Lorelei of the Red Mist [Kindle Edition]

Ray Bradbury (Author), Leigh Brackett (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Hugh Starke, space-rat and convict, was being pursued by spacecraft into the unknown parts of Venus. He had just pulled off the largest lone wolf heist in the history of that planet. But now it looked like he was going to pay the ultimate price for his misdeeds. But fate had a strange twist on Starke’s life when he woke up in a different body. A body that was strong and powerful. In a body of a Venusian barbarian named Conan. But was Starke anything more than a puppet in this new body? For he soon found out the strings were being pulled by the beautiful, but terrible, Rann. For Rann was like the siren, Lorelei, and it was Hugh-Starke-called-Conan that would have to fight her or be lured to his doom!

"Lorelei of the Red Mist" is one of those stories you hear about and you just have to read it. The first half was written by Leigh Brackett in 1944 who then had to drop it because she went to Hollywood to write the Bogart picture The Big Sleep (1946) with William Faulkner. This left Lorelei unfinished. Ray Bradbury, yes, that Ray Bradbury, finished the tale without any outline from Leigh. Bradbury's part starts with : "He saw the flock, herded by more of the golden hounds." --G.W. Thomas, Dark Worlds site

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 192 KB
• Publisher: Wonder Publishing Group (February 25, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003A03RLQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #199,115 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars JUST SO YOU KNOW~~, May 19, 2011

By 

W. B. Glass "tooslowglass" (Venice CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Lorelei of the Red Mist (Kindle Edition)

~~Leigh Brackett writes, in her introduction to THE BEST OF PLANET STORIES #1 (Ballantine, 1975):
"...the story is as much Ray Bradbury's as it is mine--exactly as much. ... In late summer of 1944 I had finished about half of 20,000-worder for Planet. Suddenly lightning struck and (no one was more amazed than I) I had a job working on the screenplay for The Big Sleep, for Howard Hawks. Obviously I would not have time to finish the story, and I asked Ray if he would like to tackle it. He had nothing to go on but what I had down on paper. I never worked from an outline in those days (and often regretted it) and I had no idea where the story was going. Ray took the story and finished it, completely on his own. I never read a word of it until he handed me the manuscript, and I never changed a word after that. I'm convinced to this day that he did a better job with the second half than I would have done. Bradbury's section begins with the line, 'He saw the flock, herded by more of the golden hounds.' Ray did some of his best writing for Planet, and this was some of that."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brackett Meets Bradbury, February 16, 2011

By 

Elliot (Irvine, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lorelei of the Red Mist (Kindle Edition)

Leigh Brackett wrote marvelous science fiction adventure stories, full of action, romance, poetic descriptions and well-visualized alien planets. This story is her only collaboration with Ray Bradbury; when she was hired as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1944, Brackett had to drop this story in the middle, and turn it over (reportedly without an outline) to fellow-Angeleno Bradbury (who was, at the time, writing mostly horror fiction for Weird Tales; he had yet to start on his Martian Chronicles). The story eventually appeared in Planet Stories in 1946. (I should mention that this story is of novelette length; it is not a full novel.)

Bradbury's conclusion to the story is very much in Brackett's style, though the unusual collaboration left a few seams showing (there is plenty of red mist in the story, but no character named "Lorelei"). The protagonist, Hugh Starke, seems to be an early draft of Brackett's series character John Stark, who first appeared in 1949. Early in the story, Starke's mind is moved by a Venusian sorceress into the body of a mighty warrior named "Conan," apparently intended by Brackett as a shout-out to Robert E. Howard. (By 1944, Howard's Conan stories of the 1930s had been pretty much forgotten by casual fans, and the great Conan revival was still years away.) "Lorelei" is not Brackett's best, but it is well worth reading for any of her fans, or any fan of classic science fiction. (For more by Brackett, try this excellent Kindle collection: Black Amazon of Mars and Other Works by Leigh Brackett (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)).