Product Description
Fritz Leiber's work bridges the gap between the pulp era of H. P. Lovecraft and the Paperback era of P. K. Dick, and arguably, is as influential as both these authors. From a historical context, Leiber in fact knew both of the authors, and his work can be seen as a bridge connecting the many different flavors of genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.Edited by award-winning editors Jonathan Strahan and Charles Brown, this new collection of the grand master's fiction covers all facets of his work, and features an Introduction by Neil Gaiman and an Afterword by Michael Chabon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great way to read more of Leiber
I had read all of the Lahnkmahr books, but nothing else by Fritz Leiber before. This collection of short stories is comparable to collections of Frank Herbert or Phillip K. Dick in terms of the breadth and ingenuity of the stories. Excellent writing all around. If you are a fan of classic sci-fi and fantasy, or just good short stories, add this one to your bookshelf.

J.Ja

Good Introduction to a Fading Legend
It's the centennial of Fritz Leiber's birth.Unfortunately, Leiber, winner of numerous awards, writer of many styles, adept in horror, fantasy, and science fiction, is something of a forgotten author.Or, more accurately, remembered for little more than a sword-and-sorcery series.

There are no stories from that series about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser here unlike the recent Night Shade Books Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber.That collection, though, is a retrospective of Leiber's entire career.This book collects Leiber's favorite stories from about two-thirds of the way into a career that covered more than 50 years.Still, the collections share six stories.

Writer's favorites are not always reader favorites.I personally wasn't excited by "The Night He Cried", an attack on what Leiber feared would be Mickey Spillane's pernicious influence on fantasy."Little Old Miss Macbeth", sort of a science fantasy in a post-apocalypse America, didn't strike me as more than an exercise in mood.

"Gonna Roll the Bones" is science fantasy too but successfully blends dicing against the Devil in a spaceport with marital discord."The Man Who Never Grew Young" follows the life of an immortal of our time in a universe where time now runs backward, Egyptian monuments devolving back to quarried stone, nomads leaving the Nile for the desert.

Other works are successful retoolings of mainstream stories."The Ship Sails at Midnight" outlines the effect of a woman who becomes a muse, crutch, and inspiration to a group of men.The sexual and psychological rewards and pitfalls of the situation are well depicted."The Foxholes of Mars" deals metaphorically with Hitler and World War One.

Political satire and suspicion of centralized technocracies is a theme in a surprising number of stories."Sanity"and"The Enchanted Forest" all take a dim view of trying to build "normal" societies with no room for the eccentric and aberrant."Poor Superman" is not only an attack on the grandiose promises of Scientology and Dianetics but the totalitarian faiths of the 20th century.

"Coming Attraction" and "America the Beautiful" are both stories of Brits coming to America and learning, through relations with women, of hidden sexual fetishes and social neuroses.In the first story, it's a post-nuclear war America with a mania for masked women and female wrestling.In the second, a story from 1970, America's relentless quest for perfection and a clean environment has fetishized catastrophe.

Sheer pageantry is on hand with "The Big Trek", where a man joins a bizarre calvacade of aliens leaving man to his nuked out Earth and going to the stars, and "The Big Holiday", about an American holiday of the future.Disaster on a grand scale is here in "A Pail of Air" where a wandering comet has knocked Earth out of its orbit and the atmosphere has condensed into vast drifts of frozen gas.

"Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-Tah-Tee" is about the ultimate earwig, a rhythm which threatens to so compulsively grip the human mind as to destroy human civilization.It struck me as a very Alfred Bester type story.So did "The Good New Days" to a lesser degree.It's a satire on Beatniks andset in a polluted, over automated society where having a job is the ultimate status symbol."Mariana" treads some of the same solipsistic ground that Philip K. Dick's Time Out of Joint does from almost the same time.

"The Man Who Made Friends with Electricity" has been an influential story with many writers taking up the notion of intelligences haunting the technological infrastructures of man.The original is still charming.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser may be missing but there are stories from two other Leiber series."Space-Time for Springers" is the first installment about hyper-intelligent super-kitten Gummitch.There are two Change War stories."Try and Change the Past" shows, with a man's attempt to avoid being fatally shot by his wife, to what lengths the universe will go to preserve historical reality."A Deskful of Girls" is kind of tangential to the series, a high tech vampirism used to steal, in a ghostly, faintly sentient, ectoplasmic form, the sexual charisma ofwould-be starlets and "sex goddesses".A tale that's both erotic and social criticism.

Leiber contributes notes to all his stories, and Poul Anderson's introduction reveals Leiber the man and artist.

Leiber's sheer versatility means that large numbers of stories may not be the reader's thing, but this is definitely a place to start in appreciating a fading legend.

Caveat emptor and serendipity in two books under one listing
There are two anthologies listed under this one title. As is usual, when mining SF's golden age with amazon, confusion rains (sic) so buyer beware.

One book is the book available new here new and the other (available used here) is an anthology from the 1970's with the stories listed in an earlier review. The good news is you can buy both and only have three stories overlap.

And yes, this dude can write---and how. What a genius. The tone is dark, and considering the evolution of reality in the intervening half century since they were written it seems he was prescient. If you love cats you'll enjoy Space-Time for Springers. Leiber was a genius who knew how to please his readers---an uncommon thing today.

Lankhmar stil rocks!
With an evocative and loving introduction by Neil Gaiman, this is a necessary addition to anyone's Leiber collection. Herein are stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser I have not seen for 50 years, and then only in the pages of the pulps. One I missed back then is the initial meeting of the shadowy pair in dusky Lankhmar. The volume is worth buying just for those stories. Leiber's language and evocation of exotica are still vivid and gripping. This would be a good introductory glimpse into his art for gifting to a youngling.

However, this is also a glimpse into Leiber's formative, near-reality, science fiction writing. Post WWII angst, what-could-have-beens, what-could-still-bes, echoes of genocide, storm fronts of change, make Leiber's early shorts shivery sport. What if the zeppelins had been lofted with helium? What if Germany had become a peaceful empire of trade and craft? What if the shadows reached out and recreated a death camp among a peaceful suburban existence?

You may find it necessary to recheck locks on doors and windows several times during your reading of this collection. It will do you no good. You have been warned.

Reviewed by David Lloyd Sutton

Catch this book!
None of the earliest reviews of this book are about"Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories". Two are apparently of the 1970's "Best of Fritz Leiber". The third claims to be a review of "Selected Stories", but the contents are wrong. The contents of this book are:

Smoke Ghost
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes
Coming Attraction
A Pail of Air
A Deskful of Girls
Space Time for Springers
Ill Met in Lankhmar
Four Ghosts in Hamlet
Gonna Roll the Bones
The Inner Circles (aka The Winter Flies)
America the Beautiful
Bazaar of the Bizarre
Midnight by the Morphy Watch
Belsen Express
Catch That Zeppelin!
Horrible Imaginings
The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars

These are all good stories and well representative of Leiber's short fiction output. I've read and enjoyed at least 13 of the 17 stories included. They range from SF to fantasy to horror and virtually all are among the best the field has to offer.Night Shade is a relatively small press and there were probably not a lot of copies printed. Get this book while you can. ... Read more

Product Description
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser visit the Witch's Tent to consult a sorceress who holds the secret to their escape-but when would they ever need to escape? Their luck has been good so far; one way out should work. Their luck continues as thieves. They are the best thieves in Lankhmar until better positions arise: The Lords of Quarmall. Gray Mouser and Fafhrd steal a kingdom within a hill and declare themselves Lords. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

More than it appears to be
I just received this edition and was pleasantly surprised to find that it includes Book 4 "Swords against Wizardry."As for content, the Fafhrd/Gray Mouser series is fantasy at its best.

swordsin the mist review
Great, just like allother Leiber's books of Lankhmar. I recommend it for fans of heroic fiction novels.

