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 Grey 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 R.   Comments

Swords and Deviltry (audio)

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 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   Comments

Swords and Deviltry

Every now and then it’s nice to get a book that’s simple, straightforward, and fun. Too often authors are so caught up in setting the stage for book after book that they fail to deliver something enjoyable for its own sake. Not the case with Lankhmar.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are both interesting characters, and yet very different.  The story of how they come to meet is comprised of their disparate adventures.

Swords and Deviltry is easy to read, light and fun fantasy that you can meander through without worrying too much about plot intricacies — it’s just a nice escape into a fairly well-depicted world.

I look forward to the next book in the series. —John H.   Comments

Swords Against Death: A great afternoon-armchair-escape.

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   Comments

Swords Against Death (audio)

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 (Brilliance Audio is putting them on CDs soon), 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   Comments

Swords in the Mist: This one was weak.

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   Comments