Fritz Leiber

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. (December 24, 1910 - September 5, 1992) was an influential American writer of fantasy and science fiction.

Related Topics:
December 24 - 1910 - September 5 - 1992 - American - Fantasy - Science fiction

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His popularity amongst both fans and his fellow writers was considerable, and his science fiction novels The Big Time (1958) and The Wanderer (1965) 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).

Related Topics:
Novel - 1958 - The Wanderer - 1965 - 1967 - Gambler - Dice - Death - 1970 - Hugo award - Nebula award

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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 a actor/producer protagonist for the novel A Specter is Haunting Texas. An interesting feature of The Big Time is that though it is about a war between two factions 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.

Related Topics:
Shakespeare - Actor - Stage - War - Space-time

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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".

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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. 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 Brown Weasel" and his giant barbarian comrade in the opening scenes of the first Disc World novel).

Related Topics:
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - Unknown - 1939 - Lankhmar - Trope - Sword and sorcery - Terry Pratchett - Ankh-Morpork

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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. The short parallel worlds story "Catch that Zeppelin!" (1975) added yet another Nebula and Hugo award to his collection.

Related Topics:
January 16 - 1936 - Justin Fritz Leiber - 1938 - 1969 - Alcoholism - San Francisco - Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - 1977 - Elemental - Megapolisomancy - Parallel world

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Leiber was heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Graves in the first two decades of his career. From the late Fifties onwards, he was increasingly influenced by the works of Carl Gustav 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.

Related Topics:
H.P. Lovecraft - Robert Graves - Carl Gustav Jung - Anima - Shadow

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Gandalf - World Science Fiction Convention - 1975 - 1981 - Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

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He wrote a short autobiography, which can be found in the collection The Ghost Light (1984). A critical biography, "Witches of the Mind," is available from Necronomicon Press.

Related Topics:
Autobiography - 1984

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He also acted in a few films, once with his father in RKO's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).

Related Topics:
Film - RKO - 1939

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