Fritz Leiber

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Template:Cleanup-date Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. (December 24, 1910–September 5, 1992) was an influential American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also an expert chess player and a champion fencer.

His popularity amongst both fans and his fellow writers was considerable, and his science fiction novels The Big Time (1958) and The Wanderer (1964) and the short stories "Gonna Roll the Bones" (1967), about a gambler playing dice with Death, and "Ship of Shadows" (1970) all won Hugo awards ("Bones" won a Nebula award too).

As the child of two Shakespearean actors, Fritz Sr. (see below) and Virginia (née Bronson), Leiber was fascinated with the stage and described itinerant Shakespearean companies in stories like "No Great Magic" and "Four Ghosts in Hamlet", and created an actor/producer protagonist for the novel A Specter is Haunting Texas. An interesting feature of his Change War novel, The Big Time, is that though it is about a war between two factions — the "Snakes" and the "Spiders" — changing and rechanging history throughout the Universe, all the action takes place in a small bubble of isolated space-time, about the size of a theatrical stage, with only a handful of characters.

Many of Leiber's best works are short stories, especially horror. In such stories as "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes", and "You're All Alone" (AKA "The Sinful Ones"), he is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of the modern urban horror story. In his later years, Leiber returned to short story horror in such works as "Horrible Imaginings", "Black Has Its Charms", and the award-winning "The Button Moulder".

Among his most famous works are the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, written over a span of 50 years. The first of these, "Two Sought Adventure", appeared in Unknown in 1939. They are concerned with an unlikely pair of heroes, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who are found in and around the fascinating city of Lankhmar, a fertile hunting ground. (Fafhrd was based on Leiber himself and the Mouser on his friend Harry Fischer.) These stories were, in fact, the progenitors of many of the tropes of the sword and sorcery genre (a term coined by Leiber). They are also unique among sword and sorcery stories in that, over the course of the stories, his two heroes mature, take on more responsibilities, and eventually settle down into marriage. It has been noted that Terry Pratchett's city of Ankh-Morpork bears more than a passing resemblance to Lankhmar (wittily acknowledged by Pratchett by the placing of the swordsman-thief "The Weasel" and his giant barbarian comrade "Bravd" in the opening scenes of the first Discworld novel). Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories were also award winners: the Hugo for "Scylla's Daughter" (1961) and the Hugo and Nebula awards for "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (1970).

Leiber married Jonquil Stephens on January 16, 1936, and their son Justin Fritz Leiber was born in 1938. Jonquil's death in 1969 precipitated a three year bout of alcoholism, but he then returned to his original form with a fantasy novel set in modern-day San Francisco, Our Lady of Darkness — serialised in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as "The Pale Brown Thing" (1977) — in which cities were the breeding grounds for new types of elementals called paramentals, summonable by the dark art of megapolisomancy. Our Lady of Darkness won the World Fantasy Award. The short parallel worlds story "Catch that Zeppelin!" (1975) added yet another Nebula and Hugo award to his collection, and "Belsen Express" (1975) won him another World Fantasy Award.

Leiber was heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Graves in the first two decades of his career. From the late 1950s onwards, he was increasingly influenced by the works of Carl Jung, particularly by the concepts of the anima and the shadow. Often, these concepts are mentioned openly in his stories, especially the anima, which becomes a method of exploring his fascination but estrangement from the female.

Leiber also had a lifelong love affair with cats. Cats feature prominently in many of his stories. Tigerishka is a catlike alien who is sexually attractive to the human protagonist yet repelled by human customs in the novel, The Wanderer. Leiber's "Gummitch" stories feature a kitten with an I.Q. of 160, just waiting for his ritual cup of coffee so that he can become human, too.

In the last years of his life, Leiber married his second wife, Margo Skinner, a journalist and poet with whom he had been friends for many years. Many people believed that Leiber was living in poverty on skid row, but the truth of the matter was that Leiber preferred to live simply in the city, spending his money on dining, movies and travel. In the last years of his life, royalty cheques from TSR, the makers of Dungeons and Dragons, who had licensed the mythos of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series, were enough in themselves to ensure that he lived comfortably.

Leiber's death occurred a few weeks after a physical collapse while travelling from a science-fiction convention in Toronto with Skinner. The cause of his death was given as "senile decay."

Fans awarded him the Gandalf (Grand Master) award at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1975, and in 1981 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America voted him the recipient of their Grand Master award.

He was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies.

Image:FSF 0769.jpg He wrote a short autobiography, "Not Much Disorder and Not So Early Sex", which can be found in the collection The Ghost Light (1984). A critical biography, "Witches of the Mind" by Bruce Byfield, is available from Necronomicon Press, and an essay examining his literary relationship with Lovecraft appears in S. T. Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004). Leiber's own literary criticism, including several ground-breaking essays on Lovecraft, was collected in the volume Fafhrd and Me (1990), published by Wildside Press.

