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# Fritz Leiber

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Fritz Leiber (24 December 1910 - 1992) was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction.

To describe him as popular, amongst both fans and his fellow writers might be an understatement: his science fiction novels `The Big Time' (1958) and 'The Wanderer' (1965) won the Hugo award; The short stories `Gonna Roll them Bones' (1967), about a gambler playing dice with Death, and `Ship of Shadows' (1970) both won the Hugo award; `Bones' also winning the Nebula award

As the child of pair of Shakespearean actors, he showed a great fascination with the stage, from short stories featuring travelling shakespearean companies such as `No Great Magic' and 'Four Ghosts in Hamlet', to the actor/producer protagonist of the novel 'A Specter is Haunting Texas'. An interesting feature of `The Big Time' is that though it is about a war between two factions changing and rechanging history throughout the Universe, all the action takes place in a small bubble of isolated space-time, about the size of a theatrical stage, with only a handful of characters.

Among his most famous works are the 'Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser' stories, written over a span of 50 years, including one full length novel, `Swords of Lankhmar'. The first of these appeared in the [Unknown magazine]? in 1940. They are concerned with an unlikely pair of heroes, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who found in, and around, the fascinating city of Lankhmar?, a fertile hunting ground. (The characters of Fafhrd and the Mouser were based on Fritz himself, and his friend Harry Fischer, respectively) Although in many ways the stories now appear somewhat clicheed, these stories were, in fact, the progenitors of many of the cliches of the [sword and sorcery]? genre. One story showing how Fafhrd and the Mouser originally met, `Ill met in Lankhmar' (1970), won the Nebula and Hugo awards.

It has been noted that Terry Pratchett's city of Ankh-Morpork bears more than a passing resemblance to Lankhmar?.

The death of his wife Jonquil in 1969 precipitated a three year bout of alcoholism, but he then returned to his original form with a fantasy novel set in modern-day San Francisco, `Our Lady of Darkness' - serialised in the [Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction]? as `The Pale Brown Thing' (1975) - in which cities were the breeding grounds for new types of elementals, summonable by the dark art of `Megalopolisomancy'. The short parallel-worlds story `Catch that Zeppelin!' (1975) added yet another Nebula and Hugo award to his collection. Fans awarded him the Gandalf (Grand Master) award at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1975, and in 1981 the SFWA voted him the recipient of their 'Grand Master' award.

He wrote a short autobiography, which can be found in the collection, `The Ghost light' (1984).

Other works

- The Green Millennium
- Conjure Wife - This relates a college professor's discovery that his wife (and all other women) are regularly using magic against one another and their husbands. It was made into a film, under the title `Burn, Witch Burn'

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