Fritz Leiber

Lankhmar (Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser) — (1968-1988) Publisher: In the ancient city of Lankhmar, two men forge a friendship in battle. The red-haired barbarian Fafhrd left the snowy reaches of Nehwon looking for a new life while the Grey Mouser, an apprentice magician, fled after finding his master dead. These bawdy brothers-in-arms cement a friendship that leads them through the wilds of Nehwon facing thieves, wizards, princesses, and the depths of their desires and fears. Superb writing and brilliant, believable characterizations highlight the first entry in Leiber’s seminal series.

Find further Lankhmar adventures on the Robin Wayne Bailey page.
Available for download at Audible.com.

Swords and Deviltry

True fantasy buffs — welcome to Nehwon!

This is the first of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books. It includes the origin story for each hero, as well as Ill Met in Lanhkmar, a classic novella that no true fantasy fan can afford to miss. It is truly exceptional.

Leiber can write circles around most fantasy writers, just as the Mouser's trusty blades Scalpel and Cat's Claw forever carve deadly arcs of steel lightning around so many hapless foes... Welcome to friendship, adventure and dialogue of the first water — welcome to Nehwon!

This is a great intro to Leiber's fantasy world. —Rob Rhodes

Swords and Deviltry

I must confess that I had some preconceived notions about Fritz Leiber’s work. Because he’s credited with coining the phrase “Sword & Sorcery,” and because I never hear women talking about his stories, I imagined that they appealed mainly to men who like to read stuff that has covers like these:

But, four factors made me decide to give Fritz Leiber a try:

1. I feel the need to be “educated” in the field of fantasy, which means that I should read
   novels that are out of my normal repertoire.
2. Rob and Greg are fans (see their reviews) and I tend to enjoy what they enjoy
   (even though they have Y chromosomes and probably like those covers).
3. The fantasy shelves are glutted with urban and teen fantasy and I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.
4. And (this one’s the clincher) Brilliance Audio and Audible Frontiers has recently produced
   audio versions of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.

So, I put Swords and Deviltry on my MP3 player and pressed play. Within two minutes, I was completely enthralled. The first part of the novel (which is really a compilation of short stories) tells the tale of Fafhrd’s liberation from the taboos, close-mindedness, and “icy morality” of his mother and clan (and the girl he got pregnant) in the northern wastes. He yearns for civilization, and finally gets a chance to “escape this stupid snow world and its man-chaining women” with a beautiful showgirl.

The second section introduces us to Mouse, who is apprenticed to the white magician Glavas Rho, but who feels the pull of the black arts — “the magic which stemmed from death and hate and pain and decay, which dealt in poisons and night-shrieks, which trickled down from the black spaces between the stars...” A murder and a betrayal force Mouse over the brink and he restyles himself as The Gray Mouser.

I was engrossed in the tales of both of these young men, so when the audiobook reader (the excellent Jonathan Davis) finally said “Chapter 4: Ill Met in Lankhmar,” I felt a thrill of delight! Of course I’m familiar with the name of this Nebula (1970) and Hugo (1971) award-winning novella, and I knew I’d be reading it in Swords and Deviltry, but for the first time the name had real significance for me and I couldn’t wait to witness the meeting of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.  And it was, as promised, a lot of fun.

But most of all, even more than the adventure, I just loved Fritz Leiber’s prose. It supported the story in the few places where it dragged or at times when I was annoyed that all of the female characters were odious. For me, its cleverness and beauty was the dominant feature of Leiber’s writing:

The Mouser dug into his pouch to pay, but Fafhrd protested vehemently. In the end they tossed coin for it, and Fafhrd won and with great satisfaction clinked out his silver smerduks on the stained and dented counter, also marked with an infinitude of mug circles, as if it had been once the desk of a mad geometer.

Certainly these stories will appeal most to men who particularly enjoy fast-paced adventure, male camaraderie, sword-fighting, and easy women. But I found this first set delightfully refreshing. I’ve already got the next Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser compilation (Swords Against Death) and I’m hoping to meet some worthy women in it. But if not, I’ll still enjoy Fritz Leiber’s way with words.
—Kat Hooper

OTHER OPINIONS:

Swords and Deviltry — “An easy to read, light and fun fantasy — a nice escape.” —John Hulet

Swords Against Death

After a self-imposed exile, our heroes — the legendary Fafhrd and Gray Mouser — are back to their old shenanigans in the sinful city of Lankhmar. Shortly after their return, they find themselves hypnotically drawn across Newhon's Outer Sea to lands unknown, only to have to survive a perilous journey to again get back to Lankhmar — the closest thing they have to a home. Along with their other misadventures, they finally come to terms with the deaths of their true-loves.

As stated on the book's back-cover, Fritz Leiber shares the throne as a master of fantasy along with J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and C.S. Lewis. In fact, I've heard that Lankhmar was the model for the first Dungeon & Dragon games.

The Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser tales are classic Sword & Sorcery. Leiber's prose and dialog have a whimsical, but almost Shakespearean feel, which lends humor to adventures that are nothing short of a good-time. The companionship between the Gray Mouser, a small thief and a former wizard's-apprentice, and Fafhrd, an almost 7 ft. tall barbarian, is endearing and reminiscent of the camaraderie between the best-friends of one's childhood. I even get a sense that there's a little "bohemian" influence (the lifestyle — not the historic people) that makes these stories even more interesting.

I give Swords Against Death four stars, only because I found that, at times, the same prose and rhythm that makes the book so entertaining can also be a little monotonous. Still, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are well-worth the read and make for a great afternoon-armchair-escape. —Greg Hersom

Swords Against Death

Ho, Fafhrd tall! Hist, Mouser small!
Why leave you the city Of marvelous parts?
It were a great pity To wear out your hearts
And wear out the soles of your feet,
Treading all earth, Foregoing all mirth,
Before you once more Lankhmar greet.
Now return, now return, now!

Swords Against Death is the second collection of stories about Fafhrd, the big northern barbarian, and The Gray Mouser, the small thief from the slums. For the past three years, the two have grown so close that they are now (as Neil Gaiman suggests in his introduction to the audio version) like two halves of the same person. They’ve been traveling the world together in an effort to forget their lost loves.

During their travels “they acquired new scars and skills, comprehensions and compassions, cynicisms and secrecies — a laughter that lightly mocked, and a cool poise that tightly crusted all inner miseries,” but they haven’t been able to assuage their guilt or lessen their feelings of loss outside of Lankhmar, the city which they swore never to return to.

But as Sheelba of the Eyeless Face prophesied (“Never and forever are neither for men. You’ll be returning again and again.”), Fafhrd and the Mouser are persuaded to return to Lankhmar where, it turns out, they have not been forgotten, and soon the duo is back to their old tricks and dealing with their former enemies in these stories: “The Circle Curse,” “The Jewels in the Forest,” “Thieves’ House,” “The Bleak Shore,” “The Howling Tower,” “The Sunken Land,” “The Seven Black Priests,” “Claws from the Night,” “The Price of Pain-Ease,” and “Bazaar of the Bizarre.”

Some of the stories are better than others (my favorite was “Bazaar of the Bizarre”) but all are “classical rogue” (Neil Gaiman’s term) and all are worth reading simply because they’re written in Fritz Leiber’s gorgeous prose, which is thick with alliteration, insight, and irony.

I listened to Swords Against Death on audio. It was produced by Audible Frontiers, introduced by Neil Gaiman, and read by Jonathan Davis who does a terrific job with this series. His voices for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are perfect — Fafhrd sounds pensive, intellectual, and introverted while Gray Mouser sounds a bit greasy and common. I highly recommend this format; it adds an extra dimension to these fun stories. —Kat Hooper

Swords in the Mist

All due respect to the late Fritz Leiber, but overall, this book was weak.

The first story, "Cloud of Hate" was good. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser unwittingly take-on Hate embodied in a noxious mist that turns already shady characters into rampaging serial killers. The next one, "Lean Times in Lankhmar", starts out interesting as the life-long friends go their separates ways, but goes flat. "Their Mistress, the Sea" builds up well but the ending seemed to be missing something. The rest of the book brings Fafhrd and Gray Mouser to our world's ancient history, which should've made for a great read. But contradictions concerning their memory (they supposedly lost all knowledge of their previous life in the world of Newhon, but yet they make references to it), adventures told as second-hand accounts, and a prose that seems meant to be humorous and clever, only made the story confusing and monotonous. I got the impression that these stories are a satire, maybe of something going-on either in literature or in society at the time they were written, but I didn't get it.

I'm a big fan of Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, or at least of their first two books. But if Swords in the Mist had been my first Lankhmar book, I don't think I'd have read any more of them. Fritz Leiber is rightfully considered one of the original masters of fantasy. His writing spans over 50 years. So it's only natural that he's produced at least a few clunkers. —Greg Hersom

Swords in the Mist

Swords in the Mist (1968) is Fritz Leiber’s third collection of stories about Fafhrd, the big northern barbarian, and the Gray Mouser, his small wily companion who has a predilection for thievery and black magic. The tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser originally appeared in pulp magazines, short novels, and story collections between 1939-1988. Swords in the Mist contains:

• "The Cloud of Hate" (1963) — This is a short eerie metaphor in which hate becomes a mist that reaches out in tendrils throughout Lankhmar to find corruptible souls to use for evil deeds.
• "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (1959) — In this novelette, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser part ways and find themselves at odds when Fafhrd becomes an acolyte and the Mouser is hired to extract money from Fafhrd’s cult. Humorous and cynical, this story makes fun of Lankhmar’s polytheism and makes the seediness, decadence, and corruption of the city come alive. The ending is hilarious.
• "Their Mistress, the Sea" (original publication) — This story makes a nice bridge between “Lean Times in Lankhmar” and “When the Sea-King’s Away” but it’s entertaining in its own right.
• "When the Sea-King's Away" (1960) — This is a fun fantastical story with a great setting (under the sea!) in which Fafhrd has a sword fight with an octopus.
• "The Wrong Branch" (original publication) — This is a bridge between the previous story and the following novella:
• “Adept's Gambit” (1947) — Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser arrive in our world (Macedonia) in this novella. There are some funny parts here — Fafhrd kissing pigs and analyzing Socrates, but mostly I found this story dull. The sorcerer Ningauble of the Seven Eyes has sent the boys on a near-impossible quest, but the exciting parts are quickly skipped over and too much of the story is spent with an unpleasant character’s excruciatingly long autobiography.

