Lorelei of the Red Mist

Leigh Brackett essentially invented the planetary romance, and this is where it all began. Ray Starke is a small-time thief with a fortune in stolen credits, fleeing for his life across the red deserts of an alien world. When his shuttle crashes and leaves him dying in the sand, he expects death. What he finds instead is Lorelei: a telepathic, otherworldly woman who offers him an impossible bargain. She can save his life by placing his consciousness in another body. But the escape she's plotting will take them both across a landscape of strange kingdoms, ancient secrets, and dangers that have no name. Brackett writes with the kinetic punch of a heist film and the mythic sweep of a fever dream. The hero is a crook, the savior is a mystery, and nothing is what it seems. This is pulp science fiction at its rawest and most influential, a book that essentially birthed the template George Lucas would later borrow for a galaxy far, far away.