Our Lady of Darkness

Our Lady of Darkness is, in essence, Leiber's take on "Genius Loci", in that spirits inhabit and are tied to certain locations, buildings and places-- almost as if the locations themselves have their own mind. Instead of a fictional location, Leiber turns the Corona Heights area of San Francisco into a haunting ground (featuring a fictional field of study called Megapolisomancy, itself somewhat reminiscent of Psychogeography), inhabited by the vague spirits of prominent writers and thinkers that once lived there-- Clark Ashton Smith most prominently. In doing this, Leiber has written a novel that has a meta-textual pop-culture edge to it, but also one that explores a primordial sense of where our fears and horror comes from. I think it's fantastic, and Leiber's writing is always a breeze to read, with a conversational, yet sardonic tone that's entertaining and punchy, but very thought-provoking.