Lorelei of the Red Mist

Hugh Starke, space-rat and convict, was being pursued by spacecraft into the unknown parts of Venus. He had just pulled off the largest lone wolf heist in the history of that planet. But now it looked like he was going to pay the ultimate price for his misdeeds. But fate had a strange twist on Starke’s life when he woke up in a different body. A body that was strong and powerful. In a body of a Venusian barbarian named Conan. But was Starke anything more than a puppet in this new body? For he soon found out the strings were being pulled by the beautiful, but terrible, Rann. For Rann was like the siren, Lorelei, and it was Hugh-Starke-called-Conan that would have to fight her or be lured to his doom!

"Lorelei of the Red Mist" is one of those stories you hear about and you just have to read it. The first half was written by Leigh Brackett in 1944 who then had to drop it because she went to Hollywood to write the Bogart picture The Big Sleep (1946) with William Faulkner. This left Lorelei unfinished. Ray Bradbury, yes, that Ray Bradbury, finished the tale without any outline from Leigh. Bradbury's part starts with : "He saw the flock, herded by more of the golden hounds." --G.W. Thomas, Dark Worlds site