Customer Reviews

The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich

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After receiving a letter from an old college friend, John Ellis, the writer George Kramer travels to a small Californian town out in the desert. Here he is confronted by strange happenings, the result of another of his old college friends, Daniel Kesserich, who has discovered, quite by accident, a way to use an energy anomaly of collapsing magnetic fields to move in the super-time of the fifth dimension, and thus the time of the fourth dimension. This activity normally has no consequences with regard to the surrounding town and its population. But when Kesserich uses his discovery to return John Ellis' wife from the dead, the result of a seemingly accidental poisoning, the town's population succumb to a general psychological trauma due to the temporal contradictions set in motion. There's a lot of good ideas in this little book, which before its recent publication have appeared in other Leiber titles, such as, Gonna Roll them Bones, and The Big Time. Daniel Kesserich is slightly lumpy to read, especially at the start where the narrative is not quite as smooth as is usual for a Fritz Leiber story, making it necessary to read the first chapter and the forward a couple of times to iron out any apparent oddities.

Overall that's the main complaint in an otherwise nicely presented book with its great black-and-white illustrations and text on quality paper. It's A Leiber all right, but suffers slightly from not having the benefit of his ultimate attention.

Worth reading all the same.

Two things I can say about this book:

1. The story opens to a slow start. This certainly was a deliberate move on Leiber's part. He is working towards a sense of uneasiness, but to me it felt like his characters were moving underwater, slowly and clumsily. Yet, this is all nicely tied up in...

2. The brilliant and exhilarating ending. The disjointed happenings of the previous chapters are all nicely wrapped up in this section of the book. Beside it, the rest of the book pales in comparison.

I was left with the sensation the book may be too long for the tale it tells. Leiber bursts in creativity and commanding (and maniacal) prose until the last chapter, making the rest of his book seem ungainly.

On a final note: Previously, the only other novel by Leiber I had read was "Conjure Wife". This one seemed to me a stronger and better effort, and I highly recommend it.

Subtitled "A Study of the Mass-Insanity at Smithville," this novella tells the story of George Kramer, who, as the novel opens, is on his way to visit Daniel Kesserich, an old friend who lives in that small California town. His business there is unpleasant: he has come to attend the funeral of Mary Ellis, the wife of another old friend, John Ellis, who died after eating an orange treated with a particularly strong pesticide.

Immediately upon Kramer's arrival, strange things start to happen in Smithville. As he approaches Kesserich's house, a trail of pebbles materializes out of thin air. Intrigued, he follows the pebbles until they stop appearing some distance away. Confused, Kramer heads back to the house, just in time to witness it's total destruction in a tremendous explosion. Unable to locate either of his friends, Kramer decides to stay in town and investigate.

Soon thereafter, the townspeople are seized by the idea that Mary Ellis has been buried alive, prompting many of them to insist on an exhumation. Several take it upon themselves to dig up Mary's coffin, only to find it empty. Already fearful, the citizens are further panicked when a child recalls seeing John Ellis digging up his wife's grave, accompanied by a mysterious man in black. It is up to Kramer, the only person in town who has not succumbed to madness, to puzzle out the causes behind these macabre events.

Leiber's elegant prose, accompanied by the eerie cover art and interior illustrations of Jason Van Hollander, make this a welcome addition to any bookshelf. Tor should be commended for publishing this impressive novella, written in the mid-1930's but previously unpublished--new Leiber is always a cause for celebration. A grandmaster if there ever was one, Leiber continues to provide a sterling example to other writers, even from the grave.

Fritz Leiber's The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich was recently published, years after Leiber's death. The book was originally written in 1936, apparently while Leiber still corresponded with Lovecraft, and it shows. It has all the elements that we've learned to love: the letter from an old friend living in a nameless, backwater town; the college mate with interest in more than three dimensions who lives in isolation from the community; the small something that appears to eating away at the town people's minds; the mysterious death - and this is only in the first five pages. The book is quite a good read and absolutely hard to put down, with some scenes that are pretty scary, specially when you realize that they involve only people behaving strangely. However, at some points it has a somewhat raw feel to it, may be because it was never edited. If you're looking for some Lovecraftian read and are tired of the recently published titles, this may be able to please you.

Fritz Leiber was considered one of the greatsof SF, Fantasy, and Horror and this long-lostshort novel demonstrates why. Something strange is happening in Smithville; more and more people are convinced that the woman who was buried a few days earlier was buried alive. What does this have to do with the mysterious experiments of the reclusive Daniel Kesserich?

This short novel of paranormal spookiness in a California desert town was found in Leiber's papers several years after his death in 1992. It reads like what it is - a first draft that was never submitted for publication beacuse it wasn't tight or compelling enough, and was set aside and never revised. Leiber was a good enough writer that there are still some effective moments and genuine shudders; you can see what a good story it could have made if he had thought it worth making it that way. As it is, it's mostly a curio for devoted fans.