A World is Born

by Leigh Brackett

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Crime

39 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1941

About the author

Leigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy - playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H Rider Haggard - she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the SF personalities then living in California, including Robert Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton - and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.

In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).

Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.

Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.

Reviews

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I wasn't thrilled with the distressed damsel, and the the whole story was sadly drenched in the misogyny of the times, I did like seeing a cynic become an optimist who was willing to fight for something other than just himself.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

straightforward action/adventure on Mercury, where a convict tries to escape a terraforming project that has enemies.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Jill’s temper blazed, choking her so that she could hardly speak.
‘Look at him, Gray,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what you’re so proud of being. A cynic, who believes in nothing but himself. Look at him!’
Gray turned on her.
‘Damn you!’ He grated. ‘Do you expect me to believe you, with the world full of hypocrites like him?’”


“A World is Born” is a short piece by Leigh Bracket. It is a classic sci-fi story placed on a version of mercury common to that era of writing with a thin twilight zone and an otherwise hostile world. The larger settings takes place after some sort of solar system wide war that left a crumbling power structure and different factions vying for control. Overall, it felt a bit Star Wars to me…the “hero” is a proto-Hans Solo type and the heroine, Jill, reminds me a touch of princess Leigha - there is the same sort of love hate relationship in their dialogues and the same question of if the hero will abandon good for his own personal well-being or not. As usual, the writing is strong, though overall this story didn’t really do it for me - to brief and to many similar pieces out there, but I imagine back in 1941 this would have been a stronger story. I will say I liked the late bit in the cave towards the end…again, nothing revolutionary, but there were certainly some fun bits. As usual I also found Brackett’s psychological under pinning for her character and drama strong and stirring. Overall, I give this story 3 out of 5 blue lights.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really a longish short story, but it was already listed on Goodreads so I decided to count it. I listened to a version on my Kindle that I downloaded from Feedbooks. It also has a very nice introduction about Brackett, which I found interesting. The story itself showcases Brackett's fine imagination and her excellent style, which really puts you into the story.

[M. Fenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to read aloud when the power went out last night. 1941 sf story taking place on Mercury. Most of the science doesn't hold up well, and the characters are paper thin and sexist caricatures (and maybe a little racist). But the prose has its moments, and some of the imagery is pretty cool. 2.625/5

[Zen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This type of story about Mercury always makes me chuckle. I was born in 1960 and got into sci-fi young because of Star Trek and Lost In Space. I remember reading a lot of "cutting edge" sci-fi stories about the environmental conditions that occur on Mercury because it rotates!

And of course I read alot of the old stuff where Mercury doesn't rotate. A lot of it I remember as being pretty good despite the wrong science. Damned if I can remember the names of any the stories though.

So this one gets 3 stars for being well written pulp, despite the obvious misogynistic problems with the writing and the rotating thing.

Mostly it's because of the cool lightening eating creatures that show up halfway through the story. Would have enjoyed there being more focus on them. Could have been a memorable story.

As it is, it's just o.k. I'll probably have completely forgotten this one in about a month. Oh well.

[Phil Giunta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Backed by the Interplanetary Prison Authority, John Moulton and his daughter Jill lead a project to building a community on Mercury as a second chance for prisoners and derelicts from Earth. Most of the laborers are volunteers, with one exception. Mel Gray was sent by the IPA, which puts him under suspicion of working for Caron, the leader of Mars. Since Radium was discovered on Mercury, Caron has been trying to sabotage Moulton's project and turn it into a mining colony. Angered at the thought of being used, Gray attempts to escape and return to his life on Earth, but the Moultons can't let that happen lest it put their project in jeopardy and play right into Caron's hands.

[Teemu Öhman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read 4-5 short stories by Brackett. I'd like to like them, but I don't. The characters are always uninteresting and the plots aren't particularly enthralling either. In A World Is Born the electricity eating nasty creatures are a nice touch, but that's about it. And I did like the fact that she used the scientific knowledge of the day that Mercury's orbit is tidally locked (i.e., one side in eternal sunshine while the other is in perpetual darkness; nowadays we of course know this is not the case) as a part of the setting of the story. Anyway, I think I'm done with Brackett, although I have a whole bunch of her stories on my Kindle.

[Rhonda Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another really good short novella. Yes, it is dated. It was written in the 1940's. It is, however, well written. It has a good premise. The science is outdated because we have come a long way since then. Still, for speculative fiction it has a lot of interesting ideas. The plot is good. The characters are fairly interesting. I can easily see this redone and updated for a more modern setting and audience. And yes, I would actually read it again, simply because it is fun.

