Bruce, It's a pleasure to be conversing with you again. Let's talk about both Leiber and yourself, shall we? Tell me, what have you been doing with yourself since the release of Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber?

Until 1996, I was struggling to keep a toe-hold in academia. I was working as a sessional instructor at Simon Fraser University and local community colleges in the Greater Vancouver area. I enjoyed teaching, and to judge from the student evaluations, I was pretty good at it. However, I started to realize that not only was a master's degree not enough to get on tenure track, but that a Ph.D. wasn't any guarantee either. For a while I hoped that I could earn my way into a Lectureship through successful teaching, but a change of department chairs made that unlikely.

In 1996, I gradually made a transition to technical writing and computer journalism. From there, I branched out into product management. I was Marketing and Communications Director at a start-up for a while during the dotcom craze. Now I'm getting along as a consultant and journalist. As I speak, I'm just at the 100,000 word mark of a book on OpenOffice.org.

I miss academia, but I don't doubt that my decision was the right one. Many people who were instructors the same time that I was are still seriously under-employed. By contrast, I'm as busy as I want to be.

Regarding Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber: Tell us the genesis and history of this monumental study. Also, how do you feel it was received by the community and what impact do you personally feel it had?

I decided that, if I was going to spend a couple of years of life doing a thesis, I didn't want to go over old ground, or strain to find a new angle on an old subject. I wanted to do something original. My choice was between Fritz and Avram Davidson (another shamefully neglected writer). I chose to write on Fritz mainly because I was frustrated by the naivety of the existing criticism on him. The best material was by Justin Leiber, and it only scratched the surface.

The title, of course, is a play on the "dagger of the mind" in Macbeth. Since Macbeth was one of Fritz's favorite Shakespearean plays, it seemed appropriate. It also made clear that the Anima figure in his stories had as much to do with Fritz's psychology as with reality—a point that Fritz himself saw at once, I might add.

The book was nominated twice for the Mythopoeic Award, but never won. I'm not sure what influence it had; I used to joke that, judging from the royalties, it had swept the half-dozen other people in the world who were interested in scholarly study of Leiber. But, every now and then, I've come across complimentary reviews or mentions in scholarly articles, so I think it had some impact. At any rate, nobody seems to have seriously challenged its premises—although I would have thought that someone would have, by now. In fact, I would feel better if someone had, because another approach would indicate that there was a healthy interest in Fritz and his work.

I am sure readers are curious: why Leiber? What was the defining moment that made you, a mere fan, into a scholar who would endeavour to write the defining thesis on the author and his works?

I got into fantasy and science fiction through historical fiction. I started reading historical fiction when I was seven years old, and used to frequent a used bookshop near to where I lived. One Saturday in the summer when I was ten, I picked up a used copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. On Monday morning, I was waiting when the store opened to read the rest. I soon branched out into Conan, and, not long after that, read my first Fafhrd and Gray Mouser book, Swords and Deviltry. Even then, I could see that Fritz's work was far superior to most of the field. In fact, now I realize that he is probably the only fantasy writer who was active in the Fifties and Sixties who wasn't influenced by Tolkien, but insisted on his own path. Later, I discovered his urban fantasy and horror, which was less humorous, but just as intriguing in its own way. For one thing, there's dozens of things I discovered through Leiber: Scriabin, Ibsen, and chess lore are just the first ones that come to mind.

So it would be a fair statement to say that he was someone who had an impact on you, personally?

No question. I think that what I admired most about Fritz was his curiosity. Even in his last years, it made him strangely youthful at times. I remember that when Fritz and Margo visited us in Vancouver a few months before his death, we took them to the aquarium. The aquarium had an exhibit of otters rescued after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and I remember Fritz watching them through the glass, absolutely rapt. It's the sort of interest in the world that I try to emulate. One reason I like "The Button Moulder" is that it expresses this spirit in him.

How do you perceive the current state of Leiber studies?

