Black Gondolier and Other Stories (45 page)

When I was fourteen — and had devoured the entire stock of Lankhmar novels shelved in the local library, as well as Silver Eggheads and Green Millennium — I went back to Night's Black Agents, to read again The Sunken Land and Adept's Gambit. It was a hot summer day and England were doing fairly well in the Test Match so my English teacher, Mr. Knock, was in a benevolent mood. Free reading was the order of the day. Whilst my classmates lifted out battered copies of Henry IV Part One and Cold Comfort Farm I took refuge at the back of the class and lost myself in Simorgya once again. While Fafhrd and Mouser were in danger of being sucked down by the sinking island Mr. Knock plucked the book out of my hands and began thumbing through the yellow-edged pages, perhaps looking for some adolescent sex scenes, after all, I was utterly engrossed and that never happened with school work. Holding front and back cover delicately, he opened the book like a bird taking flight, the breaks in the spine showing which pages I kept returning to most frequently or lingering on longest. Smiling to himself, Mr. Knock began to read aloud:

“I think of the autumn of 1939, not as the beginning of the Second World War, but as the period in which Albert Moreland dreamed the dream. The two events—the war and the dream—are not, however, divorced in my mind. Indeed, I sometimes fear that there is a connection between them, but it is a connection which no sane person will consider seriously, if he is wise.”

He ended up spending the next thirty minutes reading The Dreams of Albert Moorland to the class. About a week later, I noticed a copy of The Book of Fritz Leiber on his desk. Coincidence?

Apart from in itself being a dream come true, putting together The Black Gondolier And Other Stories has been a gift more precious than I can begin to express. I had actually forgotten just how wonderful some of these stories are. The language is crisp, the dialogue rich, the imagery vibrant. It is an incredible thing when you think about it, but The Casket Demon's media savvy heroine would be equally at home in today's Hollywood, her jet-setting lifestyle a match for an army of modern starlets, her command of the paparazzi sharp enough to rival the glamour of even the boldest and the most beautiful. And it's not just that story. The Black Gondolier with its prescient oil is more even more vital now than it was in 1964. Think United Nations edict 666, think Kuwait and Sadam, think of the x-million cars a day that roll over the bridges into our major cities, think of the failure of so called green power and the fallout of Chernobyl. Who can say for sure that the black stuff isn't working to its own agenda?

I think this longevity of not just story but the actual writing as well is the ultimate tribute I can offer to Fritz Leiber as a writer. That, coupled with the honest admission that there are eighteen stories gathered here and I dearly wish that I had written all of them, they are quite simply that good. As a writer, Leiber transcended the natural scope of genre, creating equally brilliant stories in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and horror, something a good many of the self-professed literati still claim is impossible despite the evidence laid before them.

All I want to say then is a simple thank you, Fritz, wherever you are.

Steve Savile

Stockholm, June 5
^th
2000