| Article: 1008
From: [email protected] (UPI)
Newsgroups: clari.news.books,clari.local.california,clari.news.movies
Subject: Fritz Leiber, science fiction writer, dies
Date: 10 Sep 92 14:19:13 GMT
CHICAGO (UPI) -- Writer Fritz Leiber, a Chicago native noted for
science fiction and horror stories, has died. He was 81.
Leiber, who wrote 32 books, died of a stroke Sunday in San Francisco
where he lived.
Leiber created the ``sword and sorcery'' characters Fafhrd and the
Gray Mouser. In his first major work, ``The Wanderer,'' an alien star
approaches Earth, captures the Moon, and raises giant tides.
His most respected novel was a tale of time travel, ``The Big Time.''
Leiber won six Hugos, three Nebulas, a Grand Master Nebula, a World
Fantasy and an August Derleth award.
Leiber was born in Chicago and graduated from the University of
Chicago. He studied for the ministry after graduation.
His father, who had the same name, was a noted Shakespearean actor
who played Antony in the movie ``Cleopatra,'' starring Theda Bera. The
younger Leiber acted for a time in his father's company.
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My favorite Leiber is the novel "Gather, Darkness!", about a theocratic
future state where the priestly elite uses technology to cow the masses
and where the revolutionaries take on the guise of a witchcraft revival.
Great fun (especially to the 12 or 13 year old me that first read it).
But almost everything i've read by him was good. "Gonna Roll the Bones"
is the closest thing to a perfect short story i've ever read. In one
of the recent books that's a selection of his best short stories, he
also contributes some autobiographical notes that made me feel that i
knew him and could relate to him on an extremely intimate level. Rare!
- paul
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| Article: 379
From: [email protected] (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: REPOST: Belated Reviews PS#2: Fritz Leiber and "The Big Time"
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 29 Sep 93 00:57:26 GMT
Postscripts to the Belated Reviews cover authors of earlier decades who
didn't fit into the original format -- whether because the author seemed
an inappropriate subject, or because I was unfamiliar with too much of the
author's work, or whatever -- or sometimes just isolated works of such
authors. The emphasis will continue to be on guiding newer readers
towards books or authors worth trying out, rather than on discussing them
comprehensively or in depth. I'll retain the rating scheme of ****
(recommended), *** (an old favorite that hasn't aged well), ** (a solid
lesser work), and * (nothing special).
Belated Reviews PS#2: Fritz Leiber and "The Big Time"
This review is a compromise. On the one hand, there are good reasons to
do a review of Fritz Leiber's work. It's important: His Nehwon stories
helped shape the generic-consensus-fantasy-milieu so many writers of sword-
and-sorcery use today. His science fiction tended to be quirky and memorable.
(For instance, "You're All Alone" works out the solipsistic "what if I'm the
only one who's real?" and "Conjure Wife" starts from the pleasantly paranoid
"what if there's a secret that all the women are keeping from all the men?",
though the writing in those two cases doesn't really live up to the premises.)
The problem is that I'm not the right person to tackle the task: Most of
Leiber's books that I've read have simply rubbed me the wrong way. But it
seems like a mistake to ignore him, so what I'm going to do is just review
one of his books -- the one I personally consider his best. (Dan'l
Danehy-Oakes, who knows and appreciates Leiber better than I, is planning
to fill in the lacuna later.)
"The Big Time" (****-) is Leiber's two-inch bit of ivory, a one-act play
disguised as a novel. In the background is the Changewar, a war being
fought across all of time and space between two factions or races known as
the Snakes and the Spiders, mostly through recruits from history and
pseudo-history. (Nobody's ever seen a Snake or a Spider. They probably
exist -- there are interesting hints about this in "The Big Time" -- but
it would be ironic if it turned out that they didn't, and that the Changewar
was just running on its own momentum.) The action takes place on a small
Spider base that is temporarily isolated. A dozen mercenaries and staff
members are cut off from the War -- by the disappearance of the device
that maintains the base's contact with reality.
There is a book, "Changewar", which collects a number of short stories of the
Changewar, but those tend to feature the more or less standard 'operations'
side of the subgenre, with agents of one side or another trying to change
history for the benefit of their side. "The Big Time" is a time-out for
reflecting on what the struggle means to the participants and to the non-
participants. What sort of victory is it, for instance, for a soldier
recruited from the English trenches of WWI, to advance the Spider cause by
making sure that the Nazis win WWII?
"The Big Time" is also a locked room mystery. There are only a dozen
people who could reasonably have made off with the missing device, and it
quickly becomes urgent to find it. It's a fair-play mystery, with the
reader getting the clues at the same time as the narrator.
And it's a first-rate piece of writing. The first chapter or so of the
book is too heavy on the exposition, none of the characters is particularly
likable, and too many characters are allowed to make set-piece speeches. For
all that, this is the sort of book for which people give well-deserved Hugos.
%A Leiber, Fritz
%T The Big Time
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Dani Zweig
[email protected]
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." -- W.B. Yeats
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