Since leaving academia, I haven't kept up to date on Leiber studies, I'm afraid. My impression is that the field is a small one, and that Fritz doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves, both as a writer and as an influence on the field. However, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Since Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber, what additional information and commentary would you liked to have added to the original book (or incorporated into a revised edition), if the opportunity ever arose?

When I was writing, I worried that my division of Fritz's career into periods was too rigid, and I still tend to think so. I exchanged several letters with Franklin MacKnight, Fritz's oldest and closest friend and correspondent on the subject, and I suspect that he was right that it was a little artificial. So I'd like to de-emphasize that, somehow.

I'd also like to mention something about Fritz's final days and stories, since I was one of about half a dozen people who was with Fritz in the week before his death. One of the things I remember most is that, a few days before he died, he said he wanted to get better so that he could write his stories. I remember thinking: here's this man, legally blind and sick, and the most important thing he can think of to do is to write. I've never seen a better example of artistic dedication.

As a critic, what do you believe were the strengths and weaknesses of Leiber's oeuvre?

I think that both the strength and the weakness were the same: the variety. On the one hand, by being multi-talented, Fritz survived as a writer and was a true original. On the other hand, if he'd been more focused on a single mode, then it might have been easier for readers and publishers to get a handle on him. As things are, some readers don't know what to make of the blend of whimsy and seriousness, and publishers never seemed to know quite how to categorize him.

Also, of course, I think that on an unconscious level Fritz had a hard time developing female characters in his fiction. That, of course, is partly what Witches of the Mind was about: Fritz is more at home writing about men's perception of women than about women as such. I think his best female character is the narrator of The Big Time and "No Great Magic", largely because her neuroses and guilts were ones he could understand. The women in "The Snow Women" are also successful, largely because they were based on his mother and his wife. Purely imaginary women, such as Cif and Afreyt in the later Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, are valiant attempts, but never seem altogether real for me.

That's an interesting comment. Would you say that there were genres Leiber was stronger and/or weaker in, or even those that he would find difficult to write in (i.e. Westerns, war, etc.)?

I think that Fritz was primarily a fantasy and horror writer. He could write SF, even hard SF, from time to time, but that's not where his main interests were. Had Fritz tried other genres, I think he would have done a conscientious good job at any of them, finding out what the conventions were, and writing as well as he could. But, no matter what the genre, I think he would have had a hard time writing anything where relationships were the main source of the story—especially relations between conventional people. He could do relationships, but he preferred to deal with them as part of a larger story. And he was never interested in the conventional or ordinary very much. If anything, he disliked it. When I try to think of a conventional person in his stories, the best I can come up with is the main character of "Belsen Express," whom Fritz clearly thought of as contemptuous and whom he brings to a nasty end.

At the moment, what would you consider to be your favourite works of fiction by Leiber and why?

That's almost as hard as asking what my favorite book is. I'll read almost anything by Fritz with pleasure. But if I had to pick a favorite, I wouldn't mention his novels, because, although they have some successful moments, I think that Fritz has a much surer hand at shorter lengths. I'm fond of "Ill-Met in Lankhmar," which was written around the time that his wife died, and is dripping with guilt and angst. "Damnation Morning" with all the sub text about alcoholism haunts me, too—and gives me the chance to add that Fritz should also be known for his depictions of alcoholism.

But I think that Fritz is at his absolute best in short horror. Especially in his last decades, Fritz's horror became exceedingly complex, and built from mundane beginnings to eeriness. "The Button Moulder," with its references to Peer Gynt and its description of the crisis of old age is a good example of what I'm talking about.

H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Graves, and Carl Jung. Share your thoughts and feelings on the authors and thinkers that shaped Leiber as an author.

H.P. Lovecraft is a fascinating writer to me. There are many stylistic reasons why his work shouldn't succeed, and it's very easy to make fun of them. "Still, it moves" as Galileo said and Fritz quoted in Conjure Wife. Lovecraft may succeed despite himself, but he does succeed, and I have the nightmares to prove it.

