James Nicoll Reviews

Fritz Leiber’s 1970 Swords and Deviltry is the first of seven or eight Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser secondary-world sword and sorcery books, featuring… Leiber’s adventurous duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Set in the other-dimensional world Nehwon, the series chronicled the adventures of seven-foot-tall barbarian swordsman Fafhrd and the more diminutive sorcerer’s-apprentice-turned-adventurer¹, the Gray Mouser.

But first! Explanations! Perhaps a bit confusing.

Ace published seven Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books. All were by Leiber. White Wolf added an eighth with the authorized Robin Wayne Bailey necrolaboration. They are:

1. Swords and Deviltry (1970)

2. Swords Against Death (1970)

3. Swords in the Mist (1968)

4. Swords Against Wizardry (1968)

5. The Swords of Lankhmar (1968)

6. Swords and Ice Magic (1977)

7. The Knight and Knave of Swords (1988)

8. Swords Against the Shadowland (1998) by Robin Wayne Bailey

The Ace covers are below.

Of the Leiber-penned works, only The Swords of Lankhmar is a novel. Did Leiber prefer shorter lengths because that better suited the stories he wanted to tell? Or was he writing for the market at the time, which was predominantly magazines? Or at least it was when he began writing about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser way back in 1939.

Also, while Swords and Deviltry is first book in the sense that it was the first collection in this particular series of collections, there had been at least one earlier Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser book, Gnome Press’ 1957 Two Sought Adventure. Additionally, while these are the duo’s earlier adventures by internal chronology, the three stories in Swords and Deviltry are comparatively late additions to the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser oeuvre. Finally, Swords and Deviltry is more of a Fafhrd or the Gray the Mouser collection, as they do not meet until the third story.

Swords and Deviltry isn’t an ideal introduction² to the pair or at least it wasn’t for me. This was sword and sorcery, the stuff of Conan. That is fine for fantasy authors to waste their time on, but Leiber was a legitimate science fiction author who should not have been wasting his time on this crap. Or so I thought then. I’ve since moderated my views on sword and sorcery somewhat³.

Also, the collection ends on a huge downer of a story, which was not what I was looking for in my fiction in the 1970s. If speculative fiction had not been in short supply in the early 1970s, I might not have bothered with the rest of the series.

Other readers clearly disagreed with my assessment of this volume. Not only did six (or seven, depending) volumes follow this one, The Snow Women would have been a Hugo finalist had Leiber not declined the honour. The Unholy Grail was a Hugo finalist, and Ill Met in Lankhmar won both a Nebula and a Hugo.

“Induction” • (1957) • short story

This is less a short story than an unhelpful vignette introducing readers to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The Snow Women • (1970) • novella

The Snow Clan women keep their men on short leashes, using a combination of verbal and physical abuse, and magic. The annual Show in Cold Corner is a sticking point. The Show features scantily clad women from the decadent south. The Snow Clan women suspect the worst about their men’s motives for attendance.

Eighteen-year-old Fafhrd should be focused on training to be a skald. Instead, soon after impregnating Snow Clan woman Mara, Fafhrd becomes entangled with dancer Vlana, who is roundly despised by Snow Clan women and lusted after by Snow Clan men. Fafhrd must choose between loyalty to the domineering, unpleasant witch-harridans of the Clan and the incredibly hot woman who happens to come from the civilization with which Fafhrd is obsessed.

The Cold Clan are basically Vikings so it should be no surprise that the story features way too much rape (albeit offstage).

Vlana is up-front about being untrustworthy; she also makes little attempt to exploit Fafhrd’s naiveté about the wonders of civilization. Indeed, her entire tragic backstory involves civilization’s flaws, from cruel moneyed classes to the offhandedly homicidal criminal classes. The Snow Clan women come off less positively, to put it diplomatically. Indeed, this isn’t a book offering much in the way of sympathetically portrayed women, Vlana aside.

The Unholy Grail • (1962) • novelette

Sorcerer’s apprentice the Gray Mouser returns to the glade inhabited by his master Glavas Rho and discovers that in the Mouser’s absence, Glavas Rho has been brutally murdered. No doubt this was on the orders of magic-hating Duke Janarrl, whose daughter Ivrian was secretly being tutored by kindly old Glavas Rho… but apparently not secretly enough.

The Gray Mouser proves more determined than able. Even armed with magic, he ends up the Duke’s prisoner. Only the darkest of magics can save the Gray Mouser. Is he willing to risk the price?

Whereas poor Vlana has done the best with the bad hand she was dealt, Ivrian is comparatively deficient in positive qualities.

Ill Met in Lankhmar • (1970) • novella

Their separate paths having led Fafhrd, Vlana, the Gray Mouser, and Ivrian to the festering boil of civilization known as Lankhmar, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser finally have their meet cute when they simultaneously plot to rob members of the Thieves Guild. Each immediately recognizes the other as a kindred spirit. The barbarian and the former wizard’s apprentice team up.

Vlana is determined to get revenge on the Guild for murdering her friends years before. When she hears Vlana’s tragic tale, unworldly Ivrian is on board as well. Doling out vengeance falls to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. While the duo bring useful skills to the task, the Guild has a sorcerer whose magic turns out to be better than the adventurers’ contingency plans.

How well does it all end? Note that the series is called Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, not Fafhrd, Vlana, the Gray Mouser, and Ivrian. Nor was there a Vlana and Ivrian series. I hated this story when I first read it. I do understand that it was written to lead to the continuity established in previously published stories, but that isn’t enough to make me keen on Ill Met.

Swords and Deviltry is available here (Open Road Media), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

I did not find Swords and Deviltry at Bookshop UK. I blame Brexit.

1: That is to say, thief.

2: I have distinct memories of having encountered a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser comic book adaptation in the 1970s. The problem is that none of the documented Fafhrd and Gray Mouser comic book appearances from that period—their appearance in the Samuel R. Delany-penned Wonder Woman Issue 202 and the short-lived Howard Chaykin-written series—match my memories.

3: I am on a slight S&S kick just now due to New Edge Sword and Sorcery magazine. That’s one reason I reread The Hounds of Skaith last week.