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Fritz Leiber

by Fritz Leiber

22 masterful tales by the sorcerer of sci-

ence fiction! With an introduction by Poul

Anderson

Fritz Leiber has been spinning dark and

delicate webs of fantasy since 1939, when

his first tales began appearing in the now

defunct publication, Unknown. Described

as an actor, author, and world traveler,

Fritz Leiber is acknowledged as one of the

all-time titans of the fantasy genre. Creator

of the long-running Fafhrd and Grey

Mouser swordsmen series and such classic

novels as Gather, Darkness and Conjure

Wife, Mr. Leiber makes the world of

science and the supernatural come alive in

this mammoth volume. Some of the stories

included are:

Wanted-An Enemy-What better way

to unite the bickering peoples of Earth

than to pit them against a common enemy!

That was Mr. Whitlow's ingenious idea

(continued on back flap)

Book Club

Edition

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(continued from front flap)

when he contacted the Martians. Looking

like giant beetles, the hideous creatures of

the red planet would certainly terrify the

world when they arrived on their mock

invasion. But something went wrong! The

aliens decided to make their "play-war" a

real confrontation - to completely annihi-

late mankind. Mr. Whitlow's predicament

grows when he locates another, even more

deadly, enemy to confront the Martians.

The Night He Cried-In this marvelous

SF parody of the hard-boiled detective

story, we encounter master sleuth Slickie

Millane. His latest case begins when a hep-

tapus visits him from Galactic Center in

the guise of a shapely, blonde human fe-

male although she occasionally gets con-

fused as to which tentacle should become

what. Her unexpected arrival plunges

Slickie into one of his toughest and most

baffling capers.

The Big Trek-Come... join one of the

strangest walking tours in the galaxy. Tra-

verse a land unlike any other in the uni-

verse, where strange creatures live among

the ruins of their once advanced civiliza-

tion, where you can see the last traces of a

race gone mad with greed and power.

Everyone in the Milky Way is going to be

there... why not you?

The Enchanted Forest Elven was the

last of the Wild Ones, people who refused

to obey the confining rules of civilization.

Carrying the genetic materials to recreate

his companions through cloning, Elven

landed his spaceship on an unknown jun-

gle planet. There, exploring the strange

world for a suitable place to rebuild his

society, Elven discovered that even his

broad standards of normality were taxed

to the limit by the asteroid's remarkable

inhabitants.

These and 18 other famous works such

as the Award-winning Gonna Roll the

Bones will send you soaring into the fabu-

lous realms of "Leiber" imagination

world where you can shoot craps with the

devil, make friends with electricity, fall in

love with a beautiful alien, or visit a planet-

wide madhouse. It's all here and much,

much more in THE BEST OF FRITZ LEIBER.

Jacket painting by

Larry Kresek

Printed in U.S.A.

6203

----------- 3 -----------

(continued from front flap)

when he contacted the Martians. Looking

like giant beetles, the hideous creatures of

the red planet would certainly terrify the

world when they arrived on their mock

invasion. But something went wrong! The

aliens decided to make their "play-war" a

real confrontation to completely annihi-

late mankind. Mr. Whitlow's predicament

grows when he locates another, even more

deadly, enemy to confront the Martians.

The Night He Cried-In this marvelous

SF parody of the hard-boiled detective

story, we encounter master sleuth Slickie

Millane. His latest case begins when a hep-

tapus visits him from Galactic Center in

the guise of a shapely, blonde human fe-

male although she occasionally gets con-

fused as to which tentacle should become

what. Her unexpected arrival plunges

Slickie into one of his toughest and most

baffling capers.

The Big Trek-Come join one of the

strangest walking tours in the galaxy. Tra-

verse a land unlike any other in the uni-

verse, where strange creatures live among

the ruins of their once advanced civiliza-

tion, where you can see the last traces of a

race gone mad with greed and power.

Everyone in the Milky Way is going to be

there...

. why not you?

The Enchanted Forest Elven was the

last of the Wild Ones, people who refused

to obey the confining rules of civilization.

Carrying the genetic materials to recreate

his companions through cloning, Elven

landed his spaceship on an unknown jun-

gle planet. There, exploring the strange

world for a suitable place to rebuild his

society, Elven discovered that even his

broad standards of normality were taxed

to the limit by the asteroid's remarkable

inhabitants.

These and 18 other famous works such

as the Award-winning Gonna Roll the

Bones will send you soaring into the fabu-

lous realms of "Leiber" imagination -a

world where you can shoot craps with the

devil, make friends with electricity, fall in

love with a beautiful alien, or visit a planet-

wide madhouse. It's all here and much,

much more in THE BEST OF FRITZ LEIBER.

Jacket painting by

Larry Kresek

Printed in U.S.A.

6203

----------- 4 -----------

The

Best of

Fritz

Leiber

by FRITZ LEIBER

With a special introduction by

POUL ANDERSON

NELSON DOUBLEDAY, Inc.

Garden City, New York

----------- 5 -----------

edT

ent with

Published by arrangement with

Ballantine Books

Division of Random House, Inc.

201 East 50th Street

New York, NY 10022

edie

yd noiubosial inlager

ПОВЯЗАНА JU

Printed in the United States of America

----------- 6 -----------

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Wizard of Nehwon-

Poul Anderson

Gonna Roll The Bones

Sanity

Wanted-An Enemy

The Man Who Never Grew Young

The Ship Sails at Midnight

The Enchanted Forest

Coming Attraction

Poor Superman

A Pail of Air

The Foxholes of Mars

The Big Holiday

The Night He Cried

The Big Trek

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CONTENTS

Space-Time for Springers

Try and Change the Past

A Deskful of Girls

Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee

Little Old Miss Macbeth

Mariana

етизтис

The Man Who Made Friends With Electricity

The Good New Days

America the Beautiful

Afterword

Пол

dginb

----------- 8 -----------

The Wizard of Nehwon

WHEN I was first asked to write an introduction to a volume of Fritz

Leiber stories-the most important of such collections at that-my

reaction was inappropriately inelegant: "Huh?" I still think it had a

fundamental rightness. How can anybody properly comment on the

work of one who is not only his senior in the profession by a good

many years, but is universally acknowledged to be among its three or

four all-time titans?

Yet this was an honor I could not decline. It was like being in a

physics department back around 1935 and invited to introduce a

series of guest lectures by Einstein. A person in that position realizes

the audience hasn't come to hear, or read, him. But he'll try to avoid

boring platitudes. If he's lucky, he'll even convey a slight extra in-

sight, which will help that audience appreciate the visitor and what

he'll say a little bit more than they might otherwise have done. Maybe

I'll luck out.

Let's first make a few remarks about the man himself, before go-

ing on to his writing. They will be only a few-despite the keyhole

school of criticism, the facts of a creator's life are not required for an

understanding of his or her work; or if they are, then that person has

to that extent failed as an artist. Fritz Leiber does employ a certain

amount of autobiography in his work, perhaps more than any other

maker of science fiction or fantasy. But he's far too skillful for you

to need to know what the personal element is. Besides, he lets you in