He also acted in a few films, once with his father in Warner Bros.' The Great Garrick (1937).

In an appreciation in the July 1969 "Special Fritz Leiber Issue" of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Judith Merril writes of Leiber's connection with his readers:

That this kind of personal response ... is shared by thousands of other readers, has been made clear on several occasions. The November 1959 issue of Fantastic, for instance: Leiber had just come out of one of his recurrent dry spells, and editor Cele Lalli bought up all his new material until there was enough [five stories] to fill an issue; the magazine came out with a big black headline across its cover — LEIBER IS BACK!

Merril also remarks on Leiber's acting skills when the writer won an sf convention costume ball. Leiber's costume consisted of a cardboard military collar over turned-up jacket lapels, cardboard insignia, an armband, and a spider pencilled large in black on his forehead, thus turning him into an officer of the "Spiders", one of the combatants in his Change War stories. "The only other component," Merril writes, "was the Leiber instinct for theatre."

1 Novels
2 List of stories
3 Trivia
4 External links

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Novels

Conjure Wife (originally appeared in Unknown Worlds, April 1943) — This novel relates a college professor's discovery that his wife (and all other women) are regularly using magic against one another and their husbands. It was filmed three times:
- Weird Woman (1944)
- Burn, Witch, Burn! (aka Night of the Eagle) (1962)
- Witches' Brew (aka Which Witch is Which?) (1980)
Gather, Darkness! (serialized in Astounding, May, June, and July 1943)
The Sinful Ones aka You Are All Alone (1953)
The Green Millennium (1953)
The Big Time (expanded 1961 from a version serialized in Galaxy, March & April 1958, which won a Hugo) — Change War series
The Silver Eggheads (1961; a shorter version was published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959)
The Wanderer (1964)
Tarzan and the Valley of the Gold (1966)
A Specter is Haunting Texas (1969)
Our Lady of Darkness (1977)
The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich (1997) — Lovecraftian novella written in 1936 and lost for decades

