The Night of the Long Knives

by Fritz Leiber, Phil Chenevert (Narrator)

"I was one hundred miles from Nowhere—and I mean that literally—when I spotted this girl out of the corner of my eye. I'd been keeping an extra lookout because I still expected the other undead bugger left over from the murder party at Nowhere to be stalking me." In a Post apocalyptic world, the few people left must be strong. And must not hesitate to kill. Of course, killing another Deathlander was one of the chief pleasures and urges of all the solitary wanders in this vast wasteland. Kill and kill again. But this other was a girl and that brought up the second great urge: sex. Which was it to be today? Perhaps both?"(Summary by Phil Chenevert)
-From Librivox

Genres: Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Novella, Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy, Audiobook

3 pages, Audiobook

First published January 1, 1960

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

Reviews

[Charles van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Post apocalyptic nightmare

Verified Purchase
This review is from: The Night of the Long Knives (Kindle Edition)

Sci-fi and fantasy master Fritz Leiber creates a bleak future. The etiquette of two strangers of opposite sex meeting in the Deathlands is worth the price of the book (which in the case of this edition is free but the observation is still accurate). This novella was published in the January, 1960 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

How would I describe this story? Murder hobos fulfill, then fight, their urges as they have an unexpected adventure through post-apocalypse nuclear wastes known as the Deathlands. Perhaps they learn a little something about themselves along the way.

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Above all things, The Night of the Long Knives by Fritz Lieber is a good story. At root, that is what every reader seeks: a good story, but when the novella-length read is coupled with metaphor and significance, well now you are toying with great. I recently found this book in the public domain section, and I remembered really loving this book, back when I started figuring out how to have Goodreads help me with my obsessive-compulsive disorders. The title is odd but begins to make sense when attached to an occurrence from the 1930's before World War II when Hitler engaged his soldiers in a purge of leadership where extra-judiciary murders were used to remove all threats to his leadership. Here, in a post-apocalyptic world, killing has become the primary urge ahead of procreation and every other biological imperative. Two individuals are about to kill each other, but before they do that a pilot lands his vehicle and they decide to team up against the pilot who clearly has more stuff. Fascinating story with some interesting perspectives on cold war, death, and murder.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chicago-born Fritz Leiber is an old favorite author of mine who never seems to let me down. From sublimely creepy horror novels such as "Conjure Wife" (1943), "You're All Alone" ('72) and "Our Lady of Darkness" ('77), to wonderfully imaginative sci-fi such as "The Big Time" ('61), to those unforgettable fantasy tales featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, here is a man who has always delivered for me. His is almost like a brand name that can be trusted for excellence and reliability. Thus, when I noticed a slim Leiber volume that I had never heard of before, sitting on a shelf at NYC bookstore extraordinaire The Strand, I purchased it immediately, without a second thought. The book in question, "The Night of the Long Knives," is today available as one of Dover Publications' "Doomsday Classics," a fascinating series of post-apocalyptic novels from the period 1905 (Gabriel de Tarde's "Underground Man") to 1973 (Sakyo Komatsu's "Japan Sinks"). The Leiber title is the slimmest of the 13 books, at a mere 95 pages; my approximate word count is 42,000, making the tale a longish novella (a work of 7,500 to 40,000 words). By necessity, the story is taut and fast moving, and most readers will likely feel compelled to gulp it down in a sitting or two.

Leiber's novella originally appeared in the pages of the famous pulp magazine "Amazing Science Fiction Stories" a few weeks after the author turned 49. (This is the publication, for those not familiar with it, that had been started by legendary editor Hugo Gernsback in 1926; it was the very first magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction. Originally called "Amazing Stories," the pulp underwent a brief name change in March and April '58, when it appeared as "Amazing Science Fiction"; in May '58, the title was changed again, to "Amazing Science Fiction Stories," and stayed thus until October '60, when its name morphed still again, to "Amazing Fact and Science Fiction Stories." After 609 issues, the magazine finally folded, in 2005.) His story copped the cover illustration of the January '60 issue; an intriguing painting by Ed Valigursky showing two shrouded figures in what might be a desert landscape, with dozens of the titular blades descending on them. Today, the 35-cent issue would probably fetch 100 times that amount, but fortunately, we have the new, affordably priced Dover edition for all to enjoy.

In the book, the reader encounters a man whose name is ultimately revealed to be Ray Baker. In the post-apocalyptic, bomb-decimated, radioactive wasteland sector of the U.S. known as the Deathlands, Ray ekes out an existence that is grim in the extreme. We first encounter Ray just as he is encountering that rarity: a female roamer through the Deathlands, named Alice. The two warily have sex without uttering a single word, after which they both contemplate killing the other; homicide, it seems, is almost an instinctual reflex for Deathland residents. But before Ray or Alice can act, they are surprised by two nearly simultaneous happenings. A plane crash-lands near them, out of which emerges an impeccably dressed pilot, who they unthinkingly slay, as is their wont. And then, an old man appears out of nowhere, who Ray dubs Pops. This geezer, as it turns out, is a former homicidal maniac himself, but has now reformed and even heads a sort of self-help group called Murderers Anonymous. Pops has plenty of time to tell his story to Ray and Alice after they enter the dead pilot's plane and are summarily whisked eastward, via the craft's anti-gravity capabilities. (At this point in the story, the wondrous flying machine starts to assume the properties of a fantastical magic carpet ride of sorts.) And after not many hours, the trio finds itself in the middle of a full-scale conflict between the forces of the Atlantic Highlands and those of Savannah Fortress....

Leiber's novella is, in essence, a 36-hour snapshot glimpse of this decimated postwar landscape; a glimpse that does hold out some small hope for mankind's future. Our three lead characters are efficiently sketched, and we do get to learn a bit about each of their pre-war lives via some truly startling revelations. Leiber's tale is both sexually frank (that wordless coupling manages to impress today; back in 1960, it must have been shocking) and highly imaginative. For example, in most post-apocalyptic tales, the reader might expect to encounter a landscape strewn with skeletons; here, though, the author gives us fully preserved corpses, the ubiquitous radiation having killed off their bacteria and thus preserving them "indefinitely." In many similar stories, our hero might find the scar on Alice's forehead, not to mention the screw-on metal hook on her right wrist stump, to be off-putting and repugnant, but Ray, surprisingly enough, finds them a turn-on!

Ray, who is our narrator, ultimately reveals himself to be well suited to telling his tale, expressing himself with jazzy, tough-guy talk (he repeatedly refers to people as "cats"). He has a lucid, well-expressed voice, thus preparing the reader for his background revelation later on, although is still quite capable of such ungrammatical expressions as "They didn't contain nothing of consequence...." Ray peppers his story with touches of humor (I like the word he uses to describe how he removed his gun from its holster, pre-coitus: "disarmingly") that help the entire conceit, and all the assorted violent bits, go down very smoothly. Meanwhile, author Leiber manages to tack on a few surprising details at the end that go far in tying up some niggling loose ends.

To be honest, I was left a bit mystified by one aspect of Leiber's story; namely, the precise location in the Deathlands where Ray first encounters Alice. At first, Ray tells us that he was "between Porter County and Ouachita Parish," which suggested the former Louisiana to me. A little later, he tells us that he was near "Manteno Asylum," which suggested to me...well, nothing, really. But later still, in that anti-grav plane, he learns that he might have been...south of Lake Michigan. Anyway, don't ask me. The title of Leiber's story also puzzled this reader a bit, too. It is true that all three of our lead characters carry knives on their person (Pops actually has dozens of them hung around his body, while Ray has one pet blade that he calls "Mother," and Alice has a knife that she can screw onto her wrist stump, after her hook has been removed), although their prominence is not so great in the story as to warrant naming the novella after them. But these are minor matters.

"The Night of the Long Knives" remains a charming, likable adventure, and a thought-provoking one. It could surely have been expanded by its author to a full-length novel or have even served as the opening salvo of an entire series, but this tantalizing glimpse will have to do. It is still another winner from the great Fritz Leiber, and its resurrection by Dover is to be applauded. I now find myself wanting to read another title in their Doomsday Classics series, and indeed, may soon be purchasing Margaret St. Clair's 1963 offering, "Sign of the Labrys." Stay tuned....

