Introductions

Campbell, Ramsey.  "Introduction."  Smoke Ghost, and Other Apparitions.  Seattle:  Midnight House, 2002.

Remarks are offered on Leiber's early correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft, but Campbell also notes that Leiber's tales "seem  to occupy a territory that is purely his. Discusses some of the stories in the volume and asserts that Leiber's work often sets the supernatural in an urban industrial setting, as in "Smoke Ghost."

Collins. T.  "Introduction."  The Book of Fritz Leiber.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

Frane, Jeff.  "Introduction."  The Sinful Ones.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

An excellent study of the publishing history and different versions of the novel, and this edition provides the full text with commentary. Discusses the novel as a twentieth-century urban horror story, noting the influence of Shakespeare and modern psychology on the book.

Grant, Charles L.  "Introduction."  Conjure Wife.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1982.

Streses the subtle tension Leiber creates in this novel of the rational and the irrational.  The events of the book "may or may not be supernatural, the conclusion that may or may not be conclusive  . . ." Leiber is detached, and the reader comes away with the feeling "that he has been set up."

Leiber, Justin.  "Introduction."  Worlds of Fritz Leiber. By Fritz Leiber.  Boston:  Gregg, 1979.

A thoughtful, at times humorous evaluation of Leiber's science fiction by his son Justin.  He writes, "What Fritz aims at is fear and delight, the heady, mind-stretching intoxication of entering a new world."

Letson, Russell.  "Introduction."  The Wanderer.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

Notes the irony and humanity of the novel.  In this context, "the struggles, follies, courage, and resourcefulness of individuals take on a new significance, neither diminished nor magnified, but sharply focused as human heroism, human madness in a universe not made to human specifications."

Notkin, Deborah L.  "Introduction."  The Green Millennium.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

Pelan, John.  "Fritz and Me." The Black Gondolier, and Other Stories.  Seattle:  Midnight House, 2000.

Remarks that Leiber's horror stories "can be classified as updates of the tropes of earlier horror fiction" and that "there is a decided modernity about them."  Like Lovecraft, Leiber presented "humanity as a bit player in the cosmic drama."  Unlike Lovecaft, Leiber made these cosmic maladies very human and very believable.

Pelan, John.  "Imagine, if You Will."  Horrible Imaginings.  Seattle:  Midnight House, 2004.

Fond, appreciative introduction to this selection of Leiber's horror tales.  Notes that Leiber was a master of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and that he modernized the twentieth century weird tale.  This volume contains mostly Leiber's pre-1950 horror tales.

Pelan, John.  "The Man Who Made Science Fiction Grow Up."  Day Dark, Night Bright.  Seattle: Darkside Press, 2002.

Pelan writes about these science fiction stories that are frequently horror stories as well.  He says of Leiber, "Just as he dragged the Jamesian ghost story wailing and moaning into the Atomic Age, he made the Science Fiction genre take on a new relevance by proving time and time again that it was a valid forum for literature."

Powers, Richard.  "Introduction."  Night's Black Agents.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

Provides remarks about Leiber's ideas about game-playing and how the work in fantasy and horror fiction.  Discusses some of the horror tales and the story "Adept's Gambit," the first Fafrd and the Mouser, and brings to bear Jungian psychological ideas on fantasy and horror fiction.

Silbersack, John.  "Introduction."  The Change War.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1978.

"These stories reflect Leiber's fascination with the instability of much of modern American life.   In Leiber's best fictions he is able to endow this instability, this American capacity for change, with a profound supernaturalism that can turn the most freakish accidents of urban chance into nightmares of paranoiac intensity."

Spinrad, Norman.  "Introduction."  Gather, Darkness!  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1980.

Spinrad says that the novel transcends all of the prevailing attitudes of science fiction from the 1940s to the present day.  In its use of the supernatural, the novel is really about "the inevitable centrality of the religious impulse to the politics of the human species, the need of both commoners and leaders for a belief in something beyond the dead universe of random electronic entities, and the deeper scientific realities which must transcend the logical scientific worldview."

Thurston, Robert.  "Introduction."  The Big Time.  Boston:  Gregg Press, 1976.

Thurston notes how theater has influenced Leiber's fiction.  Basing this aspect of his work on his childhood with theatrical parents, he creates in The Big Time a novel that could easily be transformed into a play.  This novel, one of his Change-War science fiction stories.  "The Big Time is the most daring, the most flamboyant, and the most significant as a contribution to science fiction."