Robert Graves is one of my favourite writers. I discovered his work before I discovered Fritz's work, in fact. I think that one of the points that no one has yet understood about Graves is that his life and work was entirely shaped by the trauma he under went as a young officer in World War One. He constructed his life so that he never had to deal with large numbers of people, and maintained a lifelong distrust of authority. In fact, although on one level The White Goddess was absolutely serious, I think that it was also a way of thumbing his nose at academic authorities, with his gleeful assertions of being a higher authority because he was a poet.

Jung is interesting because, as Fritz points out, he gives artists far more credit for psychological insight than Freud tends to do. I suspect that he underestimated the influence of culture on the collective unconscious, however. But Jung is one of those writers who is known more than is read, and there are lots of strange and flawed perceptions of his ideas caused by second- and third-rate scholars seizing on a small part of his work and exaggerating its importance. Jung was always trying to evolve his ideas, and concepts that many people loosely describe as Jungian are not necessarily ones that Jung himself would agree with at any given time.

Popular culture has yet to truly embrace Leiber and his literary masterpieces. Do you feel that there is a reason for this slow transition, if it will ever occur at all?

Availability of his work is probably one reason. He might benefit from someone who would stand in the same relation to him as August Derleth did to Lovecraft, fighting to keep his works in print, and to keep the interest in them alive. In this respect, Avram Davidson has been much luckier, because his ex-wife Grania Davis has made a point of publishing his non-published material and reissuing some of his older material. Justin Leiber, of course, has his own career, and has spent his life trying to get out of the psychological shadow of his father, so he isn't likely to take on the task. And Leiber's granddaughter, Arlynn Presser, isn't likely to, because she has her own career as a romantic novelist (where she uses the name Vivian Leiber). They're both busy people.

As to whether the situation will change, who knows? A decade after Robert E. Howard died, no one could have foreseen how the reprints done by de Camp and Carter would lead to the comics and movies and the general revival of interest. Maybe someone similar will revive an interest in Fritz's work.

At the same time, I don't know that we can count on any change. We've got a throwaway culture, and science fiction, fantasy, and horror are part of it. Conceivably, even Stephen King won't be remembered fifty years from now, for all his domination of the best sellers' lists.

You mention Justin Leiber. If you can, please tell us of your relationship with him during the time you wrote Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber. Have you read much of his work, both in the fields of fiction and non-fiction?

I was in regular correspondence with Justin while I was writing. I believe that I wrote him first to get copies of some articles he had published in French about his father. I met him at the World Fantasy Convention in Seattle in 1990, and again in San Francisco in 1994, when Fritz was dying. I've read a good deal of his fiction and non-fiction, and I wish that he would write more. His SF trilogy reads in places like the more whimsical pieces by his father, without being actually derivative.

Which of Leiber's works, whether novel or short story, do you feel would work well if adapted into a cinematic experience?

We're spoiled for choice here. There's so much of Fritz's work that is informed by theater that just about every piece of fiction he wrote would be a good choice for film. Many of his horror short stories would be ideal for a low-budget film. Conjure Wife, of course, has already been made into a film a couple of times, but, with a first-rate script, it could be right up there with The Stepford Wives or The Witches of Eastwick. If disaster movies were still being made, The Wanderer would be a natural choice. What I'd really like to see is some of the Fafhrd and Mouser stories. Give them some decent special effects, and they'd be blockbusters.

Hypothetically, if Leiber had lived another decade, how do you think he would have adapted to the changes in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and weird fiction?

I don't think Fritz did much adapting. Even if he did turn to science fiction in the mid-1940s because the market for fantasy had disappeared, he did it in his own way. Instead of adapting, he would have led the changes. Possibly, he would have added more overt studies of sexuality in his work.

He might also have developed a more oral style, which The Knight and Knave of Swords suggests. After all, he was blind, and he would have been dictating at least part of his work.

