Customer Reviews

Leiber Chronicles: Fifty Years of Fritz Leiber

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America of the future where madness is accepted and nurtured - or, alternatively, repressed through steamroller conformity...a man plagued by the memories of his famous father - and 237 of his talking likenesses... music more addictive than any drug... garbage and refuse than obtains a malign ghostly power... homicidal allergies... vampiric supermodels... derelict spaceships... beatniks in orbit... These and many more witty fictions are what made Fritz Leiber one of the founding fathers of modern SF&F and horror. However, no matter what your genre preference is, HERE ARE 44 STORIES THAT WILL STICK TO YOUR RIBS.

Of course, this does not in any way mean that every story in this half-century retrospective is exceptional. The exact opposite is true: many of the stories in this impressively large and heavy book are dull and unexciting. There is a definite impression that they were written by an undisputed master of the genre - but no rerader involvement. However, some of the better stories present make this mammoth anthology a joy to read.

As far as the genres represented in this volume, one can't but admit that Leiber has an undeniable gift for blurring the lines of separation: rather than being strictly science fiction or fantasy, the wide majority of stories are ridiculous fictions, absurd juxtapositions of totally unrelated elements (for example, "Endfray of the Ofay" is an alternate history combining magic and nuclear weaponry). Certainly, there are some recurring themes - nuclear devastation and the continuing Cold War are especially common. In their ultimate form, these "idea-stories" can be extremely funny, adventuresome, and provocative.

Interestingly, the author's style - and its evolution - adds a layer of depth and variety to the anthology: the shock-pulp of the thirties gives way to the somber fictions of the fifties and the uproarious fantasies of the sixties and seventies. The progression is completed with the excellent, unique semi-autobiographical novelettes of the eighties, which combine Leiber's personal experiences of apartment-living with some supernatural undercurrents.

Those looking for Fafhrd/Gray Mouser stories will be sorely disappointed - there are only five (compare to the two about chess), and they are not at all interesting. As for myself, I was disappointed by the inordinate number of typos - of the sort that evade spell-check software and confuse readers ("closet" instead of "closest").

A very good restrospective anthology honoring one of the founding fathers of SF&F.

In his writing career of over fifty years, Fritz Leiber made major contributions to the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In sf, Leiber was one of the first writers (along with Alfred Bester) to depict futures in which high technology coexisted with cultural decadence, thereby blazing the trail to what is now called "cyberpunk". His stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser helped set the formula for heroic fantasy. The horror genre owed Leiber the most, for his ideas of what forms nightmares would take in a modern, urban environment. Finally, much of Leiber's work is so individual that it demands new genre classifications; for example, the many autobiographical fictions he published toward the end of his life. Leiber's impact on genre literature has been consistently underestimated, because it has been so varied and diverse. Fans of his work in one genre weren't necessarily aware of his work in others, and collections of Leiber typically stuck to one genre at a time. "The Leiber Chronicles" is the first book to do full justice to the variety of Leiber's output, including samples from all the genres in which he worked, as well as many that defy easy classification. This gives the reader an opportunity to study the themes that run through Leiber's work as a whole; his interest in cities, chess, cats, the "woman-as-other", and most of all the interaction between modern/rationalist and pre-modern/intuitive ways of thinking. My only regret is that one of my favorite Leiber stories, "Space-Time for Springers", was left out; fortunately it is widely available elsewhere. Sadly, this volume is out of print, but if you have any interest in sf, fantasy, or horror, you owe it to yourself to seek it out!

Harlan Ellison endorsed this man's work, so I had to investigate. He writes content like Ellison, but I find Leiber's writing style less hurried, with a mature resonance. This collection of fantasy and contemporary horror stories has whetted my appetite for more.

This is probably the best one-volume compilation of Leiber's work. Its approach is historical / retrospective, and it collects work from his entire career. It has a lot of stories that are historically important, such as his first story, "Two Sought Adventure," and that means inevitably that some of the stories are merely "okay," not great.

And there are stories with a more satiric bent, such as "The Night He Cried" and "Poor Superman," which may baffle some readers unaware of Mickey Spillane or L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. An admirer of Leiber will be glad to have them, of course. The book also manages to include MOST of Leiber's best work in the story-to-novella length.

With the fantasy stories, and Leiber's science fiction, we have a goodly number of his supernatural horror stories. "Belsen Express," "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," "The Button Molder," "Smoke Ghost," and "The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity" are interesting and original treatments of this genre that certainly broke new ground.

The science fiction seems more often used for satiric or critical comment on society. It seems at times more dated for that reason, but many of the stories are of high quality. We must, however, make adjustments when reading these speculations of the way the future would be. Some of the vision is positively prescient, but inevitably, many of the details didn't turn out as he speculated.

The change war stories, starting with "Try And Change the Past," are especial favorites, where he plays various riffs on time paradoxes. Very entertaining. These stories culminated in his novel _The Big Time_.

Fascinating are the stories like "Gonna Roll the Bones" and "Ship of Shadows," not simply for their excellence as stories, but for the way that they seem to combine science fiction, fantasy, and horror with great panache.

There are some things that were left out that I'd like to have had here. To name just two: "The Moriarty Gambit" and "Space Time for Springers." There are more. And I am not entirely sure about the criteria used to select the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, because the stories selected are an odd grab bag of varying quality. And there is one story, "Ill Met in Lankhmar," whose strength derives from a prior acquaintance with Fafhrd and the Mouser. I don't agree with Gardner Dozois's assessment that "Ill Met in Lankhmar" was not one of Leiber's better efforts. However, I could see it being separated and presented with the rest of the Mouser and Fafhrd stories, where it would seem more effective.

But a collection of this sort requires choices, and the choices seem pretty solid given their constraints. This book is highly recommended to Leiber fans, if they can find it. Be warned, however, that the copy editing was a trifle weak, and there are some annoying & obvious typos.

Contains
· Two Sought Adventure
· The Automatic Pistol
· Smoke Ghost
· The Hound
· Sanity
· Wanted: An Enemy
· Alice and the Allergy
· The Girl with the Hungry Eyes
· The Man Who Never Grew Young
· Coming Attraction
· A Pail of Air
· Poor Superman
· Yesterday House
· The Moon Is Green
· A Bad Day for Sales
· The Night He Cried
· What's He Doing in There?
· Try and Change the Past
· Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee
· The Haunted Future
· Mariana
· The Beat Cluster
· The 64-Square Madhouse
· The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity
· Bazaar of the Bizarre
· 237 Talking Statues
· When the Change-Winds Blow
· Four Ghosts in Hamlet
· Gonna Roll the Bones
· The Inner Circles
· Ship of Shadows
· Endfray of the Ofay
· America the Beautiful
· Ill Met in Lankhmar
· The Bait
· Midnight by the Morphy Watch
· Belsen Express
· Catch That Zeppelin!
· The Glove
· The Death of Princes
· A Rite of Spring
· The Button Molder
· Horrible Imaginings
· The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars