The Night of the Long Knives

"The Night of the Long Knives" by Fritz Leiber is a novel written in the late 20th century. The story unfolds in a post-apocalyptic America known as the Deathlands, an unforgiving landscape filled with radiation and danger. The main character navigates this desolate world, encountering a mysterious girl with whom he shares a fraught tension marked by their primal urges — one toward violence and the other toward intimacy. The opening of the book introduces us to a tense encounter between the protagonist, a weary scavenger, and a girl he spots in the vast, hazardous terrain. Both are armed and aware of the danger surrounding them, their paths intertwining in a complex dance of survival, fear, and attraction. As they cautiously approach one another, the narrative delves into their emotions — the conflicting desires to kill and to connect — encapsulating life in the Deathlands where the urge to murder is portrayed as a survival instinct. This initial encounter hints at both the treachery and the potential for connection in a world ravaged by chaos, setting the tone for the unfolding tale. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery.