Oh my. Just, oh. My. I read it as a book challenge and I really, really can't recommend it. Unless you are doing research into old sword-and-sorcery fantasy worlds and their relevance to the culture in which they were written.

Basic story is one of two guys, both put out and put upon by the women in their lives who are strong, smart, and deceitful, and our poor heroes have to go out and seek their fortune while Leiber seems to wonder what to do with them. The men seem impossibly strong/cunning and good, the women are caricatures and deceitful/evil or devoted and sexy. The three chapters of the first book (which is as far as I want to get) were published in 1970, 1962, and 1970 so they are definitely products of their time. But even Asimov and Bradbury and Clarke have written sci-fi books that were more respectful of women than Leiber. Comparing the writing and impossible deeds of the men and view of women to these authors, for example, shows that there are men who see women as "Other" and are therefore not to be trusted making men are the real heroes, and men who see women as "Other" and are fascinating and worth caring about and growing into real human beings and heroes as well. Just wow. ( )

This is a collection of three collections of shorter works, all focused on Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber. I've been meaning to re-read this sword-and-sorcery series for a while. Swords and Deviltry is where I had to start, for that is where we meet Fafhrd, " a barbarian from the Cold Waste north even of the Eight Cities and the Trollstep Mountains," and the Grey Mouser, a magician's journeyman turned rogue. Leiber says it best: "As the twain eyed each other challengingly through the murky fog lit indirectly by distant torches, they were already dimly aware that they were two long-sundered, matching fragments of a greater hero and that each had found a comrade who would outlast a thousand quests and a lifetime—or a hundred lifetimes—of adventuring."

The book is really three long short stories. "The Snow Women" introduces us to Fafhrd and Vlana, "The Unholy Grail" introduces Mouser and Ivrian, and "Ill-Met in Lankhmar" which brings the two couples together. The last novella won both a Nebula and a Hugo, deservedly so.

Reading this book meant reminding myself that the tropes in this book were new when it was written. Both Ivrian and Vlana had decent roles in their introductory stories, albeit stereotypical ones in part. But both transcended the stereotypes and I felt hope for them both in the third story, even knowing that Fafhrd and Grey Mouser were destined to be comrades in adventure.

I fell in love with this book once again.

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Swords Against Death is the second volume in this collection of the first three Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books. They are among the earliest of the "buddy" sword-and-sorcery tales and swash buckle with the best of them still. The book is really a connection of short stories/novellas written between 1939 and 1963, with a couple of connecting stories thrown in. My favorites are "The Seven Black Priests" and "Bazaar of the Bizarre," mostly because in spite of the heroes' overconfidence (or because of it?), things still work out.

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Swords in the Mist is the third compilation of short stories/novellas. There is sword and sorcery, but some stories are touched by a darker fantasy, bordering on horror.

The Cloud of Hate was the one that sent chills down my back. The idea that enough people can create a palpable hate rings too true. Lean Times in Lankhmar had me shaking my head, wondering how Fafhrd and Grey Mouser would get out of this one! The Adept's Gambit was one that I found interesting. Ningauble's messages had me snickering throughout.

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If you enjoy classic sword and sorcery, then you'll probably love this collection, too. I strongly recommend it to people who like the genre. ( )

This omnibus volume contains the first three books of the series of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. The individual books are themselves collections, though, made up of distinct stories not all written or first published in the sequence of internal chronology with which they are presented. Still, there are general plot advancements peculiar to each book. In Swords and Deviltry we are supplied with the youthful origins of the two separate heroes, their meeting, their orientation to the city of Lankhmar, and the loss of their first loves. Swords Against Death accounts for the period in which they acquire their sorcerous patrons, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes. Swords in the Mist mainly supplies the novella "Adept's Gambit" (1947), which puts Fafhrd and the Mouser in the classical Near East, adventuring out from Tyre in search of a sorcerer who has cursed them.

