a war bride/trophy wife combo and it turns out that nothing is as it seems. I really enjoyed this one.

Brackett is very good at story beginnings. "The Last Days of Shandakor" is one of the middling stories I'd say, a dying race of Mars story, but still it pulls you right into it from the start. Here's how it begins: "He came alone into the wineshop, wrapped in a dark red cloak, with the cowl drawn over his head. He stood for a moment by the doorway and one of the slim dark predatory women who live in those places went to him, with a silvery chiming from the little bells that were almost all she wore."

"Shannach - The Last" was probably my least favorite story. Kind of a twisted tale set on Mercury with an ancient intelligence controlling a colony of stranded humans. "The Tweener" and "The Queer Ones" that finish the collection are very different types of stories than the earlier adventure stories. No more planetary adventures and romance here. Fear and paranoia is an element in several of the stories, but the prime one in "The Tweener." Uncle Fred brings back a small rabbit-like mammal from Mars - the kids name him John Carter. John Carter of Mars. Cute. Is John Carter harmless? "The Queer Ones" is a queer one, confusing at first, set around a small Appalachian area. X-files precursor.

Overall very good stuff. ( )

SF