"Fritz Leiber - The Black Gondolier And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

The Black Gondolier and Other Stories
Fritz Leiber

Copyright ┬й2000 by The Estate of Fritz Leiber, 2000 by John Pelan, 2000 by Steve Savile
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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, too, 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 place
Our 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 Moreland", and
тАЬSpider MansionтАЭ for the first time.

Over the years I managed to accumulate as close to a complete collection of Leiber's work as you're
likely to find. And for years I assumed that all his work was readily attainable, if not perpetually in print.

The book that you hold in your hands is a result of a curious serendipity, that there is no author living or
dead that I would be more honored to pen an introduction about than Fritz Leiber goes without saying.
That I would've thought this to be an unlikely occurrence is an understatement. After all, Leiber belongs
to that pantheon of great writers that have shaped and molded the field of fantastic literature in the latter
half of the twentieth century and the works of such individuals are perpetually kept in-print and readily
accessible by one and all. Aren't they?

Apparently the answer to that question is in the negative. When Steve Savile first approached me to
verify the appearances of several Leiber stories in conjunction with a chapbook that he was preparing for