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A RANTING which has no business in criticism, but I'm not criticizing, I'm clarifying . . .
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“Luuceee, you got sum explanin' to do . . .” I know, I know, in The Criteria and Other Boredoms page I said this was a list not so much of the individual works, but the authors who created them. And now here's Leiber with three entries in the Crawford List. Well, here's the deal: rarely does any author excel in all three of the phantasmagorical genres, let alone bounce around in them. Not Stephen King (sorry Dark Tower lovers) and certainly not Philip K. Dick, which are the only other authors with more than one entry on the Crawford List. And my sendups of Leiber in Horror—Our Lady of Darkness —and Science Fiction—The Big Time—while at the top of their form, may, when in the presence of Fritz's complete oeuvre, have to take a backseat to his contribution to Fantasy. I don't consider him to be the greatest, all-time author of Fantasist Literature ever. I don't know who that is. After all, Leiber wrote a lot of mush. But his entries are all worthy representatives of their categories and deserve to stand with their peers—as hydra-headed as that may be. |
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