The Creature from Cleveland Depths and Other Tales

by Fritz Leiber

Collected in this volume are three of Fritz Leiber's the short novel "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" (originally published in "Galaxy" magazine in 1962); the humorous "Bread Overhead" (originally published in "Galaxy" magazine in 1958); and the short novel "No Great Magic" (originally published in "Galaxy" magazine in 1963). "No Great Magic" is part of Leiber's Change War series.

Genres: Science Fiction

126 pages, Paperback

Published November 6, 2007

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

[Altivo Overo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My only previous exposure to Leiber has been the Lankhmar stories (which didn't excite me much.) These stories are different from both. Well-crafted and very imaginative, though sometimes a bit long-winded in my opinion, they pose situations in alternate histories or dystopic futures and will probably appeal to readers who enjoy those settings despite the patina of age that shows around the edges.

[Murtaza Nikzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very relevant book, especially with the progress of large language models and the promise of a new age in which intelligence will be just another commodity. There are so many cool questions in consciousness, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind discussed in this book. I absolutely loved the portrayal of a hivemind of sorts that emerges out of complete surrender to ticklers.