Great Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser Stories
Leiber's sword books stand alone in heroic fantasy for their gallows humor, perverse plots, and decadent settings. He treats his heroes with a respect, compassion, and maturity not common in fantasy or horror writing.

This books of stories includes material written in the 1940's to 1960's. In addition to the famous "Lean Times in Lankhmar" - the story of Issek of the Jug's rise on the Street of the Gods - and "Adept's Gambit" - where the heroes come to the Macedonian empire on our Earth, the book includes "The Cloud of Hate", "When the Sea-King's Away", and a pair of short-shorts written as segueways between the previously published stories.

Good reading
It's a shame that these Leiber books are out of print.They're well-written and exciting.Reading these I felt the same excitement I had reading Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories in that once you're done witha story..you get to start another one all over again. ... Read more

Product Description
Announcing a new collection of stories by Fritz Leiber. Assembled here is a selection of Mr. Leiber's best horrific tales, many of which have been virtually unobtainable for decades. From the riveting "Spider Mansion" and "The Phantom Slayer" from Weird Tales to the more recent "Lie Still, Snow White" and "Black Has Its Charms" from rare, small-press magazines, this collection provides an overview of Leiber's fifty-plus years as an acknowledged master of the weird tale. While much of Leiber's seminal science-fiction and fantasy remains in print, his work in the field of supernatural horror has been sadly neglected until now.Edited by John Pelan and Steve Savile. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Breadth and Vision
It is said that the greatness of a writer lies in his/her breadth and vision.If this is true, then Fritz Leiber has proven himself one of the greatest fantasists to grace 20th century fiction.The stories in this volume represent a precisely chosen set of pieces that demonstrate this fact.Leiber shows skill in science fiction (Spider Mansion), suspense (The Phantom Slayer), horror (The Thirteenth Step), and those genres that lie in between (The Dead Man).His ability to transcend and simultaneously perfect genre is paralleled only by Bradbury.This ability contributes directly to his strongest attribute, his vision of what he wants to do with a story.Many current (and to be honest, past) writers in fantasy literature have made the mistake of putting genre before story (e.g., a writer who ONLY writes science fiction).This tendency of putting genre before story is perhaps the greatest fault in all of fantasy literature.This tendency is absent in Leiber.For Leiber, story is paramount, genre is secondary (if even a consideration at all).Even in his early, semi-Lovecraftian pieces, such as The Dreams of Albert Moreland, story never becomes secondary.Leiber has a vision he wishes to present.Though it must be admitted that his vision never approaches (at least in this selection of stories) the magnitude of a Lovecraft, it must also be admitted that very few writers ever do approach that magnitude (with certain notable exceptions such as Ligotti).Yet, Leiber never sacrifices that vision and this refusal to sacrifice that vision results in some truly outstanding pieces of weird fiction.It must be admitted that sometimes that vision is flawed and so the story as a result is flawed as in the case of The Creature From Cleveland Depths.But on the whole, that vision is usually highly effective or even years ahead of its time.For example, in Lie Still, Snow White, Leiber presents a story that predates the "erotic horror" genre by decades and surpasses all but one or two stories that genre has produced up to the present.Had genre been a consideration for Leiber, that story might never have seen the light of day.John Pelan has truly done a service by giving us such a clear display of the literary powers of one of weird fictions greatest practitioners.

the master Fantasy writer can do horror too!
Fritz's other stories from Mouser Series to the Horror novellas' of "Our lady of Darkness" and "Conjures Wife", are better known, but these short stories entertain too.
From the prescient title story "The Black Gondolier" to the classic Gothic Horror of decay, and science gone wrong, of "Spider Mansion".Come into Leiber's mind and enjoy the 'dark' side of science fiction horror.90% of the 18 stories are worth reading and re-reading. ... Read more

Product Description
"The Big Time" is a short science fiction novel by Fritz Leiber. It won the Hugo Award in 1958. The Big Time is a vast, cosmic back story, hidden behind a claustrophobic front story with only a few characters. The storyline involves two factions which both have time travel who are at war with each other. Their method of battle involves changing the outcome of events throughout history. The action of the story takes place at a rest and relaxation base between the changing time lanes. The plot takes the form of a locked room mystery. "The Big Time" was originally published in two parts in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine's March and April 1958 issues. It has many subsequent reprints in book form. It is a pleasure to publish this new, high quality, and affordable edition. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (6)

American occultism
I really disagree with the reviews written about this book, for multiple reasons.

While this book does have a philisophical bent, it is more musings on the nature of insanity and reality and the possibility of cities creating their own special brand of supernatural, deemed "paramental" in the book.

The book is very reminiscent of Crowley's "Diary of a Drug Fiend," even mentioning him by name a few times. The writing style is very similar, which could perhaps may cause some readers problems in really becoming engrossed. However, about halfway through the book when the main character begins to truly study the mystery of the paramental, the story becomes very quick and engaging.

While labeled "urban fantasy" it is more in line with horror, and even more specifically, it is dealing with a new breed of occult, something that La Vey and Crowley had a serious hand in. I actually really love this book, and I'm incredibly happy I picked it up despite the reviews I read.

Kindle edition is riddled with typos
This was a good read, and I enjoyed it very much.The reading, however, proved cumbersome due to the large number of repeaded typos.Apparently the book was digitized by some flawed automated system, because the typos were of the same type ("mat" where it should read "that") over and over, but always the typos resulted in real words, which, of course, foils the trusty spell checker.In my experience, the free books that are pounded out by volunteers are of much higher quality.

Disappointing effort from one of the Masters
Fritz Leiber is acknowledged to be one of the founders of the modern Swords and Sorcery genre with his enjoyable 'Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser' series of stories. He is also the one of first masters of the 'urban horror' genre, notably in 'The Sinful Ones'. 'Our Lady of Darkness' is considered a classic of Urban Horror, but unfortunately I don't believe it lives up to its reputation.
Franz Weston (loosely modeled on Leiber himself) is a writer of horror stories and weird tales who is recovering from alcoholism caused by the death of his wife. He lives in contemporary San Francisco (the novel was published in 1977). One day while looking out his apartment window he sees a strangely robed figure dancing on Corona Heights. This catches his interest and he decides to take a hike there. When he gets there he takes out his binoculars and enjoys the view, but when he looks at his apartment building he sees the same strangely robed figure waving back at him from his window.
Unfortunately after this genuinely creepy start the plot gets mired in philosophical musings and discussions. 'Our Lady of Darkness' is Leiber's tribute to San Francisco and it's leading literary lights most notably Clark Ashton Smith. Interesting as all his may be the novel never regains its suspense and in the end is even more disappointing for having such a promising beginning.

Atmospheric and gripping
This is a fine example of the modern horror novel.Having lived in San Francisco in the 1970s (as did Leiber), I responded very positively to the authentic setting and even took out a map to check the sites.The main characters (Westen, Cal and Donaldus) were believable and I cared about them.The connections with occult scholarship and earlier weird fiction added other dimensions.The writing seemed a bit careless at times, so perhaps this book was written in a hurry.But I recommend it to Stephen King or Dean Koontz fans who wish to sample other recent dark fantasy.

