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Loading... Our Lady of Darkness (original 1977; edition 1978)by Fritz Leiber
Work InformationOur Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber (1977)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. DNF too much sexism and not in an "on purpose to make you hate a character" way. ( ) I was pretty excited with this book at the start. I actually managed to plod through seventy-percent of it, then just skimmed through until the end. The facts presented are relevant and interesting but I felt they were few and far in between. The atmosphere is there, the darkness, the little bits of paranoia. Maybe you'd need a lot of Lovecraft background in order to really appreciate this book or something. But all I got from it was lots of interesting tid-bits that did not really cohere into a whole. There was something unnecessarily overdone with the sentences. Dropping arcane words did not add to the story. At least I know now what gibbous means. It's when the moon is only three-fourths full. There are not a lot of memorable scenes. All I remember right now is the scene where the main character was in the hill and looking at his apartment window. The pianist girl's visit to the mental institution was particularly interesting, but that's basically it with that character. The main character I could not really get into. I tried, but I just did not grow sympathetic with his problems. I'm still trying other works of Lieber though as there's a lot of positive words of him from other well-known writers of similar interest. This gets an extra star for how very San Francisco it is, and for its celebration of the history of supernatural lit. I found myself regularly noting mentioned stories that I haven't yet read. Some elements did not age well, such as way too much lusting after teenage girls. Also, some of the occult stuff was way too mathematical for me. I was really disappointed by this. Not only was it tedious but the payoff was a letdown. You have to wade through a lot of literary references, pulp and otherwise, that don’t really advance the plot. Leiber squanders what little creepiness he sets up early on. [a:Ramsey Campbell|18253|Ramsey Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206546639p2/18253.jpg] does this sort of urban horror much better. Before there was Urban Fantasy... there was 1978's Fritz Leiber writing Urban Fantasy. :) Strangely enough, I was very engaged with certain parts of this novel, how it set itself up as a horror within a horror, a horror writer going through a dark patch that then leads him into a very STRANGE patch where ideas intersect with an almost Lovecraftian (or Clark Ashton Smith-ian) becomes a novel of investigation and eldritch (idea) horror. Just why did all those old friends, the horror triumvirate (and associated) back in the '20s and '30s, die early or suicide? There's lots of great literary name dropping and history packed in this novel. And more than that, there is a lot of great collective unconsciousness meets virus meets memes action going on here... ESPECIALLY for the time this novel came out. I'm reminded of some of my favorite modern UFs that play with geek fandom or bibliomancy or the like, but the style is very much a mix between a noir mystery (with drug use) and a simmering 70's horror novel. In other words... it doesn't quite FIT with the modern view of novels. :) And for me? I love how strange it is. It might not be the strangest novel ever, but it definitely got under my skin. :) no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesFontana Science Fiction (4861) AwardsNotable Lists
A horror author is drawn into a mysterious curse in this World Fantasy Award-winning novel from the author of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. Fritz Leiber may be best known as a fantasy writer, but he published widely and successfully in the horror and science fiction fields. His fiction won the Hugo, Nebula, Derleth, Gandalf, Lovecraft, and World Fantasy Awards, and he was honored with the Life Achievement Lovecraft Award and the Grand Master Nebula Award. One of his best novels is the classic dark fantasy Our Lady of Darkness, winner of the 1978 World Fantasy Award. Our Lady of Darkness introduces San Francisco horror writer Franz Westen. While studying his beloved city through binoculars from his apartment window, he is astonished to see a mysterious figure waving at him from a hilltop two miles away. He walks to Corona Heights and looks back at his building to discover the figure waving at him from his apartment window--and to find himself caught in a century‑spanning curse that may have destroyed Clark Ashton Smith and Jack London. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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