Links to assorted local theater & book venues

The works of Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) seem to have fallen into some kind of unwarranted obscurity in recent years. An author of science fiction, horror and fantasy stories, during his lifetime he was considered a master of genre fiction.

It was Fritz Leiber, according to Wikipedia, who coined the term sword and sorcery to refer to fantasy stories set in medieval times involving knights and squires and castles and dragons and all sorts of magic. His own sword and sorcery duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser whose stories were collected in several volumes, along with characters such as Conan the Barbarian by his contemporary, Robert E. Howard, are considered among the most notable in the genre.

A stylist at a time when there were few stylists in science fiction and fantasy, his books often had social themes, including Gather Darkness, set in a future religious dystopia, The Wanderer, which explores what happens when a rogue planet comes near earth, and Our Lady of Darkness, which sets up a lovecraftian world inside modern day San Francisco.

Back in the very early days of Probabilities, the three hosts (Lawrence Davidson, Richard A. Lupoff, Richard Wolinsky) associated socially with Fritz Leiber. There were three recordings to emerge from that time. One of them, focusing on Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser, exists only as a reel to reel tape, still to be digitized. Another was recorded in Leiber’s apartment on Geary Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, when Leiber was more expansive than usual. In that recording, only Fritz’s voice is intelligible. The third was an interview with Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in KPFA’s studios during Science Fiction Day on the KPFA fund-raising marathon in September 1977.

Digitized, remastered and edited in August 2023. Complete Interview

Tony Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, was a master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. His several novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been acclaimed for their accuracy and for their ability to combine Navajo history and thought into strong plot-driven novels.

There are four interviews with Tony Hillerman in the Probabilities and Bookwaves archive. This first interview, conducted by Richard A. Lupoff, the late co-host of Probabilities, was recorded on January 14, 1987 in a hotel in San Francisco while Hillerman was on tour for his novel, Skinwalkers, the seventh in the series, and the first to feature both Leaphorn and Chee. He would continue to write a total of eighteen books in the series, and his daughter, Anne Hillerman, has continued the series with eight more novels, the most recent being The Way of the Bear, which was published in April, 2023.

Tony Hillerman also wrote four novels outside the series, and several books of non-fiction and photography. The Dark Wind was adapted into a theatrical film in 1991. Three other novels were adapted as TV movies for PBS, and Dark Winds, a streaming series currently on AMC, is adapted from Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee novels.

Review of “Mahabharata” at Z Space through August 20, 2023.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

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Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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