Barely Entertaining
I can't understand how this book won the World Fantasy Award.Touted as "horror", it was barely scary.Lieber filled his book with a string of impossible coincidences, then pulled a rabbit out of his hat at the end.Avoid. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the most influential and critically acclaimed fantasy writers of all time, Fritz Leiber pioneered the sword-and-sorcery genre!In the ancient city of Lankhmar, two men forge a friendship in battle. The red-haired barbarian Fafhrd left the snowy reaches of Nehwon looking for a new life while the Gray Mouser, apprentice magician, fled after finding his master dead. These bawdy brothers-in-arms cement a friendship that leads them through the wilds of Nehwon facing thieves, wizards, princesses and the depths of their desires and fears. Superb writing and brilliant, believable characterizations highlight the first entry in Leiber's seminal series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

It manages to surprise and it's good if you commit to it
This is not the easiest fantasy book to get into.Its vocabulary is very complex and antiquated as befits the setting of the story, but there are words that you'll come across that you might never see again in any other book.So, if you manage to get into the tempo and style of this author, then you'll be rewarded with a story that at times provides humor, at others most violent action and lastly, gruesome plot twists.The heroes are different and with their flaws, though it feels jarring when you've been going quite a while on the story of one to suddenly being introduced the other, but somebody mentioned these work more like recompiled tales, so I can see the book as such.

There's much of the mythology of the world left unanswered, but that's because the book is quite short and many things are mentioned, however it does give you a good description of the two main settings, the one at the beginning and the one at the end.The dialog is far from straightforward as the rest of the prose, but by following its intricate loops, you'll notice is quite witty and interesting.

Overall, when I thought this book was going a certain way and I was debating whether to read the following one right away or not, being slightly turned off by the verbosity of it all, it did surprise me at least twice, with such delectable twists and turns that it made me compelled to read the next book in the series as soon as possible.In other words, I recommend it, if you don't mind not recognizing dozens of words.

Let the magic begin
Swords & Deviltry is the first of a series books chronicling the adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. It is not a novel, but rather three connected stories.

The first "The Snow Women" tells of what prompts Fafhrd's abrupt departure from the cold northern wastes in order to seek a new life in the believed civilized lands. His escape is aided with the help of the woman he had come to love.

"The Unholy Grail" tells of the first adventures of the Grey Mouser, his victory over his lover's evil father and the origins of his name.

A Nebula was awarded to the third story "Ill met in Lankhmar" and recounts the first meeting between the two heroes.

While the first two stories are good, it is only when our heroes meet that the magic really begins. Leiber is an excellent writer and the Swords series featuring Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are among the best of the genre.

fast-paced adventure, male camaraderie, sword-fighting, and easy women
I must confess that I had some preconceived notions about Fritz Leiber's work. Because he's credited with coining the phrase "Sword & Sorcery," and because I never hear women talking about his stories, I imagined that they appealed mainly to men.

But, a few factors made me decide to give Fritz Leiber a try:

1. I feel the need to be "educated" in the field of fantasy, which means that I should read
novels that are out of my normal repertoire.
2. The fantasy shelves are glutted with urban and teen fantasy and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.
3. And (this one's the clincher) [...] has recently produced audio versions of the
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.

So, I downloaded Swords and Deviltry to my MP3 player and pressed play. Within two minutes, I was completely enthralled. The first part of the novel (which is really a compilation of short stories) tells the tale of Fafhrd's liberation from the taboos, close-mindedness, and "icy morality" of his mother and clan (and the girl he got pregnant) in the northern wastes. He yearns for civilization, and finally gets a chance to "escape this stupid snow world and its man-chaining women" with a beautiful showgirl.

The second section introduces us to Mouse, who is apprenticed to the white magician Glavas Rho, but who feels the pull of the black arts -- "the magic which stemmed from death and hate and pain and decay, which dealt in poisons and night-shrieks, which trickled down from the black spaces between the stars..." A murder and a betrayal force Mouse over the brink and he restyles himself as The Gray Mouser.

I was engrossed in the tales of both of these young men, so when the audiobook reader finally said "Chapter 4: Ill Met in Lankhmar," I felt a thrill of delight! Of course I'm familiar with the name of this Nebula (1970) and Hugo (1971) award-winning novella, and I knew I'd be reading it in Swords and Deviltry, but for the first time the name had real significance for me and I couldn't wait to witness the meeting of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. And it was, as promised, a lot of fun.

But most of all, even more than the adventure, I just loved Fritz Leiber's prose. It supported the story in the few places where it dragged or at times when I was annoyed that all of the female characters were odious. For me, its cleverness and beauty was the dominant feature of Leiber's writing:

"The Mouser dug into his pouch to pay, but Fafhrd protested vehemently. In the end they tossed coin for it, and Fafhrd won and with great satisfaction clinked out his silver smerduks on the stained and dented counter, also marked with an infinitude of mug circles, as if it had been once the desk of a mad geometer."

Certainly these stories will appeal most to men who particularly enjoy fast-paced adventure, male camaraderie, sword-fighting, and easy women. But I found this first set delightfully refreshing. I've already downloaded the next Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser compilation (Swords Against Death) and I'm hoping to meet some worthy women in it. But if not, I'll still enjoy Fritz Leiber's way with words.

Interesting adventure, whose heroes egos seal their fate
I noticed that the only one-star reviewer for this book, didn't finish it. Having finished it, I can tell you this is a fun adventure. While I do agree the role of the women is minimized in this story, I do keep in mind that these are the tales of Fahfrd and Gray Mouser (and he really is referred to as Gray Mouser, Mouse, and Mouser in the book). What's most interesting about the heroes, is that they are tragically flawed in that they let their testosterone get in the way of good judgement. But you'll just have to figure that out for yourself. I don't understand why the newly published DH edition costs so much, especially considering how thin each of these books are. If you really want more bang for your buck, geta decent used copy of the Three of Swords book club in hardcover. Or this fine paperback. What I really like about these stories, is that trouble doesn't find them...they walk right into it.

Lankhmar ... the city of the black toga
I guess some people just don't recognize quality. To see that someone has actually compared the award winning Ill Met in Lankhmar with a thieves world series book ... well, there you go.

Great, collossal, archetypal, characters. Dense writing that conveys more in 200 pages than an Eddings or Jordan could do in 1000. A supreme mind (Leiber) writing at the peak of his talents. ... Read more

Product Description
This title has fewer than 24 printed text pages. Geographic Variation in Red-backed Mice (Genus Clethrionomys) of the Southern Rocky Mountain Region is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by E. Lendell Cockrum is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of E. Lendell Cockrum then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.Amazon.com Review
Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) is best known as a fantasy writer, but his achievements and influence are also considerable in the horror and science fiction fields. One of his major SF works is the Change War series, about rival time-traveling armies locked in a bitter, age-old war for control of existence; the battles frequently alter the course of human history. The most important work of Leiber's Change War series is the Hugo Award-winning novel The Big Time, in which doctors, entertainers, and wounded soldiers find themselves treacherously trapped with an activated atomic bomb inside the Place, a room existing outside of space-time. It's not one of Leiber's strongest novels: the cutesy-girlish narrative voice is unconvincing, while the demands of describing time travel and time paradoxes inevitably strain the prose. But The Big Time is a tense, claustrophobic SF mystery, and possibly the ultimate locked-room whodunit.

In addition to the Hugo, Nebula, Derleth, Lovecraft, and World Fantasy Awards, Fritz Leiber received the Grand Master of Fantasy (Gandalf) Award, the Life Achievement Lovecraft Award, and the Grand Master Nebula Award. --Cynthia Ward ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Audio version: 3.5 stars
The Place is a recuperation station outside of space and time where Spider soldiers in The Change War go for rest and relaxation between operations. This war has been going on between The Spiders and The Snakes since the beginning of time and Soldiers have been drafted (resurrected) into "The Big Time" from many points in history. From outside of time, they can plunge in at crucial moments and manipulate events to serve their cause, or they can change things ex post facto, which is why sometimes memory and history don't quite match.

All of the story happens in The Place, which is sort of like a cosmic Cheers except that it's run by an Elizabethan bard instead of a washed-up baseball player. The soldiers and entertainers at The Place spend their time drinking, dancing, singing, and discussing world events (not surprisingly for a story written in 1958, concerns about Nazis, communism, and Marxism predominate). When a life-threatening crisis suddenly occurs in The Place, the cast begins arguing, fighting, and suspecting each other.

I love Fritz Leiber and I love his concept of soldiers outside of time influencing the outcome of world events. So I was expecting to love The Big Time, which won a Hugo Award. But I didn't love it. The narrator, Suzanne Toren, is incredible -- she very successfully handles male and female voices and the accents of Germany, Rome, ancient Crete, 16th c England, 19th c "Southern Steamboat" American, and 20th c Chicago. Unfortunately, the story is told from the perspective of Greta, a 1950s Chicago party girl. Ms Toren's rendition is superb but by golly, 1950s Chicago party girl ain't that pretty. (Brother, it gets lousy awful fast, man!)

But my main issue is that almost all of The Big Time is dialogue and Greta's internal soliloquy. I did enjoy wondering along with the characters about who The Spiders and The Snakes are, when "now" is, and how much more change their patched-up threadbare reality can take (the monologues on this topic were fascinating). But I was hoping to witness the Soldiers influencing real historical events. The few parts of the book where these events were described were anachronistically wonderful. (Did you know that they almost dropped a nuclear bomb on Crete in 1300 B.C.?)

The Big Time is a concept novella which reads more like a stage play (probably why it won a Hugo). Even though I loved the concept, I would have loved it more if I'd seen it in action. And even though the audio production was perfection, by golly, I don't want to listen to another concept novel narrated by a 1950s Chicago party girl!

Just could not finish it
Hat's off to those who could finish this and enjoy it.I forced myself through the first third of the book before accepting that me and this book were not destined for one another.

Good time
This novel is an interesting experiment.Most sci-fi writers, having invented a whole world, feel tempted to come up with a plot to match, where the whole world is at stake.Here Leiber comes up with a huge background -- an interstellar war which has spread throughout space and time because the warriors have starships, time machines, and no moral restraints about involving innocent bystanders.Yet the story itself is on the smallest possible scale: a suite of rooms, a few days, and the whole point of the plot is that nothing changes in the end.

The main drawback is that the main plot has to do with two British aristocrats from the World War I era; they are extremely hard to relate to from the perspective of 2010, particularly the girl's behavior in the end.Maybe Leiber was simply closer to the era, or maybe he's imitating some popular story or movie that 1950s readers would have recognized.Much better are the supporting characters: the ancient warrior princess who talks in Homeric poetry, or the alien trying to explain in English why his teleportation machine isn't working.("Hafta hav -- I dunno wat.Dun havit anyway")

I wish all 52 year old SF novels were as fresh as this one
Go back to 1957 and try to understand a SF writer.

You are obliged by publishers to have these ridiculous book covers, usually girls in mini skirts blowing humanoid aliens to smithereens, the exact opposite of that cool Amazon cover you 're looking at.

WW II is only 12 years in the past, and somewhere in the same country you live in, Ginsberg's Howl is going through an obscenity trial.

If this is your background, which it is, The Big Time should be considered a hell of a novel. OK, Asimov's End of Eternity with a similar (but not that similar) concept came out 2 years earlier. And yes, it does read like a play. So what? Fritz Leiber gives us, in less than 150 pages, a fine cocktail of claustrophobia, ethics, philosophy, mystery and weird characters that has stood the test of time extremely well. In fact, one wonders how a "Big Change" (term in the novel for changes in history after time travel operations) that would liberate Leiber from the 1957's world and make him write, say, 50 years later, would benefit this little book. As it is, 4 stars and a special place in the pantheon of time travel novels.

Zzzzzzzz.....
I could not finish this very short book. In fact, I only made it halfway. It read like a play, which is not bad for a play. However, all the action takes place off screen and then people come back and talk about it. Perhaps the problem was my expectation. If it were written in play format, I think I would have enjoyed it more, but novels (and novellas) can do anything and are not limited to a group of people standing around talking. This violates the rule every comp teacher drills into their students heads: show don't tell. ... Read more

Product Description
In the second installment of this rousing series, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser journey from the ancient city of Lankhmar, searching for a little adventure and debauchery to ease their broken hearts. When a stranger challenges them to find and fight Death on the Bleak Shore, they battle demonic birds, living mountains, and evil monks on the way to their heroic fate. Fritz Leiber's witty prose, lively plots and superb characterizations stand the test of time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Fun and creepy collection of fantasy short stories!
I prefer a continuous long story or set of books rather than a collection of short stories.With that said, this second book in the Lankhmar series does provide very enjoyable tales, still verbose but with a charming old-school literary flow revolving around two by now well-known characters, Fafhrd, the tall, strong ranger and barbarian and the Gray Mouser, the cunning and agile thief.

This writer is very adept at describing fantasy locales, easing the reader's immersion into his world and is very good at delivering chilling, disgusting scenes and moments of suspense and brutal action.So, if you read the first book in the series, which is recommended, especially for its last tale (though the characters didn't stay away from the hard drinking for long much to my distaste), and liked it, then you'll get more and more of the same in this collection, with anything from a cursed seafaring adventure to old gods to murderous crows.However, if you would like a strong connection from tale to tale with not one of their adventures missing or vaguely referenced, and have a problem with abrupt endings to certain adventures leaving some questions unanswered, then this book is not for you.Since I am in that latter group, this will be my last Lankhmar book for a while as I gravitate more towards epic sagas.

Collection of unique and special short fantasies
Fritz Leiber had been writing Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories for the better part of 30 years when, for reasons more knowledgable people would know better than I, he reorganized his older material into six books to provide both chronology and continuity. In order to do this, he also included some specially-written newer material. This is the second of the six volumes, and it contains multiple short stories of our heroes' adventures primarily in Lankhmar. It's an ideal starting place for those new to Leiber's style of fantasy.

For those who have never read these stories, you are in for a treat as long as you don't expect stereotypical sword and sorcery (or, even worse, the overblown epic style of storytelling). Leiber was a gifted writer of weird fiction and incorporated a lot of eeriness into his adventures. There's magic in Lankhmar, but unlike the rule-based magic in many fantasies, this is a creepy kind of magic more akin to dreams than the type of sorcery you'd see in a Tolkien novel. There's also a good deal of dry humor mixed with a surrealism bordering on psychedelia here, which reminded me a bit of Douglas Adams's writing.

The strongest aspects of these stories are always Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser themselves. Two swashbuckling rogues who never become antiheroes yet who are never traditional heroes either, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would have been right at home with Captain Jack Sparrow. There are few characters in 20th Century heroic literature as vivid as they are, and you'll feel as if you actually knew them after reading a few of their stories. Hardy adventurers to the core, they are also exceptionally close friends and at times Leiber almost seems to be using the adventures as a vehicle to meditate on the meaning of friendship. They are also profoundly human in a way that Conan and Tarzan (to name two better-known characters in similar genres) most certainly are not. They may be "the greatest swordsmen who ever lived" and their adventures give the accomplished fencer Leiber the chance to convincingly write about parries and thrusts, but they aren't superheroes and get by on luck as much as skill.

I recommend starting you explorations of Lankhmar here as a sampler, and then read through the set of six Swords books, treating the seventh (Knight and Knave of Swords) as optional as it's the most uneven of the series.

Buddy Action Film Meets Traditional Fantasy (Spoiler Free Review)
Inspired by the original Conan stories, Lankhmar inspired the original Dungeons and Dragons Game.

