Last Updated: Sunday, August 18, 2019
First published in
2004 by
Midnight House as a
Hardback
Horrible Imaginings is another fine selection of rare tales (limited to 500 numbered copies), edited by John Pelan (and a shout out to me in the front – yay!)
“This is the third of a series of volumes dedicated to preserving all of Fritz Leiber’s weird and macabre tales under the Midnight House imprint. Horrible Imaginings assembles stories from sources ranging from 1940s issues of Weird Tales to rare fanzines like Amra and Whispers. As a special treat, this book includes a “lost” story, “Skinny’s Wonderful”, apparently written for Esquire or Playboy which was recently discovered in the author’s papers. Most of the stories gathered here are making their first appearance in book form or have been virtually unobtainable for many years. Fritz Leiber was the winner of every major award for science fiction, fantasy, and horror during his career. While many of his novels remain in print, much of his great short fiction has been virtually unobtainable for decades.” read more
Last Updated: Sunday, August 18, 2019
First published in
1947 by
Arkham House as a
Hardback
Night’s Black Agents was the first book Fritz Leiber had published, and was was released by Arkham House in 1947 (3084 copies). It collects together many of his stories that appeared in ‘ Weird Tales’ and ‘Unknown’. The ‘Ancient Adventures’, two Fafhrd and Mouser stories would later appear in Swords in the Mist. The book is dedicated to his first wife Jonquil (Stephens). The Ballantine edition of Night’s Black Agents loses Adepts Gambit, whilst The Gregg press edition adds A Bit of the Dark World and The Girl With Hungry Eyes. read more
Last Updated: Sunday, August 18, 2019
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First published in 1990 by Dark Harvest as a Hardback
A quite superb selection. Billed as 50 years of Fritz Leiber many of the stories are uncollected before and the others are classics.
Notable Editions: Numbered, lettered and slipcased editions released
Kirkus Review
The cream of octogenarian Leiber’s fantasies, holding 50 years of stories (44 selections) in one giant volume that can be seen as the capstone of Leiber’s storytelling–although he has written some well-remembered novels (Gather, Darkness and Conjure Wife, filmed excellently as Burn, Witch, Burn). The present collection includes the second earliest swords-and-sorcery fantasy in Leiber’s Grey Mouser and Fafhrd series “”Two Sought Adventure”” (1939) and the latest, “”The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars”” (1983). “”Curse”” may be Fafhrd and Grey Mouser’s swan song, in that they die–for a while. If their deaths turn out to be only flirtations with death, the farewell notes seem to have sounded.
There’s not a dumb story in the book, though some–such as “”Poor Superman,”” the story of a gigantic artificial intelligence–have been outdone by others. Leiber’s classiest acts are here: “”The Automatic Pistol,”” in which a dead hood’s pistol pursues his murderer; “”Smoke Ghost””–a juicy updating of just what a modern ghost should be like (“”A smoky composite face with the hungry anxiety of the unemployed, the neurotic restlessness of the person without purpose, the jerky tension of the high-pressure metropolitan worker. . .the aggressive whine of the panhandler. . .and a thousand other twisted emotional patterns. Each one overlying yet blending with the other, like a pile of semi-transparent masks. . .””); “”Gonna Roll the Bones,”” “”Ship of Shadows,”” “”Ill Met in Lankhmar,”” and the ironic antidefamation fantasy “”Belsen Express””–which is a gasser. Leiber’s best collection ever.
Contains the following short stories (listed in alphabetical order)
237 Talking Statues Etc
A Bad Day for Sales
A Pail of Air
A Rite of Spring
Alice and the Allergy
America the Beautiful
Bazaar of the Bizarre
Belsen Express
Catch That Zeppelin!
Coming Attraction
Endfray of the Ofay
Four Ghosts in Hamlet
Gonna Roll the Bones
Horrible Imaginings
Ill Met in Lankhmar
Mariana
Midnight by the Morphy Watch
Poor Superman
Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee
Sanity
Ship of Shadows
Smoke Ghost
The 64-Square Madhouse
The Automatic Pistol
The Bait
The Beat Cluster
The Button Molder
The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars
The Death of Princes
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes
The Glove
The Haunted Future
The Hound
The Jewels in the Forest
The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity
The Man Who Never Grew Young
The Moon Is Green
The Night He Cried
The Winter Flies
Try and Change The Past
Wanted - An Enemy
What's He Doing In There?
When the Change-Winds Blow
Yesterday House
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Last Updated: Monday, August 19, 2019
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