[Richard Buro]

The short version first...

[Martine · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5

Five things:
- Short story
- Science fiction
- Just a really long chase, basically
- Hinted at a romance that just didn’t work for me
- Prison labor on Mercury?

[Minniewhop]

I was just so confused the whole time

[Norm Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A World is Born, by Leigh Brackett, Original: _Comet_ magazine, July 1941, pp. 56-70. Chapterbook published 2007

Prisoners on Mercury toiling in the fields, just days away from an event that would prove the merit of the program that would be a haven for the unfortunate and derelict who were horribly displaced. This philanthropic brainstorm of John and Jill Moulten was only weeks away from permanent approval, but still there were things that could go terribly wrong, ruining the hope for the unfortunate and dashing the good will of the Moultens.

The only “non-volunteer” prisoner worker on the project decides he wants to escape. One of his prisoner co-workers is glad to help him, but this “helper for escapee” had been a volunteer, supposedly committed to the good-will of the project. Odd he would help an escape that would ruin a project he volunteered for because he believed in it. An escape from the project would cancel the project forever destroying all the work of the 99 prisoner volunteers and dashing the dreams and the philanthropy of the Moultens who labored for a better day to blossom on Mercury.

The antagonist, Caron, appears. The interplanetary prison authority would turn over all authority to Caron if Moulens' good will project failed. Caron, having hoped for the day when the carefully placed “Gray” would try to escape, ruining everything built up on Mercury..., but giving Caron what he desires.

That nodding off as you're reading is probably normal. The story is adventurous but I believe the author fails to get the reader to care about the characters, or the main plot outcome. Could be typo's that made one character appear to be two different characters stirring up some early confusion.

July 1941 story... Mercury? Well it could have been any mysterious planet “out there” far far away, why not Leigh's Mercury? The planet _is_ a character in this story participating in the cause and effect of events leading to the conclusion of the story.

I'm giving 2 stars, It's ok. I like reading and old speculation stories are sincerely amusing to me so I might have gone with 3 stars. Just did not reach there for me. The 'review' is unlike my normal review as I'm telling much more about the story, so if I have a quick look at my own review I'll quickly recall the Chapterbook. I hope it intrigues you rather than spoiling it for you.

Spoiler... seriously, STOP DANG IT to RIBBONS... Why not read the story first? Oh Well... It's mainly just my musing. After reading and listening simultaneously to the story I started wondering about the title, “A Planet is Born”. I didn't get the impression at all that some celebrated “birth” was going on. But in hindsight, the success of the project opened up the planet as a place for unfortunates and derelicts where it had apparently been uninhabitable prior to the work the volunteers prisoners contributed. So it makes sense to me with my 20-20 hindsight.

Free at these and other fine sources
Librovox Short Story Collection 017 (Read by Rowdy Delaney, Idaho) ~52 minutes.
Project Gutenberg eBook #22544: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/5/4/22544 ~ 20 actual pages after all the Project Gutenberg jargon is stripped out.

Leigh Brackett's ISFDB bio info
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?334

E-text (& Illustrations?) prepared by Greg Weeks, Joel Schlosberg, and the “Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading” Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun science fiction adventure story that takes place on Mercury, one of my favorite settings. I want to read more Leigh Brackett stories.

[Barry Cunningham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly lame, though not untypical for the era.
The sexist stereotypes and setting on a fictionalized Mercury that bears no plausible resemblance to what we know Mercury is like have not aged well.
I did not find the characters particularly engaging.
Maybe if I were 14 in 1949 (and it was still 1949!), I might have found it more engrossing.
As it is, meh.

[Kristy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it was too short, and that's why the characters didn't really seem to have time to develop; not sure, but I wasn't fond of this story, and I usually like sci-fi. I did like the part about the blue fire things that ate lightning. :P

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mel Gray, a "volunteer" on the hellish work colony on Mercury, wants out as much as everyone else. The difference is, he plans to do something about it. That makes him a troublemaker, perhaps with more sinister motives—

Please read full review here.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old-fashioned for today, reasonably cutting edge for its time. It's one of the old books that doesn't quite pass the test of time, though it's a fun read for the few minutes that it takes to get through it.

[Matt Kelland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old-school sci-fi adventure. Nothing amazing, but enjoyable when you want a quick read.

[Exanimis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very short sci fi adventure that is a good break from or between longer books

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science fiction pulp. Penal colony trying to farm Mercury. One man is ready to escape and one government official is ready to pounce and scrap the project when he does. Pure escapism.