I love Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser because they’re intelligent rogues. They look like a big dumb barbarian and a sneaky little street urchin, and they love nothing more than drinking, fighting, and wenching, yet they’ve got big vocabularies, make glorious similes and metaphors, and enjoy philosophizing. When they’re doing these things, they’re irresistible, especially in the audiobook versions narrated by Jonathan Davis (Audible Frontiers).

However, half of Swords in the Mist consists of a novella that was not as fun as I’ve come to expect from Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories (perhaps this is partly because it doesn’t take place in Lankhmar). I would suggest that, unless you consider yourself a completist, you find “Lean Times in Lankhmar” and “When the Sea-King’s Away” and skip the rest of Swords in the Mist. —Kat Hooper

Swords Against Wizardry

The time has come for sorcery and swords.

After a somewhat disappointing third volume in the Lankhmar series, Fritz Leiber is back to form in Swords Against Wizardry. This book contains four stories about Fafhrd the big red-headed barbarian, and The Gray Mouser, the small wily magician-thief. Three of the stories come from the pulp magazine Fantastic and the first story was created for this volume as an introduction. The stories fit so well together that they almost feel like a novel.

“In the Witch’s Tent” is a very short introductory story in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser visit a witch who prophesies about the events to come in the next story.

In the novella “Stardock” (1965, Fantastic), our heroes and an ice-cat companion climb the forbidding mountain Stardock where they hope to find “a pouch of stars.” This story is slow in the beginning when the boys are climbing, but once they conquer Stardock, things get pretty exciting and, after leaving some incubating DNA behind, they leave the mountain with a bag of jewels that can only be seen at night. All of Fritz Leiber’s stories are gorgeously written, but “Stardock” has some of my favorite lines:

Fafhrd said dreamily, “They say the gods once dwelt and had their smithies on Stardock and from thence, amid jetting fire and showering sparks, launched all the stars; hence her name. They say diamonds, rubies, smaragds — all great gems — are the tiny pilot models the gods made of the stars... and then threw carelessly away across the world when their great work was done.”

I wish I could play those lines for you from the audio version read by Jonathan Davis. It’s beautiful.

“The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar” (1968, Fantastic) is a fun short story that takes place after the boys return to the city after their conquest of Stardock. Apparently they got sick of each other on the way home (that happens occasionally and is a clue to the type of story that comes next), so they split up the jewels and went their separate ways. Both are trying to sell their share of the jewels, which is a problem because these gems can only be seen at night. When the story begins, the reader assumes that “The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar” refers to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but we all learn soon enough that what the Mouser says is true: Deal with a woman — surest route to disaster.

“The Lords of Quarmall" (1964, Fantastic) is one of my favorite Leiber novellas. Having split up for a time, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have, unbeknownst to them, each been hired to be the champion of two horrible brothers who hate each other and who want their father’s throne. The brother who hired the Mouser lives in subterranean caves underneath the brother who hired Fafhrd. Even though we can guess how the story will end, this is a creative tale with a grand setting. Fritz Leiber’s fantastic imagination is on full display in this story, and it beautifully highlights the sweet relationship these two rogues have with each other.

I can’t heap enough praise on the audio version of the Lankhmar books. Jonathan Davis is one of the best voice performers and these are some of his best performances. If you listen to audiobooks, don’t miss this series. If you don’t listen to audiobooks, listen to these and you’ll be converted. —Kat Hooper

The Swords of Lankhmar

I never get tired of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser — I adore those two rogues! In The Swords of Lankhmar (a full novel rather than the usual story collection), the boys have been hired as guards for a fleet of grain shipments because several ships have recently disappeared. Aboard the ship they meet a couple of enchanting women who are escorting a troupe of performing rats across the sea. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser soon discover that these are not ordinary women, and those are not ordinary rats.

Back in Lankhmar they find that the city is dealing with rats, too. The rodents have become belligerent and troublesome. The Mouser begins to suspect that there might be a connection between those two ladies and Lankhmar’s troubles. With the help of his magical patron, the Mouser goes underground to spy on the rat army.

The Swords of Lankhmar is an expansion of Leiber’s novella Scylla’s Daughter (1961, Fantastic Stories of Imagination) which was nominated for a Hugo Award. The Swords of Lankhmar has everything fans have learned to expect from one of Fritz Leiber’s LANKHMAR series. It’s strange, creative, fast-paced, and fun. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are a couple of the best characters in all of fantasy fiction — if you haven’t read any of their adventures, you’re really missing out.

Let me again recommend the audio version of this series which has been produced by Audible Frontiers — Jonathan Davis’s performance is so entertaining! —Kat Hooper