Swords and Deviltry

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?