These forces, Westen suspects, are intensifying this very minute, and they are centered in his San Francisco neighborhood-perhaps in his very own apartment building.
The inventor of the term, the fictional author Thibaut de Castries, maintains that the large concentrations of stone, concrete, and metal contained in such cities, combined with electricity and other fuels, constitute a great reservoir of energy which is organized by the grid pattern of the streets and heightened by the shapes and heights of particular buildings, which-properly manipulated-may evoke powerful occult forces.
“Megapolisomancy,” as its Classical roots suggest, is the practice of the particular form of magic which can unleash the power of a great metropolis. James' “Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad,” a journal supposedly written by Clark Ashton Smith, and some Lovecraftian speculations concerning geometry), an informed and effective use of Jungian psychology, and-the final element that ties them all together so effectively-the pseudo-science of “megapolisomancy."
It displays many intriguing elements: a candid self-portrait for its protagonist (aging widower and novelist of the supernatural “Franz Westen,” a recovering alcoholic afraid of commitment), an evocative mid-70's San Francisco setting so detailed and precise that walking tours have been based on it, affectionate homages to both the traditional English ghost story and Weird Tales (a specter which evokes M.R. Lieber, フリッツ・ライバーĪlthough I love Conjure Wife more, I think this just might be Leiber's best novel of terror. Used These Alternate Names: Maurice Breçon, Fric Lajber, Fritz Leiber, Jr., Fritz R. Leiber's capacity for endless self-reinvention and productive self-examination kept him, until his death, one of the most modern of his sf generation. Leiber's late short fiction, and the fine horror novel Our Lady of Darkness, combine autobiographical issues like his struggle with depression and alcoholism with meditations on the emotional content of the fantastic genres. Leiber's science fiction includes the planet-smashing The Wanderer in which a large cast mostly survive flood, fire, and the sexual attentions of feline aliens, and the satirical A Spectre is Haunting Texas in which a gangling, exo-skeleton-clad actor from the Moon leads a revolution and finds his true love. He found his mature voice early in the first of the sword-and-sorcery adventures featuring the large sensitive barbarian Fafhrd and the small street-smart-ish Gray Mouser he returned to this series at various points in his career, using it sometimes for farce and sometimes for gloomy mood pieces-The Swords of Lankhmar is perhaps the best single volume of their adventures. was one of the more interesting of the young writers who came into HP Lovecraft's orbit, and some of his best early short fiction is horror rather than sf or fantasy.
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