Leigh Douglass Brackett (1915-1978) was an American writer, particularly of science fiction; she is one of the few women writers to be at the forefront of science fiction's "Golden Age." Brackett was also a screenwriter, known for her work on films from The Big Sleep (1945) to The Empire Strikes Back (1980). "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and "Black Amazon of Mars" are the first two novellas in her Eric John Stark series. These stories, spanning a sprawling (and scientifically impossible) Solar System, are rolicking adventures in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter and Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. They are excellent examples of pulp science fiction at its "pulpy-est"-manly men, warrior women, and non-stop action.