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
