Swords in the Mist (1968), the third entry in Fritz Leiber's set of sword and sorcery tales featuring the giant barbarian Fafhrd and his compact ex-slum-boy comrade in adventuring and thieving, the Gray Mouser, cobbles together four stories from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s in fix-up rather than publication order, along with two transition vignettes written for the collection. As in the other volumes in the series, the "blood brothers, tall and small," engage in supernatural, loopy, and eerie adventures, maintain their spirits (and ours) with plenty of snarky banter, and fully command the stage fashioned by Leiber's baroque and poetic prose. In the amusing and creepy "The Cloud of Hate" (1963), the friends are desultorily debating why they are moneyless and homeless, Fafhrd boasting that it is due to their independence ("When we draw sword it is for ourselves alone"), the Mouser skewering his optimism, when they are attacked by four formidable thralls of an ectoplasmic cloud of hate ("human venom" empowered by religious fanaticism) that could "shake the city and land of Lankhmar and the whole world of Nehwon." "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (1959) is a satirical, farcical, and perfectly plotted story that ambiguously plays with religion, friendship, and financial vs. spiritual paths to security. Hard times and the two friends' different personalities and interests have led the Mouser to become the paunchy lieutenant of Pulg, a racketeer extorting protection money from the priests of the myriad wannabe Gods in Lankhmar, and Fafhrd to become the acolyte of one of the most ascetic, pacific, and boring deities, Issek of the Jug, and his senile priest, Bwadres. Conflict arises when Fafhrd's imaginative story-telling sends Issekianity rocketing to popularity and riches, which attracts the attention of Pulg and company. An absurd chain of coincidences leads to a hilarious climax that seems to mock faith and religion, but mightn't the closet believer Pulg be right when he says that there are more things in this world than we know, like an unseen Hand guiding events towards a Second Coming? "Their Mistress, the Sea" (1968) is a short and cute transition "story" in which the Mouser and Fafhrd get back into adventuring shape by cruising around in their sloop Black Treasurer, exercising, failing as pirates, and savoring their mistress the sea in all her moods."While the Sea-King’s Away" (1960) is a fantastic, funny, and absorbing story in which the two companions pay a submarine visit to the wives of the absent king of the sea, Fafhrd promiscuous and pomaded, the Mouser skeptical and reluctant. Leiber's conception is impressive, magical air tubes rising from the bottom of the sea to the surface, down one of which Fafhrd and then the Mouser climb on a rope tied to their sloop, and when the descending Mouser looks up, "the circle [of sky] overhead did grow smaller and more deeply blue, becoming a cobalt platter, a peacock saucer, and finally no more than a strange ultramarine coin that was the converging point of the tube and rope and in which the Mouser thought he saw a star flash." "The Wrong Branch" (1968) is a short transition "story" explaining how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser could have adventures on our earth, there being hidden inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes’ cave doors exiting into other worlds and times and universes. The final piece in the book, "Adept's Gambit" (1947), opens in Tyre, where the two friends are style-crampingly cursed: any woman they kiss turns temporarily into a sow or a snail. Ningauble of the Seven Eyes explains that a powerful black magic adept has targeted them because of Fafhrd's elder gods caliber laughter, and that they must purloin a set of legendary artifacts and wait for "the woman who will come when she is ready." They have no choice but to accept the fatal quest. But who is the charismatic, cryptic, and hermaphroditic young lady watching the be-spelled duo from the tavern shadows? This is a weird novella, being (I think) the only Fafhrd and Mouser story that takes place on earth, which gives Leiber license to pillage a host of ancient cultures, religions, myths, histories, cities, and figures. Reading by turns like a ribald comedy, a historical horror adventure, and a gothic family story and exploring love, power, knowledge, free will, and life, "Adept's Gambit" is redolent of mood ("certain of the scrolls seeming to smoke and fume as though they held in their papyrus and ink the seeds of a holocaust") and philosophy ("He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows"). Finally, this third collection does not cohere as well as the first and second ones (Swords and Deviltry and Swords against Death), and, as with the other books in the series, female readers may be put off by Leiber's mid-twentieth century sexism, and readers who prefer violent action to stylish writing in fantasy may be bored. But if you enjoy lines like "Like an idler from a day of bowered rest, an Indian prince from the tedium of the court, a philosopher from quizzical discourse, a slim figure rose from the tomb," you should give Swords in the Mist a try.
