Sci-Fi Saturday

The latest in my pile of science-fictiony book reads is Fritz Leiber's short story collection, A Pail of Air (1964). Have you ever read Fritz Leiber? I'd never even heard of him, and now I can't wait to read more. This was awesome. To illustrate, I'll give you the first sentence of a few of the stories:

The Beat Cluster (pictured on the cover above): "When the eviction order arrived, Fats Jordan was hanging in the center of the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his guitar to his massive black belly above his purple shorts."

Pipe Dream: "It wasn't until the mermaid turned up in the bathtub that Simon Grue began to wonder what the Russians were doing on the roof next door." (so weird and great that I can't even describe it)

Bread Overhead: "As a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather-controlled future summer day dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the walking mills of Puffy Products ('Spike to Loaf in One Operation!') began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas."

In addition there is a story that is actually called Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee in which a drum riff and accompanying paint splatter take over the world, a future where the only mail ever sent is advertisements and a young man breaks the system by trying to send a love note, a family managing to survive on a frozen earth that got knocked out of orbit by melting pails of air from outside, and a long but surprisingly interesting exploration of a computer entering in an international tournament of chess masters.

I'd tell you more, but I think you should read it.

Back cover here.