Nights Black Agents (Berkley Books, May 1980). Cover by Wayne Barlowe Nights Black Agents was Fritz Leiber’s first first collection — and in fact his first book. It was originally published in hardcover by Arkham House in 1947, when Leiber was 37 years old. It collects six stories published in Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds, plus one tale from a fanzine, and three new stories — including the long Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novella “Adept’s Gambit.” Needless to say,…

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This Immortal (Ace Books, September 1980). Cover by Rowena Morrill Two weeks ago I dashed off a Vintage Treasures piece on Larry Niven’s first collection Neutron Star, the first I’d ever done on Niven, and it helped me realize that there are several other major writers sorely underrepresented in these pages. Near the top of that list is Roger Zelazny, one of the most important fantasists of the 20th Century, and the man behind much of the work that turned…

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The Mind Spider and Other Stories and Ships to the Stars (Ace Books, 1976). Covers by Walter Rane Last year I discussed the marvelous collection The Worlds of Fritz Leiber, published by Ace in 1976, and was astounded to find the author make this claim in the introduction. I believe this collection represents me more completely, provides a fuller measure of the range of my fictional efforts, than any other. I’ve tried to make it that way, without repeating stories from…

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