(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Fritz Leiber....)

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last weekend I stumbled across a number of public domain sci-fi books on Amazon. Fritz Leiber had several titles available, with this one being one the more provocatively titled. (I thought it was going to be some sort of sci-fi Nazi thing.) As it turned out, the story (a novella of about 90 pages or so) is a product of the Cold War, and a good one at that.

The story takes place in a post-Apocalyptic America (1950s style). What impressed me about Leiber's vision is how it has held up after over 50 years. The sky has an orange glow, structures are blasted and half melted, the inhabitants resemble cast members from The Road Warrior, with detachable tools replacing hands, razor sharp plates for teeth, and an array of scrounged weaponry tucked away in clothes and hair. The main action takes place in a huge area (most of the country) called the "Deathlands." Three characters, Ray, Alice, and Pop, meet up after Ray and Alice ambush an outsider in a spaceship like plane that has made an emergency landing. The outsider is from one of several pockets of survivors that seem to be comprised of scientists. These pockets also seem to part of the previous weapons development industry in pre-Apocalypse America. Not surprisingly, these pockets are at war with each other. Our three Deathlanders attempt to highjack the ship, but there is no real escape, A lot of the story is taken up by the banter between the three. It can get a bit windy, but it's always interesting since these conversations usually revolve around what it means to be human. In a lot of ways I was reminded of old Twilight Zone episodes. A good, quick read. And it's free!

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

”There’s a rumor that there’s a new America growing in the Deathlands, an America that never need kill again. But don’t put too much stock in it — not too much.”

Fritz Leiber was a genius. In this novella, first published in Amazing Stories in 1960 (during the height of the Cold War), he created a post-apocalyptic America less than three decades removed from the nuclear war that destroyed civilization. Vast, radiation-created wastes, known as the Deathlands, are roamed by murder hobos, scarred both physically and emotionally by the fallout and aftermath of the late war. Murder has become more than survival strategy to these Deathlands denizens — it has become a compulsion as strong as the sex drive. And after setting up this gruesomely grim scenario, Leiber proceeded to spin a breezy tale that feels almost lighthearted and humorous. Almost.

Leiber was playing four-dimensional chess with this story. He started with a subject that was the great fascination and fear of his audience — a scenario straight out of their nightmares. He then told the story in such a matter of fact, easygoing manner that the incongruity of the first person narration, which often felt unintentionally humorous, took the sting from the deadly scary setup. Introducing into the mix things like Murders Anonymous, patterned after the 12 step program, gave it a sense of lighthearted, unseriousness. And just when the reader has been set at ease, Leiber casually slides in, subtle and off the cuff, a deadly serious message about the values and philosophy of war verse mutual aid and cooperation, so that you barely notice you’ve been preached at. The man was a Dog damned genius!

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Fritz Leiber. His writing is so interesting, dark, weird and funny. And sort of rudimentary, because he was one of the guys who did things first. This is a pulp magazine novella, from I think around 1960. It's about living in a post nuclear bomb world. And it is public domain - free (for e-book) on Amazon.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Night of the Long Knives is a novella that was published in the January issue of Amazing Stories magazine in 1960, which was edited by Cele Goldsmith, who was one of the most influential editors of the day, though she was (and remains) very under-appreciated. It's a post-apocalyptic story set in The Deathlands, one of the best atomic wastelands created in the sf of the Cold War era. (It makes you wonder if this was an influence for the long-running Harlequin/Gold Eagle series of novels.) It follows three people as they encounter and get to know one another and attempt to reach some level of trust. It also has a sexual element that was quite unusual and blatant for the time. The depiction of a murderer's anonymous kind of society was wryly entertaining, and he tells a captivating page-turner of a story, too. It shows a whole new side of Leiber, who was primarily known for heroic fantasy, horror, humor, and sharp satire.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dover Books has begun a new series of reprints called Doomsday Classics. Not the cheeriest series, perhaps, but they are pulling together a group of titles from the past 150 years that promises to combine academic interest with popular appeal for a broader science fiction readership. So far they have brought back into print Darkness and Dawn, a trilogy of novels from 1914 by George Allen England. England is largely forgotten today, but at the turn of the 20th century he was considered the American H.G. Wells. Also already on the shelves is Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague (1912). Coming up is Robertson Jeffries After London, a piece of Victorian science fiction new to me. Japan Sinks (1995) by Sakyo Komatsu is major work of Asian science fiction currently out-of-print in English.

