The Leiber Chronicles: Fifty Years of Fritz Leiber

I was (very!) familiar with Leiber's fantasy work, especially the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series. But the depth of stories in this collection really surprised me. He ventured pretty far afield of swords and sorcery.

Especially in the earlier works, his adaptation of weird stories a la Lovecraft to urban, more twentieth century settings was outstanding. He loves to insert the fantastic and horrific into post-WWII, modern settings where the contrast really works to point out the decay of what was supposed to be a bright, shining world.

Anyway, if you haven't read beyond his more famous stuff, there's plenty of delightful surprise here.

So pleased that Leiber has an anthology of his short work -- he was such a master, and is so relatively little-known by today's readers. I'm greatly enjoying flipping through this volume and finding old favorites as well as stories new to me.

It's small press. It's out of print. & it may be the best available selection of his brillant short fiction. Leiber is as good, or better, than many of the slick fantasy writers of his day. There are major stories here, stories that deserve a readership beyond genre boundaries.

Picked this out to read HORRIBLE IMAGININGS that someone in a thread considered one of the scariest stories they ever read.

READ:
- Horrible Imaginings 1982
Sputtered out. I'm sure it's a good story it's just more work than I am in the mood for right now. Look at this for example: https://gyazo.com/b2deaf8a24e5badb7902a240dc3a7606 That paragraph is just about one sentence. Then he goes on to describe his apartment complex as a tree in detail and I'm skimming then I put it down and dread picking it back up ....

- The Girl with the Hungry Eyes 1949
This one, like the last one starts out weird. Like some guy high on caffeine and speaking in whispers and half-hidden truths. Just not enjoyable for me at this time.

Other suggestions:
Smoke Ghost show more 1941
Belsen Express 1975
Four Ghosts of Hamlet 1965
The Button Moulder 1979
The Automatic Pistol 1940
The Glove 1975
Coming Attraction (SF) 1950
A Pail of Air (SF) 1951 show less