Story:
The book is composed of three short origin stories.
The first introduces Fafhrd, a fierce barbarian from the snow covered mountains in the north.
The second introduces the Grey Mouser, a cunning thief well versed in the arcane arts.
The third shows us how they met and chronicles their first big adventure in Lankhmar.

The World:
Lankhmar is a fantasy world full of sorcery, swords, and fantastic beasts.It becomes obvious that this series inspired the creators of the original Dungeons and Dragons Modules.

The Characters:
These are some of the most realistic fantasy characters ever written.These aren't they typical fantasy archetypes of the noble hero or arrogant mage.Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser act like real people.They drink (to excess), they crack jokes, they have girlfriends, they steal. they fight...Even the supporting characters are well written with their own virtues and flaws.The characters are the driving force of the story and keep the scenes entertaining.

Writing Style:
Fritz Leiber's writing style is simple, slightly poetic, and focuses on the important details.He can craft a scene with emotion, action, and humor in two pages, where authors like Robert Jordan or JRR Tolkien would use verbose poetic detail and take twenty pages to write the same scene.If you like authors that get to the point, then you can appreciate this book.If I had to use a movie example, I'd use 'Aliens.'The Space Marines are introduced in 2-3 minutes and you understand their personalities and feel their camaraderie.You don't need long winded histories when a few inside jokes will get the job done.

Maturity:
There's action, violence, and (non-graphic) sexual situations.This book would be ok for Teens and Young Adults.

Overall:
Lankhmar features memorable characters, a magical fantasy world, and a few good plots.
If you like semi-dark heroes, camaraderie, magic, action, the original Conan stories, and D&D, you should enjoy reading this book.

If you like pages and pages of poetic prose and rich environmental descriptions, this book may be too light for you.

If you enjoyed this book, you really need to read the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard (and vice versa).

What's really for dessert?
Leiber does it again. An assortment of short adventures of varying quality (mostly 4-5 stars, one or two 3 star stories). I really enjoyed these stories, some reminding me of the Robert E. Howard/Sprague De Camp Conan stories I read as a kid. Great sense of humor, fantasy that even acknowledges the existence of black people...what a concept. Why is it so hard for this duo to actually achieve their treasure, yet so easy for them to get laid?

Lots of fun, although I still don't understand why Dark Horse has released these short books individually at such a high price. These are just short story collections, why not combine them and give the reader more bang for the buck? Which is why I still recommend the Three of Swords collection over this. There are plenty of decent used copies available for the price DH is selling this one. Either way, enjoy.

More like what I wanted...
This is the short stories I wanted.The two characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, get to shine, as they survive adventure after adventure after adventure.The only reason I don't give the book a five star rating is that, while the details change, the stories seem to be the same.They get into trouble, they discover what the trouble is, they fight their way out of it.Sometimes they think their way out but mostly they fight.
Not sure if I should continue the books.How different can it get? ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre, actually coining the term "Sword and Sorcery" that describes the sub-genre he helped create. Before THE LORD OF THE RINGS took the world by storm, Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed anti-heroes, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, adventured and stumbled deep within the caves of Inner Earth as well, albeit a different one. They wondered and wandered to the edges of the Outer Sea, across the Land of Nehwon and throughout every nook and cranny of gothic Lankhmar, Nehwon's grandest and most mystically corrupt city. Lankhmar is Leiber's fully realized vivid incarnation of urban decay and civilization's corroding effect on the human psyche. Fafhrd and Mouse are not innocents; their world is no land of honor and righteousness. It is a world of human complexities and violent action, of discovery and mystery, of swords and sorcery. THE SWORDS OF LANKHMAR finds the city characteristically plagued by rats. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are in the employ of Glipkerio, the overlord, to guard a grain ship on its journey. Along the way the rats on board stage a rebellion and threaten to take the ship until a two-headed sea monster saves the day. If only there were two-headed sea monsters everywhere, Lankhmar would be safe, too. Alas, upon returning to the city, the two discover that Lankhmar is controlled by rats. It is a city known for its thieves and swine, but even the city's muddiest bottom feeders had never seen pillaging and plundering like this. And only the sorcerers Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes can scare this scourge. Mouser must shrink into the rat's world and Fafhrd must unleash the feared feline War Cats. Then the fun really begins. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Super Reader
In this book Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are back in more sheltered climes, or at least climes with a lot more rooves. Hanging around in Lankhmar for awhile after adventuring proves to be not quite as relaxing as expected.

In fact, their skills are put to the test in defense of just that bunch of architecture as all sorts of things come calling.

"Wherein the Mouser chases a worthy rat, and sundry monsters tame each other."
The Swords of Lankhmar is the fifth book in Fritz Leiber's collection of tales revolving around the barbarian Fafhrd and the diminutive rogue the Gray Mouser.Clearly two of Mr. Leiber's most famous creations, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser belong to the genre of swords and sorcery; the setting is a fantasy where men of swift blades and loose morals do battle against impossible foes for their own personal aggrandizement.This is not the realm of Tolkien.Not only is Leiber's world of Nehwon lacking in the usual elves and hobbits of Middle Earth and its many imitators, but also missing is the clear delineation between good and evil.The primary conflict is between the sadistic and decadent rulers of Lankhmar, the most famous city of Nehwon, and an army of miniature invaders.Neither side enjoys anything like moral superiority over the other.The reader certainly isn't encouraged to root much for one side over the other.While our sympathies might naturally lean towards the status quo which clearly benefits humanity, the picture painted of a city ruled by the invaders is too intriguing to simply dismiss.

So our sympathies naturally incline to our heroes, and what a pair they are.The first chapter of the book is about the best introduction to these characters you can probably find, as they return to their sometime home base of Lankhmar after a lengthy, and not entirely voluntary, absence.Their welcome back to the city is both comic and brutal; this is the stuff of Dumas' musketeer stories without the brooding angst.Death and comedy walk hand-in-hand through Leiber's stories, and the delicate balance he maintains between the two, especially in this longer tale, is a great example of his proficiency as a storyteller.

Unlike most of the previous books chronicling the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords of Lankhmar is a single story, a novel-length adventure over 300 pages long in my 1982 edition.All of the others books, except Swords and Ice Magic (also published as Rhime Isle), are collections of short stories and novelettes.Mr. Leiber is, of course, no stranger to the longer format, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser make the leap to novel-length adventures without missing a step.In this writer's estimation, Swords of Lankhmar is the best of their stories.If you read nothing else by Fritz Leiber, you should read this one.

Exciting novel of two adventurers who persevere
In Swords of Lankhmar, Fritz Lieber combines action with drama and suspense with excitement. He tells the story from a third person point of view. In the book he does not just tell you the description he shows it to you in your mind. He lets you imagine the characters and leaves room for you to make the features of them. He does all this without leaving out any details that are necessary to the story. It is a fantasy book that will appeal to all ages. The two main characters, Fafhrd and the Mouser, are rebels and do what they want when they want. They are an unbeatable force that adventures through different provinces, continents and worlds. They meet new and different people or creatures wherever the journey. They learn form past experiences some easier than others. The two are funny many times but at the action scenes it is like you can see them fighting right in front of you. They persevere through the hardest times while making friends and enemies along the way. In this book they fight human rats, dead warriors and Mongolians. To fully understand some of the conversations you need to read the earlier books in the series. With almost all of their adventures you can recognize what they are talking about without reading the other books. The worlds and provinces are easy to relate to and can be compared to many places on earth. But for some of the places it is an entirely new concept that takes an imagination to realize. The books are a must-read that teach people many things about human personalities. ... Read more

Product Description
The Wanderer inspires feelings of pure terror in the hearts of the five billion human being inhabiting planet earth. The presence of the alien planet causes increasingly severe tragedies and chaos. However, one man stands apart from the mass of frightened humanity. For him, the legendary Wanderer is a mere tale of bizarre alien domination and human submission. His conception of the Wanderer bleeds into unrequited love for the mysterious 'she' who owns him. Join sci-fi master Fritz Leiber, winner ofboth the Hugo and Nebula awards, as he concocts a powerful allegorical novel that pierces to the heart of the human condition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

great concept, badly performed
Fritz Leiber's notion of a planet-sized visitor (the "Wanderer") to the Earth had huge potential but falls flat.The book begins by introducing about 10 mostly unrelated stories about various people reacting to the Wanderer's appearance.I assumed at some points there stories would intersect in a larger plot, but no such luck.Each little plot just spins along by itself, and most of them don't attract the least bit of interest or have any larger impact beyond some random individual's reaction to a world-wide catastrophe.