Their July 2015 release is The Night of the Long Knives, a disappointing effort by Fritz Leiber. Leiber wrote it as a short novel for the January 1960 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories, and it reads like a truncated version of what could have been a better, longer novel. Leiber sets up a convincing if by now familiar post-apocalyptic world, but the plot, such as it is, gets talked to death before it has a chance to take advantage of what Leiber is building on.

He opens with a scene familiar from classic Hollywood westerns, replacing the desert Southwest with an irradiated wasteland in the central United States. Two strangers warily approach one another, not sure if the next moments will bring bloodshed or comradeship. Actually, since this is a man and a woman, the option is bloodshed or sex, but even taking option number two will not discount resorting quickly to option number one. A propensity for murder has become second nature to those who wander the Deathlands. Leiber never satisfactorily explains why this is, but since he has created a first person narrator, such analysis would not be an option. Things just are the way they are.

The man and woman go for option number two, and the best part of the novel is their silent, methodical self-disarmaments, neither one willing to remove a weapon or an article of clothing until he or she is certain the other is making a similar concession. They also don’t speak, talking not being an accepted Deathland first-date behavior. And in this bleak, poisoned world beauty criteria have changed. The man --whose name, by the way, turns out to be Ray, the woman is Alice – is self-conscious about his eggshell baldness, but he is attracted to Alice’s radiation scars. One that traces a line from her eyebrow, across her forehead, and into her hairline provides “just the fillip” needed to make her beautiful. (Nice to think that after an atomic war the term “fillip” may make a comeback.)

This opening encounter takes up almost a third of the narrative, but things fall apart once it is over. Ray and Alice murder a handsome and to them offensively healthy man who shows up in a flying machine. They meet an old geezer they call Pop. He’s a scrounger, possibly too cracked to be dangerous. The trio flies off in the dead man’s aircraft that is preprogrammed to take them to the edges of the civilized zones where yet another war is in progress. There is little action and much boring talk. When the ship returns them to the Deathlands location they started from, they find the dying woman their civilized victim had come to save. There is more talk and the story winds down.

Leiber’s novel is a mess starting with the title. Evoking the series of assassinations that secured Hitler’s rise to power brings nothing to the narrative. The oddball component that sparks any real interest is Pop’s proselytizing for his newfound commitment to stop wholesale murder. He has joined a group of like-thinking ex-murderers who get together informally to help one another fight the urge when it comes on them. The loosely organized band is setting up meetings across the Deathlands. Right now it is just men, but they are thinking they should admit women. They joke about calling themselves Murderers Anonymous.

Leiber was an alcoholic who sought treatment a couple of times several times. Among the Leiber papers held by the University of Indiana, there are several folders dated 1960 that contain Alcoholics Anonymous material. I don’t know how obvious or coded the AA references in The Night of the Long Knives would have been to readers of Amazing Science Fiction when the novel was published, nor what Leiber hoped to accomplish with their inclusion His recovery process must have been weighing heavily on his mind at the time, but Pop’s enthusiasm and Ray’s and Alices’s cautious curiosity about what he has to offer becomes just another loose end in the hodge-podge of the novel.

I place The Night of the Long Knives among the Leiber works for completists only.

(This review is based on an advance ebook provided by Net Galley.)

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Originally posted at FanLit. Just "Night of the Long Knives" (not "Other Works")

"Murder, as you must know by now, I can understand and sympathize with deeply. But war? No."