Swords in the Mist: Uneven volume, but “Lean Times in Lankhmar” is goodOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureThis is the third collection of stories in Fritz Leiber’s FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER series, and the quality is quite varied. “Lean Times in Lankhmar” (1959) and “When the Sea-King’s Away” (1960) are good, swashbuckling fun, and “The Cloud of Hate” (1963) is short but creepily effective. However, “Their Mistress, the Sea” (1968) and “The Wrong Branch” (1968) are just short connective stories of little consequence. Finally, “Adept’s Gambit” (1947), is an odd fish that doesn’t really fit with the rest of the series, a novella in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are placed in our ancient world and sent on a long quest by Ningauble of the Seven Eyes.The highlight is definitely “Lean Times in Lankhmar,” in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser part ways to settle down and give up their adventuring. Fafhrd becomes an ascetic, giving up fighting, drink, and women to become an acolyte to an addled priest of the minor god Issek of the Jug. The Gray Mouser throws in his fate with Pulg, a shakedown artist and criminal who targets other religions. Of course things start to get complicated when Pulg decides to target Fafhrd’s cult, which has been gaining in popularity thanks to his oratory and singing skills. The two former companions struggle to reconcile the situation, as the Mouser using various stratagems to lure Fafhrd away from his new life while still keeping his suspicious boss in check. The story reaches a climax as Fafhrd wakes up from a massive drinking session after being fooled by the Mouser, only to unwittingly strengthen the legend of Issek of the Jug…“When the Sea-King’s Away” is a rollicking underwater adventure that reads like a part of the Pirates of the Carribean movies, as Fafhrd this time is lured below the ocean by mysterious air pockets under water, which lead him to the lair of the Sea King, where the Mouser has to go after him as he cannot resist the urge to participate in an adventure, no matter how dubious. The two bravos must battle various monsters including a sword-wielding giant octopus. It’s a nice contrast to “The Bazaar of the Bizarre,” in which Fafhrd had to bail out the Mouser from trouble. Their loyalty to each other is every bit what is now called a “bromance.”Meanwhile, “Adept’s Gambit” is just plain strange, and doesn’t really fit with the rest of the series. It starts out promising, as the two rogues are lounging in a tavern with wenches on their laps and mugs of beer in hand, but when Fafhrd tries to kiss his girl, she turns into a pig. The Mouser is amused until the same thing happens, but his girl becomes a giant snail! So they appeal to Ningauble of the Seven Eyes for help, but he is very reluctant and tells them it’s no more than they deserve for their roguish ways. After much cajoling, he finally agrees to help them only if they complete an imposing list of near-impossible quests.From all the reviews I read of this story, it’s overlong and skips the most promising parts of the plot, and tells their tale as a second-hand narrative. Add that to the fact that they are not in Newhon but instead in our ancient world, and I really wasn’t too enthusiastic to go any further, so I didn’t finish it. It strikes me as an early experiment before Leiber had really decided the right direction for these characters, and it doesn’t mesh well in the overall story arc.In the end, only “Lean Times in Lankhmar” and “When the Sea-King’s Away” are worth reading in this collection, and “Adept’s Gambit” remains an oddity. It actually was initially submitted to H.P. Lovecraft for authorial advice, and the initial draft was uncovered and published in hardcover by Arcane Wisdom Press in 2014. It contains many references to “the Elder Gods,” and also includes the advice and notes of Lovecraft to Leiber, but this would only be of interest to hardcore enthusiasts. I’ve heard that the fourth volume, Swords Against Wizardry, is a return to form with a number of classic stories, so I’m moving on to that next!
Do You like book Swords In The Mist (2007)?
Leiber isn't afraid to mix it up with the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series: this volume combines, among others, "Lean Times in Lankhmar"--a humorous and character-driven but unheroic tale showing a peculiar slice-of-life in the big city--and "Adept's Gambit", a decidedly more magical story with cosmic implications (if you don't buy Fafhrd's assertion that it was all a hallucination).While I enjoyed "Lean Times" more (that and "The Cloud of Hate"), everything about "Adept's Gambit" is intriguing. Earlier stories hinted slyly about alternate worlds reachable by sorcery, but here it is enacted: a wizardly mentor and busybody transports Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser from Nehwon to a fantasy version of the classical Mediterranean, stitching their personal histories into place to make them natives of this world, and making Lankhmar and the rest of Nehwon a dim dream.This was a curious arrangement on the part of the author, and I can't even begin to guess his reasoning.
—Derek
http://nhw.livejournal.com/603056.html[return][return]The third of the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser novels, or the first half of the second of the more recent reprints, but basically a fix-up of short stories first published in 1963, 1959, 1960 and 1947 - the last of these is actually set in our universe rather than that of Lankhmar, and takes up half the book, though is fairly standard stuff.[return][return]The best story is the one set in Lankhmar itself - "Lean Times In Lankhmar" - and has Fafhrd take up ascetic devotion to a deity called Issek of the Jug, while the Mouser gets hired by the city's top religious protection racketeer. Various fantasy conventions and real-life targets are satirically skewered, and of course we know our heroes will escape with their lives in the end, but the ride is worthwhile.
—Nicholas Whyte
Fritz Leiber invented the term "sword and sorcery", and he was the finest author the genre has ever had. In fact he was, in my opinion, the finest author of fantasy period. I rank him above Tolkien, Howard and Moorcock, never mind Martin or Jordan. I've read him described as a "master prose stylist", and the description is apt indeed. Fritz Leiber was, simply, a terrific, extremely talented writer with a true love of language and a prodigious, playful, incredibly unique style. The odd, absurd, weird, and terrifying, he was a maestro of storytelling, a humorist, and a weaver of weird tales and action-packed adventures. He was the best, period, and anyone with any interest at all in fantasy who neglects Leiber is cheating himself.
—Commodore Tiberius Q. Handsome
