All I ever try to write is a good story with a good measure of strangeness in it. The supreme goddess of the universe is Mystery, and being well entertained is the highest joy.

I write my stories against backgrounds of science, history and fantasy worlds of swords and sorcery. I write about the intensely strange everyday human mind and the weird and occult—about which I am a skeptic yet which interest me vastly. I always try to be meticulously accurate in handling these backgrounds, to be sure of my facts no matter what fantastic stories I build from them.

The tales in [The Best of Fritz Leiber] are predominantly science fantasy. They are arranged in the order in which they were first published, all except "Gonna Roll the Bones." It seemed best to lead off with a story that displayed to advantage all my talents, such...