"Fritz Leiber - Best of Fritz Leiber" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

I could likewise wish that this book held a sample or two of LeiberтАЩs horror stories. In my opinion,
which Fritz modestly does not share, Lovecraft and Poe himself never dealt out comparable chills. The
typical Leiber frightener gains tremendous power by its economy,

* In The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July 1969, a special issue honoring Fritz Leiber.
Previously, in November 1959, Fantastic had run an all-Leiber issue. These, and the awards voted him,
indicate the esteem in which his work is held by those who know the field.

its evocative contemporary setting, and its bleak brilliance of conceptтАФlike тАЬSmoke Ghost,тАЭ to name a
single tale, whose phantom is in and of the corrupted air pervading a modern industrial city.

And you would have enjoyed тАЬThe Sixty-Four-Square MadhouseтАЭ and/or тАЬThe Moriarty Gambit,тАЭ both
masterly chess stories, the latter also a grand Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Well, look them up. All the
omissions I have mentioned are not the fault of author or editor, but merely due to lack of space. They
would have crowded out equally vivid pieces that you do find here.

The novels were inevitably excluded. But any discussion of LeiberтАЩs work, or of science fantasy as a
whole, must consider them. They are few in number, but each is unique and, with two exceptions, of
major significance in the development of present-day imaginative literature.

The first exception is Tarzan and the City of Gold, тАЬonlyтАЭ a delightful continuation of Burroughs. Come
to think of it, though, a scholar of English letters would find it most interesting to trace out how Leiber
managed to convey the flavor of his model while avoiding all its crudities, outdoing Burroughs hi every
way that counts, and throwing occasional philosophical and moral issues into the bargain. Does anybody
need material for a masterтАЩs thesis?

Doubtless many will argue with my assertion that The Green Millennium is not a landmark. It is, in the
sense of being a fine book, highly recommended. But it carries further the world of тАЬComing AttractionтАЭ
and тАЬPoor Superman,тАЭ both hi the present collection, and thus does not break new groundтАФby LeiberтАЩs
standardsтАФhowever inventive and often astoundingly witty it is. All the rest of us, from Heinlein on
down, would rank it among our own best, had we written it.

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 best of fritz leiber



Heinlein offers a natural starting point for a few words about Gather, Darkness!, that prototype of the
interplay of ideas which has always given vitality to science fiction. In 1940 appeared his serial // This
Goes OnтАФ, wherein the United States has fallen under a totalitarian regime posing as the church of a
new faith and using technological devices to work suitably impressive тАЬmiracles.тАЭ A year later, under his
pseudonym тАЬAnson MacDonald,тАЭ he brought forth Sixth Column. There, the United States has been
invaded and occupied by a foreign power which allows the people freedom of religion but of nothing
else. A small underground takes advantage of secret scientific knowledgeтАФgathered just before the
collapse, so that it was never brought to bear in the warтАФto give the priests of a stalking-horse faith
similar capabilities.

Heinlein stopped with those two books, but Leiber saw that the theme was still full of potential. Suppose
such a church came to power, then never stepped down again and never was overthrown for centuries. In