It really, really doesn’t count as positive.

2024? By then you’ll be president of a 3rd world $hithole. Enjoy.

Dude, by 2024, I’ll roll down an escalator, accuse a minority for being criminals, hire some Russian hackers to shill for me and then I’ll become President.

Dude, you *have* to read some of the words, you’re not the President of the United States.

As a side comment, I'll note he was a very nice guy in person. I met him several times at book signings and cons (I'm on the west coast), and he was always a really nice guy every time.

Well, actually his fantasy work is well known, but I agree that his science fiction is not. On at least one occasion the publisher "disguised" a science fiction novel of his with fantasy cover art (ACE 30301: copyright 1953 ). "The Green Millennium" is the book in question and I purchased it thinking it was a…

I read "The Creature from Cleveland Depths"—which was startlingly accurate in its portrayal of a vapid middle-class—and "Night of the Long Knive", which seems like something from Fallout. I know, I know, they inspired the tropes they remind me of. Though the idea of keeping some piece of technology next to me at all…

I feel ya there. I was following the discussion of some whippersnapper in the O-Deck who had never read the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. The kids these days just don't get educated in the classics anymore, grumble, grumble . . .

I did some poking around, and found that the "Swords . . . " books featuring Fafherd and the Grey Mouser are still available as e-books. So if you want to purchase them for your e-reading enjoyment, you can get them from FeedBooks:

The Fafherd & Grey Mouser Lankhmar stories were reprinted in omnibus editions from the Science Fiction Book Club, and might still be available from them. If not, Amazon or Alibris might be a source for them used. I'd definitely recommend reading them, they are really very good.

The Lankhmar books are as good as heroic fantasy gets. Funny, fun, inventive, well-written — and inspiration for a lot that followed. Can't state that emphatically enough.

I was really bemused to see this article, because it honestly never occurred to me that Leiber might be considered obscure in any way, or that anyone with any interest in fantasy or gaming wouldn't have heard of, if not read at least some of, the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser works. Have they truly become so unknown in…

Midnight by the Morphy Watch, best Chess story ever written. Dark Wings, Jungian Archetypes at play, brilliant! Gonna Roll the Bones , a parable. He made sword and sorcery a place of humor and irony, he was the logical heir to James Branch Cabell, (Look him up). Of course his Lovecraftian Horror was 1st rate. In…

Quite a few years ago now I chatted briefly with Leiber in a game store on Market while I was in SF for a chess tournament. (I only placed 2nd, much to my disgust, but did find a new girlfriend). I shyly refrained from asking about his writing, but found him to be gentlemanly and unassuming.

For those who may not know them, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are the archetypal barbarian and thief duo. According to Wiki, the duo "were loosely modelled upon Leiber himself and his friend Harry Otto Fischer."

Yeah, Lieber was pretty much required reading in my D&D circle in middle school. The first day I asked if I could play, the DM said I have to read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser first... he was a bit shocked I had already read it and forced me to submit to a quiz on it to make sure I wasn't lying my ass off. Ahh... good…

No Leiber = no Dungeons & Dragons. It's just that simple. Anyone who thinks of D&D as "Tolkienesque" is ignorant of the game's deep roots in American fantasy and SF (you'd have to throw Anderson and Vance in there as well).

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: I don't know why the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories haven't been optioned for a multi-billion dollar franchise. In Hollywoodspeak, "it's kind of like 'Pirates of the Caribbean'... in the world of 'Lord of the Rings!!!'" Yeah, that's an oversimplification, and I know…

Excellent, Annalee! Fritz deserves to be more widely read. He himself was magical realism, and his works were so far ahead of their time. Plus, he was a nice guy who was very generous and patient with new authors and fans. I was thrilled to occasionally see him at cons toward the end of his life.

I know Leiber mainly for the Lankhmar books... I read the first one when I was about 10 years old, and since then Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser have always been among my favourite fictional characters. Our lady of darkness I've never read, I'll add it to the next order of books.