At one point, one of the characters jokes that science fiction is trivial because it deals with "phenomena rather than people."On the contrary, only bad science fiction deals with phenomena.Great science fiction deals with people, with the phenomena just forming a backdrop against which the human condition can be revealed in an interesting way.The Wanderer doesn't even come close.

Also, the Kindle version is badly in need of a copy editor.

Great but slightly flawed
This is a great..no, a FANTASTIC story, with a deep philosophical issue behind its cosmic disaster theme: the conflict between any society's quest for perfection, and the individual's need to do things..differently.

The book is a tad long; way too many characters are introduced, and too much time is spent on the effects on Earth by the Wanderer. Some editing, and this would have earned 5 stars.

Storywise, it IS 5 stars.

By the way, check out his ghost novel Our Lady of Darkness. More great stuff

Painful
I guess I am not a fan of Fritz Leiber's writing.I first tried reading "The Big Time", but could not finish it (only made it a third of the way through the book).Now, I find a similar response to this book.With "The Big Time", it was just a bizarre story with which I could not connect.The thing with "The Wanderer" is that *this is EXACTLY the kind of story I normally love*.But, I couldn't even finish this story.I read dutifully to the halfway mark, then I found myself skipping sections, till finally I thought "what's the point?".To summarize my problems with this story would be to say that I just didn't give a whit about anything or anyone in the story.This condition is created, amoung other reasons, by the constant jumping between up to 15 different scenarios.I assume his intent is to show us how the event impacts people all over the world. But I found that I couldn't have cared less about ~13 of the scenarios.The ones I did care about were those where he unfolded the secrets of the aliens.But, even that threadline could not hold my interest.I also kind of lost it when he first presents the aliens.I don't want to give anything away to someone intending to read the story, but I've had my fill of these sorts of aliens. I tried to read this, I really did.When I had problems, I put the book aside and came back to it later, reading nothing else inbetween.I did this multiple times over the course of 6 weeks, before finally calling it quits.I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just me, and my current frame of mind, that was making the story so difficult.It wasn't.Life is too short to waste on a book you're not connecting with.Clearly, some people are connecting with this story.Just didn't work for me.

Dated after more than 40 years, but still entertaining
Always a master of the language, Leiber, author of the "Grey Mouser" stories, won a Hugo for this quintessential disaster novel when it first appeared in 1964. The set-up is straightforward: A strange, unknown planet, dubbed "The Wanderer," suddenly appears in Earth's sky, a quarter-million miles out, and begins dismantling the Moon for fuel. Naturally, something of that mass is going to have an effect on our tides and the stability of our tectonic plates. Multiply tidal rises and drops by eighty and you can say goodbye to nearly all the coastal population centers. Strain the Earth's crust and you can expect volcanoes and earthquakes without number. If you're a younger convert to sf than I am (I had just graduated college when this came out), then it may remind you of _Lucifer's Hammer,_ by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. While the causes of worldwide panic and geological upset are different, the results are largely the same, and so is the narrative method. Leiber jumps constantly from one narrator or group to another, giving the reader lots of viewpoints to consider. There's the drunken Welsh poet trying to walk across the suddenly empty Severn Estuary, and the sailor-adventurer singlehandedly crossing the Atlantic in a dory who barely realizes anything is happening, and the soldier of fortune trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, and the young couple holed up in a Manhattan penthouse with the waves lapping at their feet, and several others. Most of the attention, though, is given to a party of "flying saucer students" on a beach near Santa Monica who spend the whole narrative trying to drive up into the coastal mountains and who have to deal with crazed teenagers, gun-happy cops, and an apparent serial killer. Two of the party are the girlfriend of an astronaut on the Moon and said astronaut's best friend, and they're trying to reach a nearby Space Force installation. The friend is snatched up by a real saucer and spends the next couple of days having to deal with the feline-like alien piloting it, while the astronaut is barely able to escape the Moon's destruction in one of the landing group's three spaceships (no mere landers for them) and is picked up by the Wanderer itself, where he gives the reader an abbreviated tour. The planet is actually a huge ship, filled to the core with intelligent beings of all kinds and bouncing around the several universes via hyperspace. They're also on the lam from the cops, sort of. Some parts of the book haven't aged very well, such as Leiber's concept of how teenagers talk -- which wasn't very accurate even in 1964 -- but the basic ways in which people react to unexpectedly disaster still ring true.

Up in the sky!It's a . . . giant planet?
I think Leiber is more well known for a certain fantasy series involving a pair of thieves than his SF work, although he has done some interesting tales.I wasn't even aware that this story existed, let alone that it had won a Hugo award, until they reissued it some years back.And for its time it must have been groundbreaking, a big globe-spanning disaster novel in the style that people like Niven and Pournelle would eventually make seem effortless.Here, disaster arrives when out of nowhere a giant mobile planet shifts out of hyperspace and into the solar system, presumably to refuel.It takes the moon apart and its very presence alone starts to throw off gravity and tides, causing matters on the ground to go, at best, slightly awry.The bulk of the narrative is following a scattered cast of people as they try to cope with the entire planet falling apart, all while this huge shape just hangs in the sky, seemingly watching over all of it.In theory, this book should work out perfectly, the multiple plots and varied cast keep things moving swiftly, there's a certain sense of helplessness at play because nobody can do anything about anything . . . and yet it's not without its flaws.A good portion of the cast you just don't care about and really aren't that exciting . . . I point specifically to the hippie-type characters smoking you-know-what and whatever is going on with the old man and his companions.Also, some characters seemed to be killed rather detachedly, before you even get to really know them it's "Oh, by the way, now they're dead" which tends to lessen whatever dramatic impact he was shooting for.The biggest problem I had with the book was probably the roving planet itself . . . while early on it's clear that it's a colony ship with a giant engine strapped onto it, I think the narrative would have worked much better had the ship just been this massive impersonal thing in the sky.To have it just sitting up there while everyone else scrambles about to stay alive and to open the question of whether it even knows the destruction it's causing, or what purpose it has, would have been more interesting.But Stanislaw Lem's concept of aliens as beings that cannot be understood (via "Solaris") hadn't really filtered over here yet and so we get to meet the aliens.And they are a tad . . . disappointing.Leiber does manage to make them somewhat interesting by the end but I wonder how different the plot would have been were that angle tackled.Even so, the book remains an entertaining, even quick, read that doesn't quite manage to convey the scope of what it's telling (it mentions millions of people dying at one point but you don't really get a feel for it) although the initial idea is fantastic and would be used in different ways by other authors down the line. ... Read more

Product Description
"There were two writers of the earlier generation whose literary standards and skills, whose talent and sensibility they (new wave wirters) still admired. One was Phillip K. Dick. The other was Fritz Leiber, whose masterly prose and urbane wit continued to outshine our callow talents. We revered him. We still do." -Michael Moorcock

