Download or read book The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich written by Fritz Leiber and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 1998-04-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fritz Leiber was one of the most famous fantasy and SF writers of the century, the author of many classics, including the popular Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fantasy series. In 1936, young Leiber, then in correspondence with the famous writer H.P. Lovecraft, drafted this eerie story. Now Tor is pleased to present in its first paperback publication this short novel of cosmic dread and Lovecraftian horror.

Download or read book Dealings of Daniel Kesserich written by Fritz Leiber and published by Turtleback. This book was released on 1998-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lone California scientist plunges into the darkest mysteries of time and space in his home laboratory

Download or read book Fritz Leiber and H P Lovecraft written by Fritz Leiber and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Howard Phillips Lovecraft was closing the final chapter of his writing career, Fritz Reuter Leiber was only beginning to open his own. The year was 1936 and Jonquil Leiber, Fritz's first wife, sent a letter on her own initiative to Lovecraft, knowing that her husband had been an avid admirer of his work, ever since his first reading of "The Colour out of Space" and hoping that Lovecraft's presence in Fritz's slow-paced writing career might be the source of inspiration he so dearly needed. Lovecraft replied promptly on November 2 of that year, the seed of an invigorating correspondence, which lasted till Lovecraft's passing. Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark presents Lovecraft's letters to Leiber, an impressive selection of Leiber's fiction which shows Lovecraft's influence, and a selection of Leiber's essays on Lovecraft and Matters Lovecraftian. Features an introduction by Ben J. S. Szumskyj and an afterword by S.T. Joshi.

Download or read book News of the Black Feast and Other Random Reviews written by Brian Stableford and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection gathers together 45 of Stableford's best critical reviews on works of science fiction, fantasy, horror, decadent literature, and nonfiction books about these topics. His comments are witty, intelligent, and full of insight. Complete with comprehensive index.

Download or read book Journeys into Darkness written by James Goho and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-03-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tradition of supernatural horror fiction runs deep in Anglo-American literature. From the Gothic novels of the eighteenth century to such contemporary authors as Stephen King and Anne Rice, writers have employed horror fiction to unearth many disquieting truths about the human condition, ranging from mistreatment of women and minorities to the ever-present dangers of modern city life. In Journeys into Darkness: Critical Essays on Gothic Horror, James Goho analyzes many significant writers and trends in American and British horror fiction. Beginning with Charles Brockden Brown’s disturbing novels of terror and madness, Goho proceeds to discuss the influence of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” on H. P. Lovecraft, who is treated in several penetrating essays. Lovecraft was a uniquely philosophical writer, and Goho approaches his work through the lens of existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, while also probing Lovecraft’s racism as exhibited in several tales about Native Americans. Goho also discusses the Welsh writer Arthur Machen’s tortured tales of suffering and evil and Algernon Blackwood’s numerous stories set in the wilds of the Canadian backwoods. The book concludes with a centuries-spanning essay on the witchcraft theme in the American Gothic tradition and a comprehensive essay on Fritz Leiber’s invention of the urban Gothic. In this wide-ranging study, James Goho examines the varied ways in which supernatural fiction can address the deepest moral, social, and political concerns of the human experience. Journeys into Darkness will be of interest to readers and scholars of horror fiction and to students of literary history and culture in general.

Download or read book Night of the Long Knives written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were two desperate scavengers in a no-man's land of radiation and death.

Download or read book Bread Overhead written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bread Overhead" is a story Fritz Leiber could have written to send up today's bewildering bread aisle -- all those claims of low-cal and low-low-carb. In fact, the story probably reads better now than it did in 1958, back when the choice came down to white or whole wheat. Leiber slyly imagines a near-future when giant machines not only harvest the wheat field, but grind flour and bake bread on the spot -- the ultimate in big farming. In this toasted tomorrow, the highly-mechanized Puffy Products is bent on producing the supremely lightest loaf. The story is what happens if bread isn't just airy, but pumped full of lighter-than-air helium. Leiber (Ships to the Stars) didn't often bake up such a souffle of spoof, but he's a master in the kitchen. And "Bread Overhead" has just enough to say about human nature to be filling, besides.

Download or read book Creature from Cleveland Depths written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A writer and his wife refuse to move below-ground after the cold-war gets hot. When the underground society discovers a decline in their ability to creatively innovate, they must consult with surface dwellers to develop products that satiate the needs of a people living like moles.

Download or read book The Last Letter written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-03-28 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who or what was the scoundrel that kept these couriers from the swift completion of their handsomely appointed rondos?

Download or read book No Great Magic written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The troupers of the Big Time lack no art to sway a crowd--or to change all history!

