Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Algis Budrys

Critical Essay by Algis Budrys

Night's Black Agents, a collection of Fritz Leiber short work, is an outstanding bargain. Leiber is famous for being neglected. That is to say, periodically a critic discovers that this still-active master storyteller has been consistently ahead of his time over a very long career in SF. What matters truly is that, whether as a traditional fantasist, or a sword-and-sorcery writer, or an artist of "straight" science fiction, Leiber is unfailingly entertaining on a very high level…. Night's Black Agents is a sampler of Leiber at his best, and of the best that SF can attain in many of its modes. (p. F2)

Algis Budrys, "Tales of Time and Space," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1978, The Washington Post), March 5, 1978, pp. F1-F2.∗