Swords and Deviltry

I thought the book opened really well, very descriptive flavourful text and the beginnings of an interesting world.

It went downhill quick for me though. I found the dialogue overly stiff and formal, and the female characters are questionable. Early into the novel the main character seduces a travelling actor, strips and enters her bed while she's asleep (we don't hear her reaction we just know she approves because she compliments his sexual abilities in the next scene). Then, after a short back and forth where he tells her he's in love with her or whatever, she proceeds to recite her entire backstory to him complete with a murder of “insert loved one” that she is avenging long-con style. To top the scene off, we have a painfully on the nose discussion about how civilized people are the real barbarians.

If dialogue and engaging plot is unimportant to you then I might recommend this book. I was quite enjoying it until the dialogue & plot kicked in.

Although I've long heard of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, it's only just now in 2016 that I've met them for the first time; and it was quite interesting to do so, although swords and sorcery isn't really my field.

For fiction of this vintage, it's quite well written, and doesn't seem dated. But Fritz Leiber was theatrically inclined and so is his fiction, somewhat exaggerated and over the top. His two heroes are quite engaging, although there's rather a lack of other likeable characters.

I suppose these stories were an influence on Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the setting being roughly similar, although his treatment of the material is different.

I see that some reviewers complain about the role of women in these stories, but I don't see much to complain about. This is mediæval fantasy; if you expect to read about 21st-century people behaving in 21st-century ways, you should confine yourself to reading stories set in the 21st century. There are women of strength and ability here, but they're not liberated or feminists, and it would be anachronistic if they were.

The men aren't typical of the 21st century, either. They're not meant to be.

I give the book a middling rating because I liked it well enough, although it seems unlikely to become one of my favourites. Not really my kind of thing. Maybe I'll read more books in the series, maybe not.

More years ago than I really care to count I read several Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. I remember very few of the details now, but I do remember that I enjoyed them. So, this book was a welcome trip into the past for me. It consists of four linked stories – a short story, two novellas, and a novelette. Together they form the origin story for those two likable, deadly, and very unlikely rogues.

Before reading this book I'd heard a lot about it. The saga of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber was apparently responsible for the invention of the term, “Sword and Sorcery”. With this in mind I had high expectations, hopes and anticipations. Unfortunately, I really didn't like this book, which is actually a prequel to a more expansive series, at all.

Firstly, the book isn't actually a coherent novel, it's a collection of three novellas with an introduction describing the imaginary world of Lankhmar where place names and features are rapidly dished out; none of which I remembered. Its very clear that the stories were written separately then organised chronologically, with extra sections added to try to tie them together in a semi-logical manner.

The first two tales are origin stories: the book kicks off with “The Snow Women” which is about Fafhrd's boyhood in the Cold Wastes (1 star out of 5), the second “The Unholy Grail” sees Gray Mouser as a magician's apprentice (1 star out of 5) and the third is when they meet and become friends (1.5 stars out of 5); how the last novella won the Nebula (1970) and Hugo (1971) awards is beyond me!?

Anyway, I think what Leiber aims for is a mix of sophisticated writing style, humour, adventure and touches of horror here and there. But what I read was simply a confusing jumble. His prose is very much like Marmite; you'll either love it or hate it and sadly I fell very much into the latter camp. I felt that his dense style was used to prop up the very weak stories instead of making them more attention-grabbing and interesting in the first place. It was muddled and mumbling: my personal preference is for a simpler less eccentric and more direct way of writing.

Perhaps future books work better as the main characters are together for the whole time? Perhaps the writing style is simplified and stronger plots are present? To be honest, after reading Swords and Devilry I really don't want to invest any of my precious life in reading them to find out. I guess for fans of the tales this series this first book provides some back story and should be read for completeness if nothing else.

If you're just generally into Sword and Sorcery you may want to give this a go? although it wasn't for me due to the reasons that I've already described above you may like it and perhaps Swords and Deviltry could be a nice addition to your fantasy library?