"Fritz Leiber - Gondolier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

TheBlackGondolierandOtherStories




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Copyright ┬й2000 by The Estate of Fritz Leiber, 2000 by John Pelan, 2000 by Steve Savile


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 TheBlackGondolierandOtherStories

Fritz and me

If you ask any long-time aficionado of fantastic literature to name his favorite authors, the fan of science
fiction will likely name Fritz Leiber somewhere in his top five. So to, will the devotee of sword and
sorcery mention the wonderful tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as among the very best that the
genre has to offer. There have been many excellent writers of fantasy over the years, many excellent
writers of science fiction, and many fine writers of horror stories. Arguably, the very best of them all
was Fritz Leiber.

Leiber was the author that showed us what sword and sorcery fiction can and should be with his
Lankhmar stories that spanned nearly fifty years. In the realm of science fiction, his Change War saga
has stood the test of time and remains a classic in the genre. As far as horror fiction, most readers will
placeOur Lady of Darkness andConjure Wife at or near the top of any list of great novels in the field.
Then of course we have the socio-political satire ofA Specter is Haunting Texas and the classicX-files-
like paranoia ofYou're All Alone , written years before Chris Carpenter was a twinkle in his father's eye.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to fill this introduction with many personal anecdotes, I met the author on
only a few occasions and our conversations often revolved around the malady of alcoholism and it's
peculiar affinity for the creative sort. A subject that holds considerable fascination for those for whom
it's a life or death issue, but to the average person it's a rather dull topic. I do treasure the fact that I was
able to meet and chat with the man whose influence on my own reading and writing was so profound.

Like many of us who came on their first genre fiction at an early age in the sixties, I'd quickly
discovered the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard; I was quite impressed, but when I
stumbled on a book entitledSwords Against Deviltry , I was transported ... This was what I'd been
looking for! I quickly used my meager allowance money to snap up every book that I could find that had
the magical name of Leiber on it. This included some terrific science fiction, the novelGather, Darkness,
and finally a handful of anthologies where I discovered тАЬSmoke Ghost", тАЬThe Dreams of Albert