Fritz Leiber is one of the durable masters of science fiction. For forty years he has been delighting his readers with a wide range of stories--from hard science fiction to widely acclaimed fantasy. Fritz Leiber, Jr., was born in Chicago and lived there with relatives during the winter in his early years, while his parents, Fritz Leiber, Sr., and Virginia Bronson Leiber, toured the country with a repertory company. Much of the remaining time was spent with his parents in New Jersey and with a grandmother in Michigan. After receiving his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1932, he worked briefly as a lay reader for two Episcopalian "missionary" churches while attending the General Theological Seminary in New York. Not finding this to his liking, he returned to the University of Chicago in 1933 to study philosophy, but left without a further degree to join his...