Drawing themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre, actually coining the term ... Read more

Product Description
Ramsey Campbell, the highly regarded British horror author called him, "the greatest living writer of supernatural horror fiction". Drawing many of his own themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P Lovecraft, master manipulator Franz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the Fantasy genre, actually coining the term "Sword and Sorcery" that would describe the sub-genre he would more than help create. While Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Leiber’s fantastic but thoroughly flawed anti-heroes, ... Read more

Product Description
What if half the world's population (the female half) practiced witchcraft and kept it a secret from men?Norman Saylor, a professor of ethnology, discovers his wife Tansy has put his research in the field of "Negro Conjure Magic" into practice for the sake of protecting him from other spell-casting faculty wives who wish to further their own husbands careers. A man of science, Norman has only an academic interest in the subject of magic and superstition and forces Tansy to cease all her workings and to burn ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Subtly terrifying
Conjure Wife is a 1943 horror novel by master fantasist Fritz Leiber, who is best known for his excellent FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER stories. While Conjure Wifeis usually labeled as horror, the recently released trade paperback edition from Orb is marketed as "the classic of urban fantasy" -- maybe to latch on to the recent surge in popularity of that sub-genre? Regardless of which genre it's placed in, Conjure Wife is an excellent novel that definitely deserved a re-release.

Norman Saylor is a sociology professor at the small -- and as far as I can tell, entirely fictional -- college of Hempnell. Early on in the novel, Saylor discovers that his wife Tansy has been attempting to practice magic. Saylor, a very rational and cerebral man, attempts to convince Tansy that magic isn't real, but after she destroys all the protective magical artifacts hidden around their house, Saylor's life suddenly takes a turn for the worse: old and new enemies appear, small accidents start to happen, his tenure at the college suddenly is in danger...

As this subtly terrifying story progresses, Conjure Wife does an excellent job at contrasting the different personalities of the characters. Saylor is supremely rational and always tries to find a logical explanation for even the most bizarre situations and actions. His wife Tansy is a more intuitive and passionate soul. Saylor's colleagues, and their wives, are all fully realized characters. Throughout private meetings, bridge games, lectures, and the inevitable conflicts, Fritz Leiber does an amazing job making these people feel realistic and real. This novel, barely 220 pages long, has a very high signal-to-noise ratio -- an extremely enjoyable and fast read that will reveal more details upon re-reading.

For a novel written more than 60 years ago, Conjure Wife isn't nearly as dated as it could be. Aside from the distinct fact that the entire teaching staff is male, and a few other societal values that have changed, this novel could be set in any small college today. More proof of the timeless adaptability of this story: the three movies that were based on this novel were made in 1944, 1962 and 1980 -- and I could easily see a 4th movie, set in the present day.

For newcomers to Fritz Leiber, I would still recommend FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER first, but Conjure Wife is an excellent standalone novel -- and a great book to curl up with on Halloween!

Eppur si muove "nevertheless, it moves"
Professor Saylor and his wife Tansy are newcomers to the university. Even thought they are not of the same conservative material as the others they seem to be doing quite well. Professor Norman Saylor of the sociology department is the author of "Parallelism in Superstition and Neurosis." He gets this irresistible urge to snoop around in Tansy's personals and is surprised to find that she is a practitioner of the craft. He is not really upset, and only wants to help her to free her self by burning all the paraphernalia (except her diary).

It is not hard to guess what happens next. Yep his life falls apart and he is destined to be run over by a truck if other evil things do not get to him first. He finds that there are more evil forces at work (all female of course) each with her own agenda.

The real question is does Norman ever get sucked up in the system or is he still convinced that it is just coincidence?

As with most movies that are an abbreviation of the book the one made for his story has the same feel "Night of The Eagle, aka Burn Witch Burn" (1962) with Peter Wyngarde as Norman, and Janet Bliar as Tansy.

Burn Witch Burn Starring: Peter Wyngarde, Janet Blair

Eppur si muove "nevertheless, it moves"
Professor Saylor and his wife Tansy are newcomers to the university. Even thought they are not of the same conservative material as the others they seem to be doing quite well. Professor Norman Saylor of the sociology department is the author of "Parallelism in Superstition and Neurosis." He gets this irresistible urge to snoop around in Tansy's personals and is surprised to find that she is a practitioner of the craft. He is not really upset, and only wants to help her to free her self by burning all the paraphernalia (except her diary).

It is not hard to guess what happens next. Yep his life falls apart and he is destined to be run over by a truck if other evil things do not get to him first. He finds that there are more evil forces at work (all female of course) each with her own agenda.

The real question is does Norman ever get sucked up in the system or is he still convinced that it is just coincidence?

As with most movies that are an abbreviation of the book the one made for his story has the same feel "Night of The Eagle, aka Burn Witch Burn" (1962) with Peter Wyngarde as Norman, and Janet Bliar as Tansy.

Burn Witch Burn Starring: Peter Wyngarde, Janet Blair

Eppur si muove "nevertheless, it moves"
Professor Saylor and his wife Tansy are newcomers to the university. Even thought they are not of the same conservative material as the others they seem to be doing quite well. Professor Norman Saylor of the sociology department is the author of "Parallelism in Superstition and Neurosis." He gets this irresistible urge to snoop around in Tansy's personals and is surprised to find that she is a practitioner of the craft. He is not really upset, and only wants to help her to free her self by burning all the paraphernalia (except her diary).

It is not hard to guess what happens next. Yep his life falls apart and he is destined to be run over by a truck if other evil things do not get to him first. He finds that there are more evil forces at work (all female of course) each with her own agenda.

The real question is does Norman ever get sucked up in the system or is he still convinced that it is just coincidence?

As with most movies that are an abbreviation of the book the one made for his story has the same feel "Night of The Eagle, aka Burn Witch Burn" (1962) with Peter Wyngarde as Norman, and Janet Bliar as Tansy.

Burn Witch Burn

Nevertheless it Moves
Considered a modern horror story for it's time, Conjure Wife reinvents the 'witch' as well educated women far removed from the green-skinned, hag of our collective imagination and allows her story to unfold on a modern university campus. The action begins fairly early in the book when Norman Saylor, a professor of ethnology, discovers his wife Tansy has put his research into "Negro Conjure Magic" into practice for the sake of protecting him from other spell casting faculty wives who wish to further their own husbands careers and with that their own social standing.

Being a rational man of science Norman has only an academic interest in the subject of magic and superstition and he forces Tansy to cease all her workings and to burn all her charms which mostly take the form of mojo bags (called hands in the book)--with the exception of her diary which contains her formulas for How to Make Wishes Work, How To Get and Guard, to Spell and to Hex. No sooner does Norman burn the last charm hidden in his pocket watch, which Tansy either purposely or accidentally forgot was there, do things start to fall apart. A former student accuses Norman of railroading him into failing out of school and threatens him with a gun, his student-secretary accuses him of having seduced her, and he is passed over for a promotion that had seemed guaranteed.

Norman then begins to have more than his fair share of small accidents such as cutting himself while shaving, stepping on carpet tacks, cutting his hand with a letter opener, etc... and he begins to imagine that he senses a dark presence which exploits his fear of trucks. A bad situation becomes even worse when Tansy takes his curse upon herself and he is forced to put aside his disbelief and use witchcraft to save not only his wife's soul, but her body as well in an delightfully unexpected twist reminiscent of The Skeleton Key (2005).