Download or read book Day Dark Night Bright written by Fritz Leiber and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories of suspense, surprise, wit, and weirdness from Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy—as well as a must-read horror author—Fritz Leiber. Assembled from magazine submissions, fanzines, and even “lost” manuscripts discovered among the author’s personal papers, Day Dark, Night Bright includes the following short stories: “Time Fighter,” “Femmequin 973,” “Night Passage,” “Moon Duel,” “Later Than You Think,” “Mirror,” “The 64‐Square MadHouse,” “All the Weed in the World,” “The Mutant’s Brother,” “The Man Who Was Married to Space and Time,” “Thought” “Crystal Prison,” “Bullet Was His Name,” “Success,” “To Make a Roman Holiday,” “Bread Overhead,” “The Reward,” “Taboo,” “Business of Killing,” and “Day Dark, Night Bright.”

Download or read book Mariana written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan told her not to touch the switches, but it was cold and lonely and isolated...ExcerptMariana had been living in the big villa and hating the tall pine trees around it for what seemed like an eternity when she found the secret panel in the master control panel of the house. The secret panel was simply a narrow blank of aluminum-she'd thought of it as room for more switches if they ever needed any, perish the thought! - between the air-conditioning controls and the gravity controls. Above the switches for the three dimensional TV but below those for the robot butler and maids. Jonathan had told her not to fool with the master control panel while he was in the city, because she would wreck anything electrical, so when the secret panel came loose under her aimlessly questing fingers and fell to the solid rock floor of the patio with a musical twing her first reaction was fear. Then she saw it was only a small blank oblong of sheet aluminum that had fallen and that in the space it had covered was a column of six little switches. Only the top one was identified. Tiny glowing letters beside it spelled trees and it was on. When Jonathan got home from the city that evening she gathered her courage and told him about it. He was neither particularly angry nor impressed. "Of course there's a switch for the trees," he informed her deflatingly, motioning the robot butler to cut his steak.

Download or read book The Big Book of Cyberpunk written by Jared Shurin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 1137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A genre-defining—and redefining—collection of the boldest, most rebellious, and most prescient speculative fiction, featuring stories from all over the globe. “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Almost forty years ago, William Gibson wrote the line that began Neuromancer—and a movement that would change the face of science fiction. Award-winning anthologist Jared Shurin brings together over a hundred stories from more than twenty-five countries that both establish and subvert the classic cyberpunk tropes and aesthetic—from gritty, near-future noir to pulse-pounding action. Urban rebels undermine monolithic corporate overlords. Daring heists are conducted through back alleys and the darkest parts of the online world. There’s dangerous new technology, cybernetic enhancements, scheming AI, corporate mercenaries, improbable weapons, and roguish hackers. These tales examine the near-now, extrapolating the most provocative trends into fascinating and plausible futures. We live in an increasingly cyberpunk world—packed with complex technologies and globalized social trends. A world so bizarre that even futurists couldn’t explain it—though many authors in this book have come closer than most. As both an introduction to the genre and the perfect compendium for the lifelong fan, The Big Book of Cyberpunk offers a hundred ways to understand where we are and where we’re going.

Download or read book Snakes Spiders written by Fritz Leiber and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn't seem to be bringing you exactly the same picture of the past from one day to the next? Have you ever been afraid that your personality was changing because of forces beyond your knowledge or control? Have you ever felt sure that sudden death was about to jump you from nowhere? Have you ever been scared of Ghosts--not the story-book kind, but the billions of beings who were once so real and strong it's hard to believe they'll just sleep harmlessly forever? Have you ever wondered about those things you may call devils or Demons-- spirits able to range through all time and space, through the hot hearts of stars and the cold skeleton of space between the galaxies? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, you've had hints of the Change War."This collection gathers the original magazine versions of every canonical story in Fritz Leiber's iconic Change War time travel series for the first time. It includes an introduction by Kevin A. Straight, comprehensive Guide to the Change World, timeline of Fritz Leiber's life and works, and list of Change War apocrypha. Physical book editions include full index.

