About the Author

Leigh Douglass Brackett was an early female icon of science fiction, sometimes referred to as the 'Queen of Space Opera.' She was the first woman ever to be short-listed for a Hugo award. She was also one of the earliest writers to create a science fiction 'universe;' The Leigh Brackett Solar System which contains highly detailed fictional versions of planets in our solar system. Her popular Eric Stark novels are set in this universe. Brackett was also a successful screenwriter. Shortly after Brackett broke into science fiction writing, she wrote her first screenplays. Hollywood director Howard Hawks was so impressed by her novel No Good from a Corpse that he had his secretary call in "this guy Brackett" to help William Faulkner write the script for The Big Sleep, considered to be one of the best movies ever made in the genre. Leigh Brackett was an early script writer hired by George Lucas for the second Star Wars movie of the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back. Though the script (as is normal in Hollywood) underwent many changes, John Saavadra of the Den of Greeks states that "Most importantly, you see that Brackett's draft, while definitely in need of a rewrite and several tweaks, holds all of the big moments we'd eventually see on screen. We still get a version of the Battle of Hoth (a much more ridiculous one), the wise words of an old Jedi Master, the excitement of zooming through a deadly asteroid field, a love triangle (a MUCH more overt one), a majestic city in the clouds, unexpected betrayals, and the climactic duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader that we would reenact on playgrounds for years to come" Howard Jones's debut historical fantasy novel, The Desert of Souls, (Thomas Dunne Books 2011), was widely acclaimed by influential publications like Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publisher's Weekly, where it was labeled "a splendid flying-carpet ride." It made Kirkus' New and Notable list for 2011, and was on both Locus's Recommended Reading List and the Barnes and Noble Best Fantasy Releases list of 2011. Additionally, The Desert of Souls was a finalist for the prestigious Compton Crook Award, and a featured selection of The Science Fiction Book Club. Its sequel, The Bones of the Old Ones, will become available on December 11, 2012. He is hard at work on a third historical fantasy novel about Dabir and Asim as well as a sequel to his Pathfinder Tales novel, Plague of Shadows.