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List of stories

1939: "Two Sought Adventure" aka "The Jewels in the Forest" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1940: "The Automatic Pistol"; "The Bleak Shore" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1941: "The Howling Tower" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Power of the Puppets"; "Smoke Ghost"; "They Never Come Back"
1942: "The Hill and the Hole"; "The Hound"; "The Phantom Slayer" aka "The Inheritance"; "Spider Mansion"; "The Sunken Land" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1943: "Conjure Wife" {novel); "Gather, Darkness! (novel); "The Mutant's Brother"; "Thieves' House" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "To Make a Roman Holiday"
1944: "Business of Killing"; "Sanity" aka "Crazy Wolf"; "Taboo"; "Thought"
1945: "Destiny Times Three" (novella); "The Dreams of Albert Moreland"; "Wanted — An Enemy"
1946: "Alice and the Allergy"; "Mr. Bauer and the Atoms"
1947: "Adept's Gambit" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Diary in the Snow"; "The Man Who Never Grew Young"
1949: "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes"; "In the X-Ray"
1950: "The Black Ewe"; "Coming Attraction"; "The Dead Man"; "The Enchanted Forest"; "Later Than You Think"; "Let Freedom Ring" aka "The Wolf Pack"; "The Lion and the Lamb"; "Martians, Keep Out!"; "The Ship Sails at Midnight"; "You're All Alone"
1951: "Appointment in Tomorrow" aka "Poor Superman"; "Cry Witch!"; "Dark Vengeance" aka "Claws from the Night" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Nice Girl with Five Husbands"; "A Pail of Air"; "When the Last Gods Die"
1952: "Dr. Kometevsky's Day"; "The Foxholes of Mars"; "I'm Looking for "Jeff""; "The Moon Is Green"; "Yesterday House"
1953: "A Bad Day for Sales"; "The Big Holiday"; "The Night He Cried" — a notable sf pastiche of Mickey Spillane; "The Seven Black Priests" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1954: "The Mechanical Bride" (play); "The Silence Game"
1957: "The Big Trek"; "Femmequin 973"; "Friends and Enemies"; "Last"; "Time Fighter"; "Time in the Round"; "What's He Doing in There?"
1958: "The Big Time" (short novel) — Change War story; "Bread Overhead"; "Bullet With His Name"; "A Deskful of Girls" — Change War story; "The Last Letter"; "Little Old Miss Macbeth"; "The Number of the Beast" — Change War story; "Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee"; "Space-Time for Springers" — Gummitch story; "Try and Change the Past" — Change War story
1959: "Damnation Morning" — Change War story; "The House of Mrs. Delgado"; "The Improper Authorities"; "Lean Times in Lankhmar" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Mind Spider" — Change War story; "MS Found in a Maelstrom"; "Our Saucer Vacation"; "Pipe Dream"; "Psychosis from Space"; "The Reward"; "The Silver Eggheads" (novella, later expanded to book-length); "Tranquility, Or Else!" aka "The Haunted Future" — Change War story
1960: "Deadly Moon"; "Mariana"; "The Night of the Long Knives" aka "The Wolf Pair"; "The Oldest Soldier" — Change War story; "Rats of Limbo"; "Schizo Jimmie"; "When the Sea-King's Away" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1961: "All the Weed in the World"; "The Beat Cluster"; "The Goggles of Dr. Dragonet"; "Hatchery of Dreams"; "Kreativity for Kats" — Gummitch story; "Scream Wolf"; "Scylla's Daughter" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "A Visitor from Back East"
1962: "The 64-Square Madhouse"; "The Big Engine" (shortened revision of "You're All Alone"); "A Bit of the Dark World"; "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" aka "The Lone Wolf"; "The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity"; "Mirror"; "The Moriarty Gambit"; "The Secret Songs"; "The Snowbank Orbit"; "The Thirteenth Step"; "The Unholy Grail" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1963: "237 Talking Statues, Etc."; "Bazaar of the Bizarre" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Casket-Demon"; "The Cloud of Hate" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Crimes Against Passion"; "Dr. Adams' Garden of Evil"; "Game for Motel Room"; "A Hitch in Space"; "Kindergarten"; "Myths My Great-Granddaughter Taught Me"; "No Great Magic" — Change War story; "The Spider"; "Success"; "X Marks the Pedwalk"
1964: "Be of Good Cheer"; "The Black Gondolier"; "Lie Still, Snow White"; "The Lords of Quarmall" (with Harry O. Fischer) — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Midnight in the Mirror World"; "When the Change-Winds Blow" — Change War story
1965: "Cyclops"; "Far Reach to Cygnus"; "Four Ghosts in Hamlet"; "The Good New Days"; "Knight's Move" aka "Knight to Move" — Change War story; "Moon Duel"; "Stardock" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1966: "The Crystal Prison"; "Sunk Without Trace"; "To Arkham and the Stars"
1967: "Answering Service"; "Black Corridor" — Change War story; "Gonna Roll the Bones"; "The Inner Circles" aka "The Winter Flies"
1968: "Crazy Annaoj"; "In the Witch's Tent" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "One Station of the Way"; "A Specter is Haunting Texas"; "The Square Root of Brain"; "Their Mistress, the Sea" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Turned-off Heads"; "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "When Brahma Wakes"; "The Wrong Branch" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1969: "Endfray of the Ofay"; "Richmond, Late September, 1849"; "Ship of Shadows"; "When They Openly Walk"
1970: "America the Beautiful"; "The Circle Curse" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Ill Met in Lankhmar" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Price of Pain-Ease" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Snow Women" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1971: "Gold, Black, and Silver"
1972: "Another Cask of Wine"; "The Bump"; "Day Dark, Night Bright"; "The Lotus Eaters"
1973: "The Bait" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Cat Three"; "The Sadness of the Executioner" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Trapped in the Shadowland" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1974: "Beauty and the Beasts" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Cat's Cradle" — Gummitch story; "Do You Know Dave Wenzel?"; "Midnight by the Morphy Watch"; "Mysterious Doings in the Metropolitan Museum"; "WaIF"
1975: "Belsen Express"; "Catch That Zeppelin!"; "The Glove"; "Night Passage"; "Trapped in the Sea of Stars" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1976: "Dark Wings"; "The Death of Princes"; "The Eeriest Ruined Dawn World"; "The Frost Monstreme" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "The Terror from the Depths"
1977: "The Princess in the Tower 250,000 Miles High"; "Rime Isle" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "A Rite of Spring"; "Sea Magic" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1978: "Black Glass"; "The Mer She" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1979: "The Button Molder"; "The Man Who Was Married to Space and Time"
1980: "The Repair People"
1981: "The Great San Francisco Glacier"
1982: "Horrible Imaginings"; "The Moon Porthole"
1983: "The Cat Hotel" — Gummitch story; "The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1984: "Black Has Its Charms"; "The Ghost Light"
1988: "The Mouser Goes Below" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story; "Slack Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring Hisvet" — Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story
1990: "Replacement for Wilmer: A Ghost Story"
1993: "Thrice the Brinded Cat"
2002: "The Enormous Bedroom"

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Trivia

The Big Time contains an apparent numerical typo; in one chapter-head quotation it is stated that 100,000 metres equals 5.6 miles. (It should be about 60 miles.) Not one American or British editor has ever corrected this.