After a nuclear holocaust, America is unrecognizable. There are a few cities left on the coasts, but most of America is now the Deathlands, where radioactive dust hazes the skies and radiation-scarred survivors try to stay alive another day. Besides devastating the land, the catastrophe has somehow warped the minds of the few remaining citizens of the Deathlands; they have all turned into murderers. They can’t help it — it’s a drive that can only be released by killing someone. Even when they band together for companionship, it always ends up in a bloodbath.

Ray has been on his own for a long time when he meets Alice, a woman who’s just as tough as he is. When the two of them decide, just for a while, not to kill each other, they come upon an old man and a hovercraft that seems to offer a way out of the Deathlands. Instead, they get caught up in a war between the sophisticated city dwellers.

The Night of the Long Knives, a novella by Fritz Leiber (one of my favorite writers), is totally absorbing. It vividly describes a horrifying possible future America where nuclear war has ravaged the land and the human brain. Leiber’s characters are pathetic guilt-ridden people who’ve learned that the only way to eke out a wretched existence is to kill anyone who gets close. There is no goal but survival, and those who’ve managed have their methods. Ray wears sharp metal dental implants, a lead-lined hat, and a knife he calls “Mother.” Alice, who is missing a hand, screws a knife into her stump and hides weapons in her hair. They circle each other warily, knowing that it can’t be long before one of them can’t deny the urge to kill the other.

Leiber uses his story to examine the mind of the murderer and to ask what it would take for a serial killer to change his ways. What are the influences of community, culture, and religion? How can a reformed killer get rid of guilt, make reparation, and help reform others? Another obvious theme, which was especially popular at the time Leiber wrote this novella, is the danger of nuclear war. The Night of the Long Knives is a grim story, but it doesn’t leave us in despair. I liked the note of hope at the end.

The Night of the Long Knives, which was originally published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1960, feels surprisingly current — the character names are the most dated-feeling aspect of the story. The novella is now in the public domain, so you can get it free on Kindle, but I want to recommend the audio version which is 3 hours and 17 minutes long and is read by Matt Armstrong.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in a 1960's issue of Amazing Science Fiction, this Fritz Leiber novella gets a nice thrifty paperback edition release from Dover Publications as part of their wonderful new Doomsday Classics series. If you are like me you'll vastly prefer reading these as actual copies rather than poorly formatted digital versions.

I have limited experience with Leiber, so I was intrigued by this just as an excuse to read something by a classic, well-known name in SFF. And as a post-apocalyptic story it intrigued even more.

The post-apocalyptic field has become overcrowded, particularly with a boon in entries by mainstream authors who for whatever reason reject classification within the speculative or fantasy genres. In most cases I've been disappointed by these newer works because they fail to add anything significant to the corpus already built by genre and mainstream authors alike. Reading Leiber's story I did not have this feeling at all. A part of me realized that this was written at a time before these stories were a dime a dozen. So to a degree I gave it grace. Still, I enjoyed the novella regardless of any thematic novelty because while familiar, Leiber writes it with remarkable skill, with elements neither overly complex nor simplified.

The Night of the Long Knives comes from an era full of post-apocalyptic imaginings: the Cold War. As typical throughout forms of media, disaster comes to the world via nuclear annihilation. The United States has been transformed into a waste, the Deathlands. Radiation-scarred survivals struggle for resources in competition and deep mistrust. Two drifters, Ray and Alice, meet upon the site of a crashed flying ship that has made an emergency landing in the barren wilderness. The two form a fragile alliance of mutual benefit faced with the opportunity before them: a possible way out of the Deathlands into one of the few pockets of civilization that may remain.

Along with the survivor of the crashed craft, this makes just three characters in a novella with a rather straight-forward plot. Leiber creates a journey for the reader with explorations of the character's psychology, their words and actions. As with most post-apocalyptic fiction the key interest is how humans react to one another. The most frightening aspect of The Walking Dead is not the zombies, but what the characters - good or evil - are capable of. The most frightening aspect of The Night of the Long Knives is not the nuclear devastation, but the destroyed basic humanity, the impossibility of bonding. The most frightening aspect of the Cold War is not the nukes, but the nationalism of humans.

