The Lords of Quarmall / The Beacon to Elsewhere

by Fritz Leiber, Harry Fischer, James H. Schmitz

Armchair Fiction presents extra large paperback editions of classic science fiction double novels, complete with original illustrations. The first novel, "The Lords of Quarmall," is written by Fritz Leiber and Harry Fischer. It's about a subterranean kingdom. There are certain passageways under the earth that lead to the magicked chambers of Quarmall, where sorcerers and torturers live in endless night... Where the legends of the "Ancients" were spawned... To this labyrinth of caverns and tunnels come Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser-but differently, this time: not as comrades but combatants in a deadly dance. The second novel, "Beacon to Elsewhere," by James H. Schmitz, features a rip in time. The forces of the Universe met at Lion Mesa, a remote desert location, where an experiment gone awry caused time and space to converge. The imposing forces were represented by the rebel Terrans; by Dowland of the Interstellar Police; and by the monstrous shapes from an alien galaxy. They all sought the same thing: the all-consuming, time-wrenching power of...the Beacon to Elsewhere..

216 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2011

About the author

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was one of the more interesting of the young writers who came into HP Lovecraft's orbit, and some of his best early short fiction is horror rather than sf or fantasy. He found his mature voice early in the first of the sword-and-sorcery adventures featuring the large sensitive barbarian Fafhrd and the small street-smart-ish Gray Mouser; he returned to this series at various points in his career, using it sometimes for farce and sometimes for gloomy mood pieces--The Swords of Lankhmar is perhaps the best single volume of their adventures. Leiber's science fiction includes the planet-smashing The Wanderer in which a large cast mostly survive flood, fire, and the sexual attentions of feline aliens, and the satirical A Spectre is Haunting Texas in which a gangling, exo-skeleton-clad actor from the Moon leads a revolution and finds his true love. Leiber's late short fiction, and the fine horror novel Our Lady of Darkness, combine autobiographical issues like his struggle with depression and alcoholism with meditations on the emotional content of the fantastic genres. Leiber's capacity for endless self-reinvention and productive self-examination kept him, until his death, one of the most modern of his sf generation.

Used These Alternate Names: Maurice Breçon, Fric Lajber, Fritz Leiber, Jr., Fritz R. Leiber, Fritz Leiber Jun., Фриц Лейбер, F. Lieber, フリッツ・ライバー