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.
Leiber at his best was as good as anyone and he could work multiple genres.
I started a Fritz Leiber horror collection (Heroes and Horrors) for an October/Halloween reading that I only managed to finish a few weeks ago. The two Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories (my first) were the weakest of the bunch. A Bit of the Dark World is one of the finest examples of cosmic horror I have ever read.
Leiber could be uneven and F&GM stories were the most uneven things he wrote. You may want to try Swords Against Death which I consider the best S&S collection ever. It’s good because mostly it includes the early stories in the series and the one later story has at least one good scene.
A Bit of the Dark World is great and Leiber may have been strongest in horror.