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Fritz Leiber
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The Silver Eggheads Kindle Edition

by Fritz Leiber (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
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A HEADLONG RIOT OF HILARIOUS
SCIENCE FICTION SATIRE

MEET SOME INSUFFERABLY WONDERFUL CHARACTERS,
from the mad, gay, heady world of the "arts"

GASPARD DE LA NUIT—human journeyman writer. He has problems with his rampant lover, Heloise Ibsen (assigned to him by his pub­lisher). What he really loves is the giant computer-word-machine that produces his novels—read by other humans—which he oils with devoted care. His closest friend is

ZANE GORT—a fine, upstanding, self-employed robot writer. Zane writes books for other robots and is madly in love with

MISS BLUSHES—a censor-robix (female robot) of delicate pink. Miss Blushes is something of a prude and rather hysterical: very logical when you consider that her circuits are wired for censorship, but it makes life difficult for Zane. He turns for help to

NURSE BISHOP—a small, but formidably beautiful human, who (in addition to the remarkable advice she offers Zane) plays nursemaid to a mysterious group of near-human entities owned by

FLAXMAN AND CULLINGHAM—human publishers, whose language is frequently deplorable. To say nothing of the peculiar interest at least one of them has in a luscious platinum robut no, the daring reader must discover this for himself...

AND THERE ARE MANY, MANY MORE...

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  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 9, 2018
  4. File size
    1778 KB
  5. Page Flip
    Enabled
  6. Word Wise
    Enabled
  7. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07BCKRS2T
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Speaking Volumes (March 9, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 9, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1778 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

About the author

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Fritz Leiber

Fritz Leiber

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Fritz Leiber is considered one of science fiction's legends. Author of a prodigious number of stories and novels, many of which were made into films, he is best known as creator of the classic Lankhmar fantasy series. Fritz Leiber has won awards too numerous to count including the coveted Hugo and Nebula, and was honored as a lifetime Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He died in 1992.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
15 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Frank McCormick
5.0 out of 5 stars Revisiting an old favorite
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2020
Verified Purchase
It was with both excitement and trepidation that I started rereading one of my favorite books from my high school years. Was the book as good as I remembered? Would formerly acceptable sexist and homophobic tropes spoil my enjoyment?

The answers are an enthusiastic and respective YES and NOPE.

In fact, potentially offensive tropes are raised only to be effectively skewered.

In short, this is a funny and fun read.
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doomsdayer520
4.0 out of 5 stars Wordwooze
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2006
This old sci-fi oddity, which dates back to 1958, is a sharp and (dare I say) eggheaded satire on the publishing industry, the art of writing, and the public's consumption of entertainment. In a future emerging from the slightly twisted mind of Fritz Leiber, writers have been replaced by machines called "wordmills" that crank out fiction for the masses who demand a cheesy new book every day – stories built out of market research for trendsters, but which offer nothing for deep thinkers. A union of writers destroys all the wordmills, only to find that they can't even begin to write for themselves after all. Meanwhile, this future society features mega-advanced robots with literary and philosophical musings and active sex lives, who turn out to be much better writers. Furthermore, publishers plan to overcome the wordmill destruction not by relying on the newly re-emerging human writers, but by using "silver eggheads" in which the brains of real classic writers of the past have been imprisoned in a world of pure thought. Much of Leiber's satire is period-based, but he was remarkably prescient on future trends in mass entertainment consumption. Many mass-market bestsellers are now being written by teams of wordmilling hacks, and you can really see some parallels between Leiber's lowest-common-denominator future mass entertainment and our modern obsession with things like iPods, video games, and instant messaging. That's what makes for good satire, and Leiber is pretty funny to boot. [~doomsdayer520~]
7 people found this helpful
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Anne Mills
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Funniest Sci-Fi Novels Ever Written
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2013
Verified Purchase
Great sci-fi, in terms of creating a compelling (if not entirely credible) future reality, madly imaginative characters and plot twists, and a felicitous writing style. But not serious -- not at all serious -- which is probably why it is so far down on all the lists. This is one of the funniest sci-fi novels ever written, particularly for those who know more than they would like about the literary world.
One person found this helpful
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Pantagruel
5.0 out of 5 stars Who Can Replace An Author?
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2000
In a far-fetched, far-flung future, humans have begun relegating themselves to mere keepers of the machine, and no one feels it more keenly than the 'authors,' who take credit for the wordwooze written by computer 'wordmills.' An author's revolt smashes the wordmills, and the hapless authors find themselves attempting to actually write. Realizing they can't do it, the attempt to enlist the help of the Silver Eggheads, an artist's colony of disembodied brains. We robots find this a groundbreaking novel as it was the first to seriously suggest robots with gender and sex lives, as well as their own literature and culture, and in fact we consider St Fritz one of our greatest heroes and Zane Gort, the robot author, one of his greatest characters.
7 people found this helpful
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nemethwa@mail.internet.com.mx
5.0 out of 5 stars A top 5 in my funny sci-fi titles
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 1997
A very funny work by Fritz Leiber.The stoy is like this: all the books are made by wordmills and writers are bored to death, so they revolt. They destroy the wordmills and start to write books them-selfs but they find out they can't write a page much less a book. The field is open to the eggheads, brains in eggs. It goes all over sci-fi from wordwooze to robot(male) and robox(female) sex. It is one of the best funny sci-fi I've ever seen. It's a must read, but if you don't like wordmills burned, blown up, or melted a don't read.
6 people found this helpful
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