Showing posts with label ace fantasy books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ace fantasy books. Show all posts

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Robert W. Chambers Born Today 1865

Born and bred in Brooklyn, USA, artist and author Robert W. Chambers left a legacy of horror lauded by Lovecraft (although with some reservations) and other lovers of supernatural fiction. Me? I read and kinda liked okay "The Repairer of Reputations" a gajillion years ago, in Hartwell's The Dark Descent (1987), and now a copy of the 1982 Ace paperback (boring cover at bottom) of his major work, The King in Yellow (1895), sits unread upon my shelf. That's cool at least.

Mr. Chambers, how do?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Our Lady of Darkness (1977) and others by Fritz Leiber

More vintage paperback editions of famous horror/fantasy novels by elder genre statesmen Fritz Leiber: Our Lady of Darkness, Conjure Wife, and Night's Black Agents. I first wrote about Leiber's work here last year. Above you see the Ace Fantasy edition of Our Lady from 1978, with cover art by Norman Walker. Rather well-done, keeping very much to the nature of the story itself. In England it was published by Fontana that same year, art by Roy Ellsworth.

Two editions of Night's Black Agents (originally published by Arkham House in 1947): first from Ballantine Books in 1961 - complete with "Leiber" misspelled - then Berkley 1978, cover art by the incredible Wayne Barlowe. This later edition contains two of Leiber's most famous tales, "Smoke Ghost" and "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes." First paperback edition emphasizes "horror," while the latter, after his reputation was made, "fantasy."

First paperback for Conjure Wife from Lion Books in 1953, cover art by Robert Maguire. Lovely classic Gothic imagery, although the story is set on a sedate college campus and most definitely not in a remote mountaintop castle.

Here's the movie tie-in edition, from Berkley Medallion 1962. You can now watch Burn, Witch, Burn on Netflix Instant! Highly recommended, not least because the screenplay is by - hot damn! - Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont! The Ace paperback from 1977 has an almost mainstream-thriller die-cut cover. Reprinted again by Ace Fantasy in 1984, you can see it's meant as a companion volume to Our Lady at the top.

And finally, in 1991 Tor Books published one of their double editions collecting both of Leiber's stellar novels about dark and mysterious women, again with art from Barlowe.

Fritz Leiber 1910 - 1992