The Roots of Our Favourite Genre

Words of wisdom by Leigh Brackett, maestra of space opera shortstories and western movie scripts:

Leigh Brackett as an adventurous teenager, circa 1930

The tale of adventure — of great courage and daring, of battle against the forces of darkness and the unknown — has been with the human race since it first learned to talk. It began as a part of the primitive survival technique, interwoven with magic and ritual, to explain and propitiate the vast forces of nature with which man could not cope in any other fashion. The tales grew into religions. They became myth and legend. They became the Mabinogion and the Ulster Cycle and the Voluspa. They became Arthur and Robin Hood, and Tarzan of the Apes. The so-called space opera is the folk-tale, the hero-tale, of our particular niche in history.