A Spectre is Haunting Texas
Scully La Cruz was a Thin – a muscleless free-fall phenomenon whose
home was the Sack circling the Moon, who could only support life in
Earth-gravity conditions by having himself encased in a titanium
exo-skeleton. To the inhabitants of the ravaged post-war Earth, he
looked spectrally outlandish.
To Scully, the inhabitants of
Earth looked equally odd. Because the U.S.A. had disappeared in the
aftermath of atomic conflict and had been replaced by greater Texas.
And Greater Texas was dominated by the Greater Texans, masterful giants
created by hormone treatments, who strode lordly about amidts their
dwarfish peons and slaves.
To these unhappy underlings, Scully
appeared as a Sign, a leader to revolt. To Scully, this reverance
sparked his actor instinct to make him decide to accept that role.
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. (1910–1992) was an American author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. The son of a pair of Shakespearian actors, Leiber was also an actor, expert chess player, and champion fencer. Born in Chicago in 1910, Leiber spent his youth touring with his parents' theater company. He graduated with honors in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1932. Leiber married Jonquil Stephens in 1936. In 1938, their son Justin was born. After Jonquil's death in 1969, Fritz Leiber moved to San Francisco, where he died on September 5, 1992.