It's too bad that we have no tale of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser [in The Best of Fritz Leiber]. Not only did that charming pair of rogues—the tall Northern barbarian and the small city-bred trickster—launch the author's career; they are still going strong, to the joy of everybody who appreciates a rattling good fantasy adventure. But by no means are these stories conventional "sword and sorcery." The world of Nehwon is made real in wondrously imaginative detail, its human aspects as true as in any conscientious job of reporting. To visit the city of Lankhmar is to learn what decadence in fact means; to roam with our vulnerable vagabonds is to experience pity and terror as well as suspense, wry humor, and uproarious hilarity. Here Leiber in his way—like the late J.R.R. Tolkien in his, and not vastly different—has done, and is doing, for the heroic fantasy what Robert Louis Stevenson did for the pirate yarn: by originality and sheer writing genius, he revived an ossified genre and started it off on a fresh path.

I could likewise wish that this book held a sample or two of Leiber's horror stories. In my opinion, which Fritz modestly does not share, Lovecraft and Poe himself never dealt out comparable chills. The typical Leiber frightener gains tremendous power by its economy, its evocative contemporary setting, and its bleak brilliance of concept—like "Smoke Ghost," to name a single tale, whose phantom is in and of the corrupted air pervading a modern industrial city. (pp. x-xi)

The novels were inevitably excluded. But any discussion of Leiber's work, or of science fantasy as a whole, must consider them. They are few in number, but each is unique and, with two exceptions, of major significance in the development of present-day imaginative literature.

The first exception is Tarzan and the City of Gold, "only" a delightful continuation of Burroughs. Come to think of it, though, a scholar of English letters would find it most interesting to trace out how Leiber managed to convey the flavor of his model while avoiding all its crudities, outdoing Burroughs in every way that counts, and throwing occasional philosophical and moral issues into the bargain….

Doubtless many will argue with my assertion that The Green Millennium is not a landmark. It is, in the sense of being a fine book, highly recommended. But it carries further the world of "Coming Attraction" and "Poor Superman,"… and thus does not break new ground—by Leiber's standards—however inventive and often astoundingly witty it is. (p. xi)

[Several] of Leiber's stories are part of a series incorporating the many-branched time-lines whose origins were described in the short novel Destiny Times Three. Ranging from a placid utopia through a cruel dictatorship to a freezing ruin of an Earth—and beyond—this novel is more than a fast-paced chase story; it is a vatic study of power over nature and over man, so easy to misuse and so nearly impossible to use rightly.

Similarly, Leiber wrote a number of stories in what has come to be known as the Change-War cycles…. The heart of the cycle is in another novel, The Big Time. Few comparable tours de force exist anywhere in literature. The action takes place continuously in a single setting, a station outside the cosmos to which half-crazed soldiers from all time and space are sent for a little rest and recreation. Beneath the flamboyancies, tension racks up notch by notch toward a breaking-point climax followed by an ironic dénouement. It's fantastically good theater—literally. How I wish to see it staged!

Being such a virtuoso...