Today is Christmas Eve, and it’s also the birthday of Fritz Leiber, Jr. (1910-1992).
When I saw it was his birthday, my first thought was, “Didn’t I just do a birthday post on him?”
No, I didn’t. It was a Black Friday post I was thinking about.
So here’s a birthday tribute. Continue reading
I’ve been in the habit for the last few years of doing a post of Black Friday featuring stories with the word “black” in the title. This year, I’m looking at two stories by Fritz leiber in The Black Gondolier and Other Stories.
This collection was first published by Midnight House in 2000. An electroinc version was realeased in 2014.
The title novelette is, in my opinion, a bit long. Leiber spends much of the first half of the story giving a detailed description of Venice, Californiz and the Los Angeles area at the time the story was written. It first appeared in the Arkham House anthology Over the Edge in 1964.
Leiber does a good job of establishing the setting, to the point that the setting is almost a character. The environmental movement was jsut getting going at this time, and that’s reflected in the details. Continue reading
Fritz Leiber, Jr. was born on this day, December 24, in 1910. He was one of the giants of not only sword and sorcery, but science fiction, as well.
His science fiction isn’t as well remembered today as it once was, but his tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are still in print and being read today.
In a way, I think that’s a shame. He was such a versatile writer that I would love to see a collected short fiction series of books, much like the Del Rey Rober E. Howard books. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are now iconic characters, and that’s how it should be. But they shouldn’t overshadow Leiber’s other work. He wrote a number of dark fantasy and horror stories that are first rate.
I’ve not had a chance to read something for his birthday, but I’ll try to work something in over the next few weeks.
Still, later tonight, after everyone else has gone to bed and I’ve finished stuffing stockings, I’ll raise a glass in his memory.
“Four Ghosts in Hamlet”
Fritz Leiber
available in Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories
paperback $14.99
ebook $9.99
This post is another that is serving double-duty. Not only is it a Christmas ghost post, but today, December 24, is the birthday of Fritz Leiber (1910-1992).
This novelette draws upon Leiber’s experience as a Shakespearean actor. It’s the story of a troupe of Shakespeareans who have hired a down and out actor who used to be well known before he crawled into a bottle. Continue reading
Horrible Imaginings
Fritz Leiber
Originally published by Midnight House in a limited edition hardcover of 520 copies, of which 500 were offered for sale
Currently available in ebook from Open Road Media, $4.99
I originally intended to read and review only one or two stories from this collection, but I ended up reading them all. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.
This book is a mix of early and late horror stories from Leiber’s career. Midnight House published four collections of Leiber’s work before shutting its doors. The Open Road edition contains the original introduction where Pelan mentions his plans to publish an alternate version of “Adept’s Gambit” as a Lovecraftian tale, one that (AFAIK still) has never seen print. Continue reading
Fritz Leiber, Jr., was born on Christmas Eve in 1910. I was spending the day with family and didn’t get a post up. Although considering it was Christmas Eve, I’m not sure how many people would have seen it. And since I’m writing this while Christmas dinner is being prepared, this is going to be a short post.
But I digress. Leiber was one of the greatest writers of fantasy, horror, and science fiction of the 20th Century. He’s best known among fans of Sword and Sorcery as the creator of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It’s a landmark series in the genre.
But if that’s all you know about Leiber, then you’ve missed out. Leiber was a leading figure in the trend to bring horror into contemporary settings. He was also an accomplished science fiction writer. Other than a few short stories and a some Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, it’s been a while since I read any of his work. So later today, I’m going to work in a few of his short stories. There are a number of his works available in electronic format, so if you would like to do the same and don’t have any of his print books handy, you can still download some (after paying for them, of course.)
Fritz Leiber was born 106 years ago, on December 24, 1910, in Chicago. He was one of the greatest writers of the fantastic the world has ever seen, being a major writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
It’s hard to know where to start when discussing Leiber. Probably of greatest interest to readers of this blog would be his sword and sorcery series about the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I’ve always enjoyed his horror stories, especially the ones he wrote in the 1940s. These days an urban setting for horror is nothing unusual. Back then it was still fairly new. Leiber set the bar for that type of horror story, and he set it high. He also wrote a great deal of science fiction, much of it involving time travel or cats.
I’ve not read many of Leiber’s novels, something I intend to correct over the next year. There’s been renewed interest in Leiber’s short fiction lately. Centipede Press earlier this year released Masters of Science Fiction: Fritz Leiber (one of two inaugural volumes in that series) as well as the two volume slip-cased Masters of the Weird Tale: Fritz Leiber.
Both of the above titles are sold out by the publishers, but fear not if you missed or weren’t able to afford them. (They weren’t cheap.) About a dozen or so years ago, give or take, Darkside Press/Midnight House published four collections of Leiber’s short work. And while those books are also sold out from the publisher (who is no longer in business, and weren’t cheap either), they’ve been reprinted in inexpensive electronic editions: Smoke Ghost; Day Dark, Night Bright; Horrible Imaginings; and The Black Gondolier. They are also available in trade paperback. They make great Christmas gifts for yourself.
