<p><strong style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">Leigh Douglass Brackett</strong><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">&nbsp;(1915-1978) was an American author hailed as "the Queen of Space Opera" and a screenwriter best known for&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">The Big Sleep</em><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">,&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">Rio Bravo</em><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">,&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">The Long Goodbye</em><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">, and the first draft of&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">The Empire Strikes Back</em><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">. She was one of the first two women ever nominated for a Hugo Award and the first woman ever shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Around 1950, Brackett's planet-hopping "man without a tribe" Eric John Stark bare-knuckled his way through the pages of sci-fi pulp&nbsp;</span><em style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">Planet Stories</em><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">&nbsp;in a razor-sharp, hardboiled trio -&nbsp;</span><strong style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)"><em>Queen of the Martian Catacombs</em></strong><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">,&nbsp;</span><strong style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)"><em>Black Amazon of Mars</em></strong><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">, and&nbsp;</span><strong style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)"><em>Enchantress of Venus</em></strong><span style="color: rgba(34, 34, 34, 1); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1)">&nbsp;- all three collected here as first published.</span></p>