Midnight by the Morphy Watch

Last updated

"Midnight by the Morphy Watch" is a horror fiction story about chess, written by American author Fritz Leiber. It was first published in If , in July 1974.

Contents

The story is one of a series of works by Leiber whose settings are places that he inhabited, and whose protagonists are based on himself. [1]

Synopsis

When amateur chessplayer Stirf Ritter-Rebil (a "quasi-anagrammatic" version of "Fritz Reuter Leiber") [1] purchases the custom-made pocket watch which once belonged to Paul Morphy, his own chess skills are supernaturally boosted — but he also begins to experience side effects.

Reception

"Midnight by the Morphy Watch" was a finalist for the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, [2] and was ranked ninth in the 1975 Locus Award for Best Short Story. [3] Mike Ashley called it "chilling". [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Leiber</span> American fantasy, horror, and SF writer (1910–1992)

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theater and films, playwright, and chess expert. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery and coined the term.

The Gandalf Awards, honoring achievement in fantasy literature, were conferred by the World Science Fiction Society annually from 1974 to 1981. They were named for Gandalf the wizard, from the Middle-earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien. The award was created and sponsored by Lin Carter and the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), an association of fantasy writers. Recipients were selected by vote of participants in the World Science Fiction Conventions according to procedures of the older Hugo Awards.

<i>Weird Tales</i> American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright's control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Fantasy Award</span> Literary awards for science fiction or fantasy

The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous annual convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1975, at the first World Fantasy Convention, and have been awarded annually since. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently World Fantasy Awards are given in five written categories, one category for artists, and four special categories for individuals to honor their general work in the field of fantasy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Shea (American author)</span> American writer

Michael Shea was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel Nifft the Lean won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella Growlimb.

<i>The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction</i> American magazine

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine, first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single-column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor</span> Annual awards for science fiction or fantasy

The Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The award is available for editors of magazines, novels, anthologies, or other works related to science fiction or fantasy. The award supplanted a previous award for professional magazine. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".

<i>Unknown</i> (magazine) American pulp fantasy fiction magazine

Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DAW Books</span> American science fiction and fantasy publisher

DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim, along with his wife, Elsie B. Wollheim, following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company claims to be "the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy." The first DAW Book published was the 1972 short story collection Spell of the Witch World by Andre Norton.

Locus: The Magazine of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, founded in 1968, is an American magazine published monthly in Oakland, California. It is the news organ and trade journal for the English-language science fiction and fantasy fields. It also publishes comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genres. The magazine also presents the annual Locus Awards. Locus Online was launched in April 1997, as a semi-autonomous web version of Locus Magazine.

Whispers was one of the new horror and fantasy fiction magazines of the 1970s.

Heather Gladney is an American author whose fantasy novels include Teot's War (1987) and its sequel Bloodstorm (1989).

Everett Franklin Bleiler was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called "the foundation of modern SF bibliography". Among his other scholarly works are two Hugo Award–nominated volumes concerning early science fiction—Science-Fiction: The Early Years and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years—and the massive Guide to Supernatural Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Dowling</span> Australian writer and journalist

Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."

<i>Heroes and Horrors</i> 1978 collection of fantasy and horror short stories by Fritz Leiber

Heroes and Horrors is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by American writer Fritz Leiber, edited by Stuart David Schiff and illustrated by Tim Kirk. It was first published in hardcover in December 1978 by Whispers Press, and in paperback in August 1980 by Pocket Books. The paperback edition omits the illustrations.

<i>The Second Book of Fritz Leiber</i> Collection of short stories by Fritz Leiber

The Second Book of Fritz Leiber is a collection of short stories and articles by American writer Fritz Leiber. It was first published in paperback in January 1975 by DAW Books. It was later gathered together with The Book of Fritz Leiber into the hardcover omnibus collection The Book of Fritz Leiber, Volume I & II.

<i>The Best of Fritz Leiber</i> 1974 collection of short stories by Fritz Leiber

The Best of Fritz Leiber is a collection of short stories by American writer Fritz Leiber. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Sphere Books in paperback in May 1974, and in the United States in hardcover by Doubleday in June 1974; a British hardcover and American paperback followed in November of the same year from Sidgwick & Jackson and Ballantine Books, respectively. The Sphere edition was reprinted in June 1977, and the Ballantine edition in September 1979.

<i>The 1976 Annual Worlds Best SF</i> Science fiction anthology

The 1976 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the fifth volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in May 1976, followed by a hardcover edition issued in August of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art of Jack Gaughan was replaced by a new cover painting by Chet Jezierski. The paperback edition was reissued by DAW in December 1981 under the variant title Wollheim's World's Best SF: Series Five, this time with cover art by Oliviero Berni. A British hardcover edition was published by Dennis Dobson in March 1979 under the variant title The World's Best SF 3.

<i>Conjure Wife</i> 1943 horror novel by Fritz Leiber

Conjure Wife (1943) is a supernatural horror novel by American writer Fritz Leiber. Its premise is that witchcraft flourishes as an open secret among women. The story is told from the point of view of a small-town college professor who discovers that his wife is a witch.

"Catch That Zeppelin!" is a 1975 alternate history short story by American writer Fritz Leiber. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

References

  1. 1 2 Poetry of Darkness: the Horror Fiction of Fritz Leiber, by Michael E. Stamm ; in Discovering Modern Horror Fiction II, edited by Darrell Schweitzer, published December 1988 by Wildside Press
  2. 1975 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved July 22, 2018
  3. 1975 Locus Awards, at the Science Fiction Awards Database; retrieved July 22, 2018
  4. Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1970 to 1980, by Mike Ashley, published 2007 by Liverpool University Press, 2007