The First Book of Lankhmar (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, #1-4)

Fantasy Masterworks Volume 18 The First Book of Lankhmar В В offers the initial four Swords collections, including some of Leiber's strongest stories. Swords and Deviltry provides early background for the two heroes, as well as their famous and wonderfully told meeting in "Ill Met in Lankhmar." Additionally, "The Snow Women" remains a personal favorite, and early on contains, in my opinion, some of Leiber's best prose. Swords Against Death contains some less successful and uneven work among its ten short stories, with "The Unholy Grail," "The Circle Curse," and "The Price of Pain-Ease" only sketchily conceived and less strongly written than other work in the collection. However "Thieves House" offers a delightful comedy of errors, and "Bazaar of the Bizarre," with its thinly disguised critique of contemporary marketing, is deservedly one of Leiber's most highly regarded short stories, and I suspect a source of inspiration for any number of latter day storytellers, from Pratchett to Rod Serling. Swords in the Mist is highlighted by several excellent short stories, including the duo's humorous falling out over love in "Lean Times in Lankhmar," a jaundiced parody of religion in which the Mouser sells his sword arm to a "rising racketeer of religion," while Fafhrd renounces the material world and joins the impoverished street ministry of a minor and neglected deity, Issek the Jug (one of the gods in Lankhmar as opposed to the more mysterious and ominous gods of Lankhmar). Other tales provide important introductions: the portentous meeting with Ourph the Mingol in "Their Mistress, the Sea," or the initial appearance of Grave's triple goddess in "When the Sea-King's Away." The only relative weak spot resides in the loosely linked stories represented by "The Adept's Gambit," nine short narratives written over a span of thirty years and therefore perhaps not surprisingly evidencing a degree of inconsistency in both style and presentation. The concluding collection, Swords Against Wizardry , are among the author's best, highlighted by dalliance with immortals in "Stardock" and the plights and gripes of fatherly and brotherly (not forgetting slave girls) love in the underworld "Lords of Quarmall," in which playing both sides off the middle receives excessive expression. В From the moment when they first met, in the commission of the same, audacious theft, Fafhrd, the giant barbarian warrior from the Cold Waste, and the Gray Mouser, master thief, novice wizard and expert swordsman, felt no ordinary affinity. Forged over the gleam of sharpened steel as, back to back, they faced their foes, theirs was a friendship that would take them from adventure to misadventure across all of Nehwon, from the caves of the inner earth to the waves of the outer sea. But it was in the dark alleys and noisome back streets of the great fog-shrouded city of Lankhmar that they became legends. THE FIRST BOOK OF LANKHMAR includes the first four volumes of the hugely enjoyable Swords series. Witty, gripping and urbane, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar books are among the best loved of all modern fantasies