You are of course, right. Side-stepping his fiction, what are your thoughts of Leiber as a reviewer, essayist, and non-fictioneer?

On the whole, Fritz's non-fiction seems to me much weaker than his fiction. Not that he doesn't have insights—his article on Lovecraft, "A Literary Copernicus," is undoubtedly a seminal piece of criticism. However, apart from his autobiographical pieces, most of Fritz's non-fiction seems trivial compared to his fiction. A good deal of it was written entirely for money, and, while professionally competent, is no more than that. Other pieces were written in order to work out ideas in his own mind, and seem so private that publication must have been little more than an after-thought.

I am intrigued to know if you ever had the chance to meet Harry Otto Fischer. Did you ever meet with him in person or correspond with him? What are your thoughts on his contribution to the field, through his friendship with Leiber? Does he deserve more than the footnote many critics and essayists give him? You also recently wrote an essay entitled "Fafhrd and the Scot" (for my Fantasy Commentator # 57/58: Fritz Leiber Theme Issue, published through A. Langley Searles). Did you meet Franklin MacKnight? Share your thoughts, personal and critical.

Unfortunately, I never met or corresponded with Harry Fischer. However, I did correspond for several years with Franklin MacKnight, the mutual friend who introduced Harry Otto Fischer to Fritz. MacKnight, incidentally, is the original for the Harbour Master on Rime Isle.

From what I know (and let me stress that I may not have the complete story), Fischer started out as a better writer than Fritz. However, for whatever reasons, he was never willing to work as hard as Fritz at writing. As a result, Fritz's dedication soon outstripped Fischer's natural talent. Still, I think that Fritz was always grateful to Fischer for awakening his talent.

In his later years, Fritz tried to repay this perceived debt by getting Fischer involved with the Dungeons & Dragons interest in Lankhmar. In fact, I believe that Fischer's first solo publication came in the D&D Magazine, Dragon. But what strikes me is that, for all the great romantic friendship that Fritz claimed, he actually had very little to do with Fischer. In the last two or three decades of their lives, I believe they only met two or three times—and, one of those times, the visit ended in a quarrel. There's even a sense in Fritz's letters to MacKnight about the quarrel that he considered Fischer a little bit provincial and quite overwhelmed by the immensity of San Francisco.

Yet, whatever the truth, Fritz remained loyal to Fischer—or, perhaps, to his memory of their shared youth, when Fischer impressed him so much. Justin Leiber points out that Fritz actually edited Fischer's work when quoting it (and, possibly, when weaving it into "The Lords of Quarmall"). The result is that Fischer's public work looks better than it actually was. For a while after I finished Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber, I was hoping to do an edition of Fischer's and Leiber's letters to each other, but in practice I found, in the few pieces that I saw, that Fischer's letters had almost nothing of interest in them for Leiber fans. Nor did Fritz unburden himself to Fischer to any great extent. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed. I can't help wondering if the tapes they used to send one another would have been more interesting. However, none of those tapes seem to have survived.

By contrast, Fritz was much more forthcoming to MacKnight in his letters, talking about his stories and his plans in much more detail. I don't know whether Fritz was greatly influenced by anyone in choosing his career paths, but if he was influenced by anyone, it was MacKnight, not Fischer. MacKnight doesn't seem to have had the creative interests or abilities of his friends, but he certainly shared Fritz's intellectual curiosity and wide range of interests. My speculation is that it was MacKnight's lack of creative interests that kept Fritz from romanticizing the relation, the way he did with Fischer. But MacKnight served a more mundane role as a confidant, and I suspect that Fritz actually had a much deeper friendship with MacKnight than with Fischer.

Do you have any plans to return to the field of literary criticism and produce more works on Leiber, whether essay, thesis, or even as editor?

Not currently—aside, of course, from the reminiscence I promised you. I'm very focused on my OpenOffice.org book, trying to write my daily quota. I don't have anything planned for after that, but I wouldn't rule anything out.