The dialogue in The Night of the Long Knives is particularly strong, making each of the characters into people that readers can relate to, at least in some significant, deep fashion. Leiber makes you feel the devastation, the hope and the despair in ways that Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series would later do in Epic Fantasy - or Stephen King of course would with his epic post-apocalyptic The Stand. The emotional and physical struggles of the characters in Leiber's novella will probably not be anything surprising to a reader. Despite that general familiarity, Leiber's words remain compelling and still relevant to our hearts over half a century after they were written.

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic advanced reading copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review that first appeared on Reading1000Lives.com

[Hákon Gunnarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The setting here is quite familiar. It's a fairly usual post apocalyptic scene that one has read in a number of stories, and seen in even more films. I get a bit of a Mad Max feel from it. Maybe the most unusual thing here is the "mating dance" of the two main characters early on in the story. That was slightly weird, but oddly fitting in that context.

Unlike some post apocalyptic works, The Night of the Long Knives doesn't just go from one violent scene to the next, but spends a considerable time debating violence. I think that makes it all the more interesting read. The down side is that it may not be quite as suspenseful as it could have been considering the setting, but still, it kept me guessing most of the way through.

So in short, I think it is rather interesting science fiction novella.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this 1960 novella of three survivors of a post-apocalyptic nightmare of a future America. The land is a nuclear wasteland, and pockets of survivors are scattered amongst a few cities and enclaves. The Deathlands is sparsely populated by super-paranoid "Deadlanders" who would just as soon kill a person as look at them. The three Deadlanders who make up the story - Ray, Alice, and Pop - remind me a lot of characters from a Mad Max show - scarred on the outside and inside, and trying desperately to survive beyond all odds. This was a good find for me, a classic SF story.

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. It's not free today on Amazon for Kindle but sometimes it is!

This is an end-of-the-world novella with a kill or be killed theme. From the interwebs, here's the explanation of the name.

"One of the key moments in the Nazi’s rise to power was an evening dubbed “The Night of Long Knives”. Numerous key opposition leaders attacked and killed, the resulting vacancy was a political hole Hitler and his minions swept in and filled, eventually resulting in their complete takeover of German government. In 1960 Fritz Leiber, an American writer of German heritage who often interrogated aspects of WWII in his writing, decided to take a look at the logic underpinning such aggression and penned a novella of the same name."

And sure enough there's a plague! But there seems to be a vaccine to cure it...

The Chicago native was the fifth person to be named a grand master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1981.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read Leiber before, long time ago, his more supernatural works. Didn’t know he dabbled in science fiction, but then again back in the days the authors seem to genre hop. This looked interesting, was free for Kindle and short, plus In really like apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction so it seemed like an easy choice.
Fairly easy reading too, though, of course, as most work published in 1960, it’s somewhat dated. Not so much thematically (a concept of a nuclear war and its aftermath are devastating since its invention in a timeless way), but the slight casual sexism and offensive to modern ears language.
The story takes place in the, seemingly unnecessary to describe in order to imagine, Deadlands populated by Deadlanders, three of whom, a man, his newly found love interest and an antiviolence preaching old timer, find a mysterious ship and go on an adventure. That’s the basic plot. The basic moral featured heavily antiviolence and antimurdering themes that are just as appropriate for 1960 and the unspecified future as they are for present day in the US.
Sure, the people surviving in the cities are referred to as cultural queers among other things, but then again its entirely possible that’s still the way people from the red states describe the coastal elite, so nothing new there. You can’t blame an old book, but you can blame the ugly modern mentality. And the sexism isn’t too terrible either in the story, sure the female character gets less screen time and dialogue, but some of it is just how she is. She still has free will and opinions and exercises both. It’s a fairly balanced dystopia, with a peace making message, Put down your knives, long ones, short ones, and learn to live without. The world as they knew it might have died, but pacifism is alive and shambling around. Yey.
Quick read. Nothing special about it, not really, but it does have a certain bygone era appeal and fans of somewhat dated postapocalyptic imaginings might enjoy this one.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

1960 SF set in a post-nuclear war America. It started off good (kind of like Mad Max), but got preachy with anti-violence monologues by one character towards the end of the story. It can be found for free at Project Gutenberg.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was lovely. Too lovely. There had to be something wrong with it. There was.