The earliest component stories in the whole omnibus are "The Bleak Shore" (1940) and "The Howling Tower" (1941), first published in Unknown Fantasy Fiction. These make Fahfrd and the Mouser less than a decade junior to Robert E. Howard's Conan, and part of the original generation of sword and sorcery in American pulp adventure fiction. The flavor of these is quite distinct from that of the Conan stories, though. The Conan prose is generally high tempo narrative in a fairly transparent contemporary style, although framed by the imaginary ancient canon of the Nemedian Chronicles. (Moorcock's Elric stories pick up this mode intact.) But Leiber presents us with a more orally-oriented storytelling, invoking rumor, riddle, and enigma. His heroes are accomplished rogues, not destined for high histories, despite their daring achievements.

Besides style, the main difference between a Conan story and a Fafhrd and the Mouser one is that Conan--companions, lovers, and lackeys notwithstanding--is a loner with a sovereign destiny. Whereas the Mouser and Fafhrd are an indissoluble duo, even when they are at odds with one another, and the fate of each is bound up with the other. Neither is dominant; each saves the other's bacon with equal frequency as vice versa. Their ultimate bond to one another is really the fantasy cornerstone of their heroics.

The three component collections pull together the various stories according to internal narrative chronology, and insert brief bridging stories to solidify the continuity where needed. Thus, in 1968 Leiber started doing for his own pulp sword-and-sorcery heroes what Lin Carter and L. Sprague deCamp had begun doing to Howard's Conan a year earlier. This effort, with its patent commercial motivation (and doubtless some genuine appetite to systematize and canonize the stories) is still uneven when done by the author, though better than the posthumous treatment the Conan stories received. The table of contents gives wonderful glosses on each of the stories, such as this:

"Once again blackness, spirit of night, with the Grey Mouser (one who strikes a balance between black and white) and russet-headed Fafhrd battling it. The well-known dangers of stealing the eye of an idol, whether the idol be doll-tiny or mountain-huge. Ice, snows, volcanoes, lava--and seven most deadly killers." (ix)

My favorite stories in this volume were "Claws from the Night" (1951), "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (1963), and most especially "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (1959). All of these transpire in the city that forms the geographic focus of the series. Although a majority of the stories take place in distant countries and wildernesses, the best ones are set in "Lankhmar the Imperishable, City of the Black Toga," where the two renowned swordsmen, whether they like it or not, are at home.

A compilation of three of Leiber's books about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser including a couple of short origin stories for each and of their meeting in Lahnkmar.

Even though I enjoyed the books, they didn't compel me to read. It took me a very, VERY long time to finish this volume. None of the stories were bad, it's just that as a whole, reading it seemed to be more of a chore than an a compulsion. I usually find myself drawn into books and read them almost against my will. But not in this case.

Read 4/2015 ( )

i have known about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser since i began playing D&D in the early 1980s. they always sounded intriguing and they were obviously influential but i never got around to reading them until now.

i have to say that i wish i would have read them years ago. good stuff, this. like a gritty, back-water version of LotR told from the POV of peripheral characters who really have no bearing on the main plot but nevertheless live in the same world.

like LotR, this is a tale to be read out loud ‘round a fire or a heavy table in a candlelit pavilion. the language is easy to read yet archaic in feel, not at all unlike that found in Harry Potter, and the story conveyed in each paragraph is dense. harkening more than a bit to Michael Moorecock’s Elric series, the two protagonists seem like aspects of the same warrior- and Leiber says as much at the outset. they compliment one another in ways even they do not understand. Fafhrd tall and matter of fact and yet constantly wondering about what else while the Mouser is a bit more urbane and slick, coming off more like a con-artist than anything else. but both aspire to the acting arts and it serves them well when they need it, disguising themselves and playing roles to entertain for money but also to obtain otherwise secret or guarded information. thieves, rogues, and swordsmen seeking adventure. no noble causes for them although they are inherently and usually on the side of the Good and the Underprivileged.

it reads like a D&D campaign mixed with a healthy dose of mythology and Twilight Zone. it is very easy to see the influence it had on RPG development and later fantasy works like Martin’s the Song of Ice and Fire. ( )