The Green Millenium by Fritz Leiber (Guest Review!)

The Green Millenium by Fritz Leiber
(As reviewed by Martin Gelgoot)
Ace Books, ISBN 0 441 30302 1
Price paid: 1,00$


Fritz Leiber is better known for his dark fantasy series of books, the "Cycle of The Sword" (also known as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novels), but like many writers he wrote more than one type of novel, and had a pretty good quantity of classic Sci-Fi novels to his name and won more than his share of Hugo and Nebula awards.

A recurring theme in his Sci-fi novels revolves around alien cats; he liked cats and made them a significant part of his stories (The Wanderer which also portrays alien cats won the 1964 Hugo Award).

While THE GREEN MILLENIUM is far from being perfect, it was only his fourth novel and had a lot more experience writing short stories. [editor's note: he was still getting used to the pace of longer stories]

The story of the Green Millenium revolves around Phil Gish at the turn of the millennium (hence the title). Gish had no real purpose or ambition in life until he spotted a green cat. Since then, his whole life and, surprisingly the whole world, changed. Thus Lucky (the name Phil Gish gave to the green cat) became a guide on a trip where gangsters, an Egyptian inspired cult, satyrs and cold war politics meet up in an adventure of near cosmic proportion.

Is it worth a dollar?

Absolutely, while not one of Leiber best novels, it is nonetheless a very entertaining novel for anyone, and for a fan of Leiber's work, it is like candy for a child.