Excellent first-person narrative of survival in post-apocalyptic North America. Gritty in a way that engages rather than panders. Refreshing lack of insults to the intelligence of his readers. Contemporary writers could learn about focus from Leiber.

“I ask you now, is any little thing like being damned eternally a satisfactory excuse for behaving like a complete rat?”

Modern readers may miss how original and creative this text is. Published in 1960. Early in the Cold war. Before ICBMs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, before Vietnam. Eisenhower was President. Laser new that year. Computers used tubes. Integrated circuits invented 1959.

“I’ll grant you they got a monopoly of brains. Not sense, though. “Intellectual snobs. I know the type and I detest it.”

Leiber is associated with swords and wizardry fantasy, but this is even better than Ill Met in Lankmar, which is no small feat.

“Every culture is a way of growth as well as a way of life, because the first law of life is growth.”

[Jonathan Ammon · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best things I’ve read from Leiber, one of the best pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve read, and a welcome surprise. I’m not sure why this isn’t more of a classic. There are plenty of lauded Sci-fi classics that aren’t nearly this good. My only complaint is that there isn’t more. A more mercenary editor might have demanded expansion into a more saleable length.

[honey · Rating 5 out of 5]

ما اعرف ليه مرره ذكرني في فلم mad max جميل جدا الكتاب

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Night of the Long Knives' is a novella by Fritz Leiber. It's a crazy post-apocalyptic tale that holds it's own against today's tales.

Ray is a survivor and scavenger in the Deathlands, a post-apocalyptic wasteland where there are no rules beyond survival. When Ray sees a lone woman wandering around, he has two thoughts and one of them is to kill her. It seems he shares the second thought with her as well. They are taken by surprise by a crazy old man named Pop, then doubly surprised by a strange craft landing on the road they are on. Before long, the three of them are off on a strange journey that may see them dead or changed forever.

I really liked this story. It seems a bit too weird for the early 1960s, but perhaps Leiber was that ahead of his time. I've read other works by him, but never anything like this. He's a good writer and a lot happens in the 112 pages of this book, and I enjoyed the journey.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder, as you must know by now, I can understand and sympathize with deeply. But war? No.

After a nuclear holocaust, America is unrecognizable. There are a few cities left on the coasts, but most of America is now the Deathlands, where radioactive dust hazes the skies and radiation-scarred survivors try to stay alive another day. Besides devastating the land, the catastrophe has somehow warped the minds of the few remaining citizens of the Deathlands; they have all turned into murderers. They can’t help it — it’s a drive that can only be released by killing someone. Even when they band together for companionship, it always ends up in a bloodbath.

Ray has been on his own for a long time when he meets Alice, a woman who’s just as tough as he is. When the two of them decide, just for a while, not to kill each other, they come upon an old man and a hovercraft... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

[Seth Skorkowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Post-Apoc Fiction is a guilty pleasure of mine.
OK, that's a lie. I have no guilt in my love for Post-Apoc Fiction.

Written during the height of the Cold War, Night of the Long Knives depicts a world where scavengers wander the radiation-scorched Deathlands, picking out a lonely existence among the melted and decayed remains of America. The only times Deathlanders meet is to fulfill one of the Two Urges: Sex or Murder.

The story is first person, following a man who has been in the Deathlands for a long time. He's paranoid and likely insane (which is essential of survival there). He meets a female Deathlander and they finish up with Urge #1, they are about to begin Urge #2, when they find a new and strange enemy.

There is an old fashioned style to the story (it is over 50 years old now) that strangely enough gives it that 1960's retro appeal that fans of the Fallout Video Game series might like.

