Showing results by author "Leigh Brackett"

One of the original novels of post-nuclear holocaust America, The Long Tomorrow is considered by many to be one of the finest science fiction novels ever written on the subject. The story has inspired generations of new writers and is still as mesmerizing today as when it was originally written.

Before Eric John Stark can escape from the dying planet of the ginger star, he is betrayed by the starship captain Penkawr-Che. Abandoned by friends and besieged by enemies, Stark is a fugitive once more. Running from all those who hunt him, he embarks on a nightmare journey through deadly jungles and across predator-infested seas to risk his life for those who hunger for his death.

More beast than man! Stark had killed the king-dog Flay on the plains of Worldheart. Now he was the leader of the ferocious Northhounds - nine great white beasts that responded to his every command. But should they ever turn on him, the hounds could prove more deadly than any enemy on that hostile planet....

Eric John Stark, Outlaw of Mars, travels beyond the solar system for exciting adventures on the planet of Skaith, a lawless sphere at the edge of the known universe. Raised as a savage on the hostile planet of Mercury and honed into a fearless warrior in the low canals of the Red Planet, Stark is one of science fiction's greatest adventurers and is Leigh Brackett's most famous character. In The Ginger Star, Simon Ashton, Stark's foster father, has been kidnapped by the Lords Protector, and only Stark can rescue him.

Mars as old, tried, and steeped in every evil of a dying world. There, to the sinful cities of the low canals, came Eric John Stark, adventurer, roisterer, and outlaw from Earth. Among then-wasted ruins of the deserts, the tribes were losing something beyond their utmost dreams of loot and ravage. To such peril, inevitably, Stark was drawn. Who else could bear the talisman? What other war leader could the false messiah of the tribes summons? But Eric John Stark was more than he seemed - more, in fact, than he knew.

Greed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight. Talented enough to co-write The Big Sleep film with William Faulkner and imaginative enough to pen the original screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, Leigh Brackett is a giant in the science-fiction field, and The Sword of Rhiannon is one of her most popular adventure tales.

The Throne room: one by one, the torches were trampled out. From outside, rose an animal howl mingled with the thunder of fighting. After a time there was silence. In the darkness, one torch still burned, spilling a red and shaken light over a man pinned by knives against the stone wall.

In the icy north lands of Mars, Stark is carrying his wounded friend home to die. With his dying words, Camar lays a perilous duty on the unwilling Stark. He is to return a stolen gem to the ancient walled city of Kushat. If Stark can dodge the black warrior and his army of bandits, maybe - just maybe - the people of Kushat won't kill him. FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of this sci-fi classic.

"Black Amazon of Mars" (1951) is a novel about a female warrior on the Mars, by Leigh Douglass Brackett. Excerpt: Grimly Eric John Stark slogged toward that ancient Martian City -with every step he cursed the talisman of Ban Cruach that flamed in his blood-stained belt. Behind him screamed the hordes of Ciaran, hungering for that magic jewel - ahead lay the dread abode of the Ice Creatures - at his side stalked the whispering spectre of Ban Cruach, urging him on to a battle Stark knew he must lose!

"Grimly Eric John Stark slogged toward that ancient Martian city.´With every step he cursed the talisman of Ban Cruach that flamed in his blood-stained belt. Behind him screamed the hordes of Ciaran, hungering for that magic jewel. Ahead lay the dread abode of the Ice Creatures. At his side stalked the whispering spectre of Ban Cruach, urging him on to a battle Stark knew he must lose!"... Welcome to the sci-fi world of Leigh Douglass Brackett and U.S. pulp fiction.

John Sark is the hero who was raised by animals (like Tarzan) in the temperate, twilight zone of Mercury, then captured and civilized. He's a mercenary on Mars now, dealing with humanoid Martians and their extremely nasty pre-humanoid race enemies. The fights are brutal and frantic yet detailed enough to bring you right into the midst of the action; the suspense is real and tingling. A wonderful listen.

New star-drive engines promise to open up the galaxy to human-kind. But the first ship to use the engines disappears and a sole survivor returns...alone and dying of some strange type of radiation. No one can figure out what has happened to the ship or the crew. Nor does anyone know what happens to a ship travelling using star-drive technology. Does some unknown horror await us out there? The only way to find out is to go out again. And Arch Comyn is determined to be the one to solve the mystery.

A dying planet, dried up and hostile; a planet of countless years and countless mysteries.

When the Terrans came, they found a world of dead sea-bottoms, lost civilizations, and secretive tribes bitterly resenting their intrusion on the fading glory of an ancient planet. The Earthmen looked down upon the crumbling ruins of a brilliant culture and laughed at the stories of invincible gods and forgotten magic lingering in the forbidden cities of Jekkara, Barrakesh, Valkis...they would not laugh for long!

Outcast in space. Michael Trehearne had always been an outcast among his people on Earth. He knew he was different. He did not know how or why. Then one day, on the wind-swept coast of Brittany, a bewitchingly beautiful girl appeared & told him he had the look of the Vardda - those elite star travelers who alone could withstand the rigors of intergalactic flight .Michael had to join them, had to find his place in the universe at last. But it would not be easy.

Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the Solar System - only 4.3 light years away. To Kirby and his followers it meant freedom - freedom from the tyranny and repression of Earth's dictatorship. But that freedom would have to be earned - the flight to Alpha Centauri would mean five years jammed in the belly of an obsolete spaceship, five years of praying that the food supply would last, five years of fighting off the Government ships sent out to intercept them....

Matt Harker and his people have journeyed for far too long. They're a rag-tag group of Earthmen and Venusians floating on the Sea of Morning Opals... floating without a home and with very little hope, victimized by hostile natives, burning fevers, bad soil, and bad luck. When land is sighted, Harker makes the decision to scale the mountainous terrain in the dim hopes of finding a new home. With two companions, he ascends to encounter unknown malevolent alien beings.