I posted recently about one of the local used bookstores (currently there are 4: 2 good, 1 decent, 1 not worth bothering with) closing and some of the titles I picked up.
You know I went back. The store will be open for a little while yet. Here’s what I picked up this time.
I couldn’t resist the cover of the Howard pastiche by Offutt, even though I doubt I’ll read it. The People of the Mist is an upgrade of my existing copy. The Starfollowers of Coramonde is a later edition, but the Darrell K. Sweet cover matches the one on the first novel in the series.
I loved Sean Stewart’s Galveston some years back, but I haven’t read any of his other books. The Tanith Lee speaks for itself. The third row contains the first 3 of 4 in Lawrence Watt-Evans Lords of Dus series.
The last row is a reading copy of one of Evangeline Walton’s books that was part of the BAF series. The Zahn is part of a series that looks like a lot of fun. And the Paul Preuss because I wanted some solid science fiction in the old style.
But the gem of this little collection is the volume in the upper left of the picture. It’s Whispers, edited by Stuart David Schiff. It’s a collection of stories published in his groundbreaking small press magazine of the same title. I’ve got a copy of this already, but I couldn’t pass this one up. The contents include “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner, “The Barrow Troll” by David Drake, “The Dakwa” by Manly Wade Wellman, plus stories by Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, William F. Nolan, Hugh B. Cave, Dennis Etchison, Joseph Payne Brennan, Ramsey Campbell, Richard Christian Matheson, Brian Lumley, and many others.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go reread “Sticks”.
The Scroll of Years
Chris Willrich
Pyr Books
Trade paper $15.95 US $17.00 Canada
Ebook $11.99
Amazon B&N Indie Bound
A Scroll of Years is the first novel about thief Imago Bone and poet Persimmon Gaunt. The pair have appeared in 5 short stories to date, and the first is included in this volume. Somehow this series has managed to fly under my radar. That’s something I’m going to need to fix. Looking at Willrich’s website, I may have read one or two but didn’t realize they were part of a series.
Anyway, Bone and a pregnant Gaunt are fleeing from Night’s Auditors. They are a pair of hit men who don’t merely kill their victims. In essence they steal their victims’ souls. They’re a pair of nasty dudes, and they have a dragon working for them. One of them controls a fire spirit. The other has a mirror embedded in his forehead which shows all possible things his victim might do. These guys are hard to kill, and they don’t give up easily.
Gaunt and Bone flee across the ocean to a land much like Imperial China. Gaunt has a mark forming on her belly that resembles two dragons. It’s a sign that the child she carries is someone a lot of powerful people want to get their hands on. Gaunt and Bone are going to need all the allies they can get.
The writing is rich and subtle, and Gaunt and Bone are foremost of a cast of delightfully flawed characters. Some fantasy novels are like a tankard of ale, intended to be slammed back. The Scroll of Years is of a more refined vintage, one in which you savor the writing as well as the story and characters. The story takes place over both months and years simultaneously. (That statement will make sense if you read the book, trust me.)
Gaunt and Bone have been compared to Fafhred and the Grey Mouser. I can see the resemblance, and I’d bet money that Fritz Leiber was one of Willrich’s influences. But that comparison runs the risk of limiting the characters or skewing a potential reader’s expectations. I see echoes of an earlier generation of writers in this book. Writers such as Ernest Bramah with perhaps a dash of Dunsany and maybe a pinch of Clark Ashton Smith. Plus a nod to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Leiber’s heroes were clearly cut from the same general cloth as Conan, inhabiting a milieu rooted in Western tradition where any portrayal of Eastern cultures were filtered to a greater or lesser degree through the West’s perceptions of the East. As Willrich notes in the Acknowledgements, this particular work is firmly planted in Chinese soil. The titular Scroll of Years is a concept I’ve not come across in much European based fantasy. And rather that detracting, the Chinese folk tales Willrich interjects into the story give it added depth and resonance.
The Scroll of Years is not like anything I’ve seen recently. Willrich has a fresh voice, and with this novel (I can’t speak for the short stories, not being familiar with them yet) he expands the boundaries of sword and sorcery.
The events in this book grow out of the short stories, and there are one or two passing reference to previous events that seem to refer back to them. Don’t let that stop you from picking this one up. You can enjoy The Scroll of Years on its own merits. The ARC I have says today is the release date (which is why I wrote the review today), but the author’s website says the 24th. Either way, look for a copy if this sounds like it might be your cup of tea. And if Pyr want to publish the short stories (with one or two new ones included, hint, hint), well, that would be fine with me.
I’d like to thank Lisa Michalski at Pyr Books for the review copy.