Little anti-climactic at the end, but overall a fun, short read. 3.5 Stars

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a nuclear war destroys most of the country, a few civilized enclaves exist on the margins of the vast waste called the "deadlands". Our affable narrator is a deadlander -- a survivor driven by the constant, irresistible urge to murder other people. We follow along as he spends a few days in the company of some other deadlanders in a simple adventure that tests his ability to trust others. Will he murder, or be murdered by, Alice, a cryptic murderer with one hand, or Pops, an elderly deadlander who claims to have given up murder? Leiber's witty banter, unusual vision of a post-apocalyptic world, and casual violence make this a very enjoyable read.

I actually listened to, rather than read, this one, and the LibriVox recording was exceptionally well done by a reader who captures Leiber's dark humor very well.

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well plotted little post-apocalyptic novelette. Primarily interesting to me for exploring the psychology of a post-nuclear disaster world, the guilt and residual trauma leading to an interesting amalgam of murderous, erotic, and apathetic yet engaged responses in the characters we see--total denial, apparently, in those we do not see, those in cities clinging to some sense of the old world and civilization, but controlling much of the action. I liked very much how the tale began in medias res and slowly revealed itself, the situation, and then launched into an adventure. OK, the female character was the most sketchily drawn, yet I felt a certain affection for both her and the way she was developed. Entertaining sci fi read.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

After an atomic holocaust, a man meets a woman in what he calls, The Deadlands, a post atomic area that has still a few survivors – but they survive because the are killers.

But they make love, they learn to trust one another as best they can, they meet an old guy with a lot of wisdom who appears after an odd
plane from another area lands and they kill the pilot.

Then follows adventure after adventure as the old man, who is now amember of ‘Murderers Anonymous’ – tries to convince the couple that killing solves nothing.

This is a classic sci-fi/fantasy tale from one of the masters of the genre from the Golden Era of sci-fi/fantasy – a fun read!

[Maxine Marsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The world building and voice of the protagonist, Ray, are everything to the story, supported by some interesting backstory of the shape of the world, post destruction. The Death Lands are highly radioactive, and those who roam them are tough and murderous, in a basic sense. Everyone is suspect, and there are only two basic instincts, one murderous and one amorous. If one is sated, the other takes its place in the forefront of consciousness. When this ethos is challenged by a character who has sworn to murder no more and wants others to follow, interesting things happen. Good novella.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Post-apocalyptic Murderers Anonymous. Good idea, poor execution.

[Merlot58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly not dated in its content, could have been written very recently. This is a novella and well done.

[Brette · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recently came across a trove of old SF novels, novellas and short stories at The Gutenberg Project, all scanned from Golden Age SF pulp magazines that are out of print and at least believed to be public domain at the time TGP scanned them. One of them is this, a post-apocalyptic novella by Fritz Leiber, who is most famous for his Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser series. I’ve never read those or anything else by Leiber, and who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned post-apocalyptic pulp novel? So I gave it a try.

The premise: after a nuclear war, the American continent is mostly a wasteland with pockets of civilization nearer the USA’s former borders. In the middle is the Deathlands, where survivors whose relationships with humanity have been reduced to two basic instincts – fuck or kill (or possibly both). The narrator, Ray, encounters Alice – a tough woman with a hook for one hand. They go for the first option, after which they spot a hover plane that lands nearby. They kill the pilot, go aboard, are joined by an old man who happened to witness everything, and try to hijack the plane to get out of the Deathlands, upon which the old man, Pops, tells them he has started a movement to reject murder, and that they’re welcome to join.

Leiber has a stellar rep in pulp SFF circles, and this novella has its fans, but this did not work for me at all. Apart from the trope of Ray spending pages and pages explaining what a bad-ass he has to be to be to survive in the Deathlands and justifying his murderous instincts, he also spends pages and pages laying out a lot of exposition for the overall setting. I gather that the story is partly meant to be a rumination on whether humanity can still be redeemed when fear and murder are the only characteristics it has left. Great concept, but I didn’t find the transformation of Ray and Alice to be all that convincing – not after reading all those pages of Ray wallowing in his own hard-ass Deathlands philosophy.