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Post by glodfinger on Jan 28, 2013 19:33:48 GMT
One of my favourite Leiber novels is OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, which is a tribute to M R JAMES but set in modern (1977) day San Francisco. A superb book. Well written and very, very creepy.
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Post by doug on Jan 29, 2013 5:19:19 GMT
One of my favourite Leiber novels is OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, which is a tribute to M R JAMES but set in modern (1977) day San Francisco. A superb book. Well written and very, very creepy. "Our Lady" is also one of my all time favortites. I first read it back in 1977 when it was serialized in "The Magazine of F&SF" January and February issues. I remember walking all the way downtown in over 2 feet of snow to go to the newstand. Those two were also the very first issues of F&SF that I ever read. Here is a wonderful tribute site to the novel! www.mikehumbert.com/Fritz_Leiber-s_Our_Lady_of_Darkness_page_1.htmlTake care. Doug
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Post by mcannon on Jan 29, 2013 7:57:39 GMT
Doug: >"Our Lady" is also one of my all time favortites. I first read it back in 1977 when it was serialized in "The Magazine of F&SF" January and February issues. I remember walking all the way downtown in over 2 feet of snow to go to the newstand. Those two were also the very first issues of F&SF that I ever read.>
I first read it read it in F&SF in early 1977 as well, where it had the interesting (though much less catchy) title of "The Pale Brown Thing". Luckily, since it was Summer in this part of the world, I didn't have to trudge through snow to by my copies of those issues! I distinctly recall reading both installments of a long, uncomfortable overnight train journey to visit my parents in one of my first University holidays. Reading it on a slow train in the middle of country New South Wales, rather than in the urban environment in which the novel is set, didn't make it any less creepy.
A wonderful book- I think that Leiber was at about the peak of his creative powers then, even though, from memory, it was the last full novel he wrote (though some of those last Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser stories were fairly long).
A few weeks ago I finally got around to reading Leiber's posthumously published novella "The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich". For a story supposedly written at the outset of his career in the late 1930s, and then misplaced for decades, it seems a remarkably powerful, mature piece.
A great writer - I'd love to read a full biography of him someday.
MarkC
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jan 29, 2013 12:01:05 GMT
Fritz did write a long autobiographical essay you might like, "Not Much Disorder and Not So Early Sex".
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Post by doug on Jan 29, 2013 12:08:28 GMT
Fritz did write a long autobiographical essay you might like, "Not Much Disorder and Not So Early Sex". Thanks! Is it worth the price of "Ghost Light"? Doug
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jan 29, 2013 13:01:31 GMT
Doug: I thought it was worth it--especially if you're a big Leiber fan. If you haven't already read the title story, it's worth a read as well.
I loved Our Lady of Darkness and also liked The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich quite a bit. But I liked Conjure Wife even better, particularly the end of Chapter XIV. All in all, one of my all-time favorite horror (and fantasy) writers.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 29, 2013 20:09:57 GMT
As a kid I used to love the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books - I've still got them in those Mayflower paperbacks from the late 70s, though the board game, Lankhmar, has long since disappeared.
Leiber also used to write a regular column for Fantasy Newsletter, taking it in turns with Karl Edward Wagner to write a column On Fantasy. I think that autobiography in Ghost Light may have had its roots there.
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Post by cw67q on Jan 30, 2013 8:44:33 GMT
Doug: I thought it was worth it--especially if you're a big Leiber fan. If you haven't already read the title story, it's worth a read as well. I loved Our Lady of Darkness and also liked The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich quite a bit. But I liked Conjure Wife even better, particularly the end of Chapter XIV. All in all, one of my all-time favorite horror (and fantasy) writers. I agree with every word of cauldronbrewer's. I had low expectations of Dealings of DK as when it came out I read a few reviews that talked it down, but I thought it contained some really interesting stuff. - Chris
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Post by mcannon on Jan 30, 2013 9:55:21 GMT
James Doig: >Leiber also used to write a regular column for Fantasy Newsletter, taking it in turns with Karl Edward Wagner to write a column On Fantasy. I think that autobiography in Ghost Light may have had its roots there. > Leiber also wrote a frequent reviews column, "Fantasy Books", in the Ted White-edited "Fantastic" from the late '60s until around 1977 or 78. From memory, this included the odd personal snippet. I remember an early '70s review of the Ballantine Clark Ashton Smith "Zothique" collection being preceded by an anecdote of Leiber traveling to CAS' home to visit him for a day circa 1940: www.eldritchdark.com/articles/biographies/35/fritz-leiber-on-clark-ashton-smith(Hmmm- I think I was the one who actually transcribed it for this site, about 15 years ago!) MarkC
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Post by doug on Jan 30, 2013 15:25:25 GMT
Thanks for the link!
Up till a few years ago i had most of the 1970s Fantastics and read all of the Leiber reviews.
Doug
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 30, 2013 16:35:59 GMT
I'm only familiar with a few of Fritz Leiber's novels but I have to say that he left me colder than snow white - couldn't ever get into his characters
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 30, 2013 20:01:23 GMT
Thanks for that - he gets CAS perfectly in just a couple of paras. He obviously had a good eye for his fellow writers and their work - that essay he wrote on Lovecraft was a cracker.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jan 31, 2013 15:11:57 GMT
Our Lady of Darkness is brilliant, though it maybe tips over into the 'fantasy' genre a bit much for me. I've also read Conjure Wife - it's more my thing in terms of being straight supernatural horror, but it doesn't have the sheer conceptual originality of Our Lady. I'm not so keen on his short stories (apart from Smoke Ghost) - I've read the Ghost Light and Black Gondolier collections, but they didn't make as big an impression as the novels. I'm not really inclined to try his SF or 'sword and sorcery' stuff.
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Post by doug on Feb 13, 2013 9:26:59 GMT
Hey all!
My copy of "The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich" arrived yesterday and so far I'm pleasantly suprised that it's as good as it is. Not that I don't always have very high expections regarding Mr. Leiber, but I wasn't expecting muchsince this is very early Leiber from 1936. It appears though that he had already found his "voice". Another worry was that I feared that he must have had his reasons for never publishing it/mis-placing over all those years, and those reasons could (I thought) have been his dis-satisfaction with the story. So far it's very good though. I myself like his style of mundane matter-of-factness that's runs through lots of his horror stories. I started reading last night in bed and only got to about the halfway mark (The grave exhumation scene). The Jason van Hollander illustrations also add a very nice touch!
take care. Doug
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Post by ropardoe on Jul 27, 2016 8:45:07 GMT
One of my favourite Leiber novels is OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, which is a tribute to M R JAMES but set in modern (1977) day San Francisco. A superb book. Well written and very, very creepy. I can't find a more recent thread which talks about Our Lady of Darkness - apologies if I've missed it and I'm repeating what someone else has already said. Swan River Press has just reprinted The Pale Brown Thing, for the first time since its initial appearance in 1977. This is a novella which was (presumably immediately afterwards) expanded into Our Lady of Darkness (incidentally my absolute favourite Jamesian novel - I must have read it over a dozen times). Pale Brown Thing is not quite as good as Our Lady, mainly because (as John Howard explains in his perceptive afterward) it has less fleshing out of San Francisco as a character in its own right. But it's a typically gorgeous Swan River production and, in my opinion, a must for any Leiber fan.
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