LEIBER, Justin (Fritz)

(1938-)

   US academic and writer, son of Fritz LEIBER. A Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston, JL has used sf as a medium for speculation in his field of interest, the philosophy of the mind. His first novel, Beyond Rejection (1980), which begins the Beyond sequence, deals in considerable detail with the problems associated with transplanting the recorded mind of a man into the body of a woman (who has a prehensile tail). In Beyond Humanity (1987) JL constrasts human INTELLIGENCE with those of COMPUTERS and enhanced-intelligence chimpanzees(APES AND CAVEMEN) as humans, computer and chimpanzee cooperate to contact extraterrestrial intelligence. The sequence concludes with Beyond Gravity (1988), set in 22nd-century Houston and Oxford. JL has alsowritten a number of academic books on similar themes, including Can Animals and Machines Be Persons? (1985), which uses an sf scenario - alegal case between a space-exploration company and a Civil Liberties Union over whether a chimpanzee and a computer used on a space station should be treated as tools or as employees.

   TA

   Other works: The Saga of the House of Eigin sequence, comprising The Sword and the Eye (1984) and The Sword and the Tower (1985).