A Conan Story by Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury

by Gary Romeo

“Lorelei of the Red Mist” by Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury was published in Planet Stories, Summer 1946. This story is of interest to Robert E. Howard fans for several reasons. The main reason is that the story features a warrior named Conan!

This story is available to read online for free at Project Gutenberg. Rather than review the story and potentially give out spoilers I will discuss other related issues. Suffice to say, the story begins in an exciting way:

“The Company dicks were good. They were plenty good. Hugh Starke began to think maybe this time he wasn’t going to get away with it. His small stringy body hunched over the control bank, nursing the last ounce of power out of the Kallman. The hot night sky of Venus fled past the ports in tattered veils of indigo. Starke wasn’t sure where he was any more. Venus was a frontier planet, and still mostly a big X, except to the Venusians—who weren’t sending out any maps. He did know that he was getting dangerously close to the Mountains of White Cloud. The backbone of the planet, towering far into the stratosphere, magnetic trap, with God knew what beyond. Maybe even God wasn’t sure.”

Starke crashes but is rescued by an alluring female and wakes to find himself in a new body:

“It was a powerful body, rangy and flat-muscled, much bigger than his old one. It had obviously not been starved the first twenty-some years of its life. It was stark naked. Weather and violence had written history on it, wealed white marks on leathery bronze, but nothing seemed to be missing. There was black hair on its chest and thighs and forearms, and its hands were lean and sinewy for killing.”

The reader later learns this body once belonged to a warrior named Conan. If you want to stop reading this article now and jump over to the Project Gutenberg website, I couldn’t blame you!

Leigh Brackett almost became THE writer to continue Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Here is Sprague de Camp telling the story, this is from Time and Chance, Donald M. Grant, 1996:

First, for those that may know very little about Ms. Brackett, I give the following from Wikipedia: Leigh Douglass Brackett (December 7, 1915 – March 18, 1978) was an American science fiction writer known as “the Queen of Space Opera.” She was also a screenwriter, known for The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Long Goodbye (1973). She also worked on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), elements of which remained in the film; she died before it went into production. In 1956, her book The Long Tomorrow made her the first woman ever shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and, along with C. L. Moore, one of the first two women ever nominated for a Hugo Award. In 2020, she won a Retro Hugo for her novel The Nemesis From Terra, originally published as “Shadow Over Mars” (Startling Stories, Fall 1944).

Needless to say, she had an impressive career. She was married to fellow science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton. Edmond Hamilton was also famous for his space opera stories. He and E. E. “Doc” Smith pretty much created the subgenre. Hamilton had appeared in Weird Tales alongside Robert E. Howard.

Taking into account her successful writing career and familiarity with Conan, it is no wonder that Martin Greenberg pursued her for the idea of continuing Robert E. Howard’s Conan adventures. After several letters he realized that he wasn’t going to sway her.

As I do not have Leigh Brackett’s side to the letters I do not know what Greenberg and her meant by “the big bugaboo.” Further research is needed. But let’s return to Time and Chance for some last thoughts by Sprague de Camp:

Since I am a comic book reader, I want to make mention of this somewhat hard to find comic-book adaptation of “Lorelei of the Red Mist.”

Conquest Comics Press was a short-lived 1990s comic book company. The publisher was a Robert E. Howard fan named Alfonso D. Alfonso. The stated goal of the publisher was as follows:

“Conquest is an action/adventure-oriented company, devoted to bringing you tales by such renowned authors as: Ray Bradbury, Leigh Brackett, Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson, and C. L. Moore. To start. If you enjoy Two Fisted Tales, Horror, and Mystery, you have come to the right place. If you crave Comedy, Suspense, and Beauty, look no further.”

Sadly, Conquest Comics Press came to a quick end (1991-1993), and only published four Robert E. Howard titles before ending operations. The four titles (to be reviewed sometime in the future) were Lord of the Dead (1992), Robert E. Howard’s Blood and Thunder (1992), Robert E. Howard’s Songs of Bastards (1992), and Vultures of Whapeton (1991).

Lorelei of the Red Mists (1992) was adapted in two issues. Below are the front covers, splash pages, and back covers. It was a decent adaptation and faithful to the original story. In a perfect world Conquest Comics would have been better funded and succeeded in the marketplace. They had a great vision, but circumstances didn’t allow them to see it through.