Berkley's Our Lady of Darkness has an odd psychedelic tinge to it, dated even by 1977 standards fortunately Amazon has it listed as being back in print this fall. Its current edition has a pretty foxy Goth chick on its cover, reminiscent of the loverly Eva Green. I don't think either of these covers captures the feel of the books themselves: Conjure Wife is another example of an older book republished during the height of the Gothic romance fad (this edition is from '68, art by the great Jeffrey Catherine Jones). Both novels feature modern men, thoughtful and literate, modern men of skepticism and rationality, who find that the dark superstitions of the past have a horrifying way of wending their way into the light of the contemporary world. It also weaves authors like Jack London and Clark Ashton Smith into its storyline, as well as the pulp fiction background of Leiber himself, and won the 1978 World Fantasy Award. The former is a tale of witchcraft set at a New England college university, while the latter explores the occult theory of Thibaud de Castries known as "megapolisomancy" (invented solely by Leiber himself in a Lovecraft-inspired bit of mythmaking) and posits the city of San Francisco itself as a haunted - and haunting - entity. Two good novels from classic fantasy writer Fritz Leiber: Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness.
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