Download or read book The Moon Is Green written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anybody who wanted to escape death could, by paying a very simple price--denial of life!Excerpt"Effie! What the devil are you up to?"Her husband's voice, chopping through her mood of terrified rapture, made her heart jump like a startled cat, yet by some miracle of feminine self-control her body did not show a tremor.Dear God, she thought, he mustn't see it. It's so beautiful, and he always kills beauty."I'm just looking at the Moon," she said listlessly. "It's green."Mustn't, mustn't see it. And now, with luck, he wouldn't. For the face, as if it also heard and sensed the menace in the voice, was moving back from the window's glow into the outside dark, but slowly, reluctantly, and still faunlike, pleading, cajoling, tempting, and incredibly beautiful."Close the shutters at once, you little fool, and come away from the window!""Green as a beer bottle," she went on dreamily, "green as emeralds, green as leaves with sunshine striking through them and green grass to lie on." She couldn't help saying those last words. They were her token to the face, even though it couldn't hear."Effie!"She knew what that last tone meant. Wearily she swung shut the ponderous lead inner shutters and drove home the heavy bolts. That hurt her fingers; it always did, but he mustn't know that."You know that those shutters are not to be touched! Not for five more years at least!""I only wanted to look at the Moon," she said, turning around, and then it was all gone--the face, the night, the Moon, the magic--and she was back in the grubby, stale little hole, facing an angry, stale little man. It was then that the eternal thud of the air-conditioning fans and the crackle of the electrostatic precipitators that sieved out the dust reached her consciousness again like the bite of a dentist's drill."Only wanted to look at the Moon!" he mimicked her in falsetto. "Only wanted to die like a little fool and make me that much more ashamed of you!" Then his voice went gruff and professional. "Here, count yourself."She silently took the Geiger counter he held at arm's length, waited until it settled down to a steady ticking slower than a clock--due only to cosmic rays and indicating nothing dangerous--and then began to comb her body with the instrument. First her head and shoulders, then out along her arms and back along their under side. There was something oddly voluptuous about her movements, although her features were gray and sagging.The ticking did not change its tempo until she came to her waist. Then it suddenly spurted, clicking faster and faster. Her husband gave an excited grunt, took a quick step forward, froze. She goggled for a moment in fear, then grinned foolishly, dug in the pocket of her grimy apron and guiltily pulled out a wristwatch.He grabbed it as it dangled from her fingers, saw that it had a radium dial, cursed, heaved it up as if to smash it on the floor, but instead put it carefully on the table."You imbecile, you incredible imbecile," he softly chanted to himself through clenched teeth, with eyes half closed.She shrugged faintly, put the Geiger counter on the table, and stood there slumped.He waited until the chanting had soothed his anger, before speaking again. He said quietly, "I do suppose you still realize the sort of world you're living in?"

Download or read book The Big Time written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You can't know there's a war on--for the Snakes coil and Spiders weave to keep you from knowing it's being fought over your live and dead body!ExcerptMy name is Greta Forzane. Twenty-nine and a party girl would describe me. I was born in Chicago, of Scandinavian parents, but now I operate chiefly outside space and time--not in Heaven or Hell, if there are such places, but not in the cosmos or universe you know either.I am not as romantically entrancing as the immortal film star who also bears my first name, but I have a rough-and-ready charm of my own. I need it, for my job is to nurse back to health and kid back to sanity Soldiers badly roughed up in the biggest war going. This war is the Change War, a war of time travelers--in fact, our private name for being in this war is being on the Big Time. Our Soldiers fight by going back to change the past, or even ahead to change the future, in ways to help our side win the final victory a billion or more years from now. A long killing business, believe me.You don't know about the Change War, but it's influencing your lives all the time and maybe you've had hints of it without realizing.Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn't seem to be bringing you exactly the same picture of the past from one day to the next? Have you ever been afraid that your personality was changing because of forces beyond your knowledge or control? Have you ever felt sure that sudden death was about to jump you from nowhere? Have you ever been scared of Ghosts--not the story-book kind, but the billions of beings who were once so real and strong it's hard to believe they'll just sleep harmlessly forever? Have you ever wondered about those things you may call devils or Demons--spirits able to range through all time and space, through the hot hearts of stars and the cold skeleton of space between the galaxies? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, you've had hints of the Change War.How I got recruited into the Change War, how it's conducted, what the two sides are, why you don't consciously know about it, what I really think about it--you'll learn in due course.

Download or read book What s He Doing in There written by Fritz Leiber and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He went where no Martian ever went before--but would he come out--or had he gone for good?ExcerptThe Professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from another planet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologist before contacting any other scientists (or governments, God forbid!), and in learning English from radio and TV before landing from his orbit-parked rocket, when the Martian stood up and said hesitantly, "Excuse me, please, but where is it?"That baffled the Professor and the Martian seemed to grow anxious--at least his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that it curling downward was his smile--and he repeated, "Please, where is it?"He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion was textured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying that the Professor's pin-striped gray suit, which he had eagerly consented to wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair--a sort of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather.The Professor's Wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying with equal rapidity, "Top of the stairs, end of the hall, last door."The Martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, "Thank you very much," and was off.Comprehension burst on the Professor. He caught up with his guest at the foot of the stairs."Here, I'll show you the way," he said."No, I can find it myself, thank you," the Martian assured him.