Although Conjure Wife is a horror novel, it's subject matter is treated seriously. The witches are portrayed as 'normal' women with clearly understandable motivations. The witchcraft portrayed in the novel is derived from Southern Folk Magic (Hoodoo). Very early in the book Norman discovers Tansy's boxes of silver dimes, lodestones, and several bottles of graveyard dirt, and squares of flannel for making her 'hands'. The practices portrayed in this work are authentic, however the author did little to describe the actual use of these items within the story, save for a few workings. Most of the action is internal as Norman attempts to convince himself that the events occurring around him are coincidental as slowly begins to believe that magic is real and all women are witches!

The book has spawned three movie adaptations Burn, Witch Burn (1962); Weird Woman (1944); and Witch's Brew(1980). Although each movie is based on this novel, each one has changed it's portrayal how witchcraft (not Wicca) is practiced. None of the movies portrays witchcraft as it is actually practiced, however neither does all the practices in Conjure Wife reflect actual practices.

Overall I found it a very enjoyable read that was over too quickly. ... Read more

Product Description
Dark Horse's republication of Fritz Leiber's immortal tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser reach a turning point with this new edition of Leiber's final stories of the two intrepid adventurers. Their journeys have taken them from one side of Nehwon to the other, facing life-risking peril at every turn. Now, in a set of stories that show us Fafhrd and the Mouser both on their own and together, they will face some of their most challenging obstacles, and - against assassins, angry gods, and even Death himself - the duo must battle for their very lives.With a mixture of high adventure, moving drama, and broad comedy, The Knight and Knave of Swords is a perfect endpiece to Leiber's stories of the stalwart comrades, and sets the stage for all-new adventures in the next volume, by renowned fantasy author Robin Wayne Bailey. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappoining
After thoroughly enjoying the first five books of the series and finding the sixth book fairly interesting, I was deeply disappointed with the seventh book of the series. I got the impression that old Fritz had run out of new ideas and so had to resort to references to past chracters to flush out the story line. Fritz also threw in many more sex references, which to me seemed out of place and a limp substitute for a more creative story line.

I have reread the first five books of the series a number of times over the years and always enjoy them. I don't think I'll bother to read book seven again -- it was tiresome enough the first time. Sad to see the last Fafhrd and Mouser book written by Fritz Leiber end on a low note. ... Read more

Product Description
"Wonderful, magical Fritz Leiber, before whom Bradbury and Sturgeon and Norton and Goldman and Barth and Vonnegut bow, not to mention Robinson, Busby, Anderson and even yours truly, the maddest egomaniac of them all. Fritz Leiber, very likely the best of all of us, the man who has won more awards than anyone else in the genre, the man whose words have lifted this too often wretched category to Olympian heights more than anyone cares to mention." -Harlan Ellison
Before Lord of the Rings took the world by st ... Read more

Product Description
"Wonderful, magical Fritz Leiber, before whom Bradbury and Sturgeon and Norton and Goldman and Barth and Vonnegut bow, not to mention Robinson, Busby, Anderson and even yours truly, the maddest egomaniac of them all. Fritz Leiber, very likely the best of all of us, the man who has won more awards than anyone else in the genre, the man who's words have lifted this too often wretched category to Olympian heights more than anyone cares to mention."Harlan Ellison

While Lord of the Rings took the world by sto ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

2nd in the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series
The second in the Fafrhd and the Grey mouser series. Includes the following stories:
The Circle Curse
The Jewels in the Forest
Thieves House
The Bleak Shore
The Howling Tower
The Sunken Land
The Seven Black Priests
Claws From the Night
The Price of Pain-Ease
Bazaar of the Bizarre

Most are pretty good; the best are probably 'Thieves House'and 'Claws from the Night'. But to be honest I don't really think fantasy works in a short story format. Horror and sci-fi yes, but not fantasy. Most of these stories seemed rushed. Fantasy, at least to me, requires a little bit of color and backstory.

Wow....Just, WOW!!
It's a shame that in order to find non-formulaic fantasy, you mostly have to do your searching at the very beginnings of the genre. Fritz Leiber doesn't need a three book deal to tell a great story, and in fact being a master storyteller seems to have been nothing more than a trivial feat to his ever pranking genius.
Disguised as pulp fiction, here is an intricately simple Sistine Chapel of fantasy fiction, each chapter an enjoyable stand-alone tale and yet a statement of literary symbolistic skill and an intrinsic part of the larger book and plot as a whole, all at the same time!
What's more, you'll see the two reoccuring heroes Fafhrd and/or the Grey Mouser undergo character change and development in every single tale; no matter how he uses them, Leiber never fails at making these two personalities grow and flourish. The authors characterization is more amusing and perhaps even keener than that of the others in the triumvorate of fantasy of which he is a part (Tolkien, Howard, and Leiber), and is even reminescent of Brian Jaques and perhaps even Charles Dickens.
Token run-on sentences are an aquired taste, but much appreciated when you get to know them, and Leiber famously switches styles like a mad maniac; the result is a rolicking journey describing its moods and settings with grammatical choices as well as poetic and sleezy descriptions. Here you will find the influence of modernism on fantasy, while finding the source of inspiration for what we have come to know as sword and sorcery.
Imagine a young and reckless Conan as a sort of medieval rock star who's hanging out with a sorceror thief played by Johnny Depp in an episode of the Twilight Zone that's set in Tomothy Leary's 1960s Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and you'll be getting a glimpse as to what awaits you in the world of Nehwon.

A superb collection of S&S
This is, in my opinion, the best of Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and by that rationale, some of the finest swords and sorcery around. This particular collection contains several of Leiber's earliest and most vibrant tales, including 'Jewels in the Forest', 'The Bleak Shore', 'The Howling Tower', 'The Sunken Land' and 'Thieves' House' as well as excellent later works such as 'Claws from the Night' and 'Bazaar of the Bizarre'. Unlike some of the other books in the Swords series, there's really not a weak tale here; 'The Circle Curse' and 'The Price of Pain Ease' are probably the weakest in the collection, being somewhat sketchy, but even those don't fall too far off the mark and are naturally written in Leiber's consummately beautiful prose. In addition, the sheer variety of tales here are sure to provide something to suit all tastes.

Most Underappreciated Fantasy Author
Poor Fritz Leiber. He has never truly received the credit he deserves for fostering the fantasy genre. Along with the old Conan stories and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, this is amongst the most influential works of fantasy fiction.
Fascinating worldbuilding, intrigue and exciting characters abound in these tales, all told with Leiber's exceptional artistic skills. Not only are the plots and personalities compelling, but Leiber has a magical rhythm to his storytelling and descriptions. This is one of the few stories that is on my "reread" list.

Pick this up and you'll love the stories--and when you look at the copyright date of these tales, you'll come to appreciate just how much Leiber has affected the fantasy authors that have come since.

These two beat batman n robin
Fritz coined the term "Sword and Sorcery"He is one of the great grand masters of heroic fiction and his stories deliver with brass and style.He has creative genius combined with an appreciation fo pacing and the exotic.If onyl hollwood in 2004 could learn from him..... alas.

This author is not a copycat like Terry Brooks,and comes as close as any to Robert E Howard, but tends to throw in a bit more social interaction.

The series are gems, get them all today.

Fafhrd is a northerner an ice barabrian while the grey mouser is a urban---fast as a cat and a bit or a magic user.

They take on animated dungeons and sorcerers galore, find and lose love----and generally take you along for a grand old origional time.

No rehashing of tolkien[in a crayy way ] like Terry Goodkind
No barfish unrealisticness like Thieves World were politics can trump bigtime magic users on a given day.
Not goofy like MYTH series[although myth series can be entertaining]

Just good appealing sword n sorcery adventure.

GOOd Show Fritz-----The fact that he does not get more press is a crime-----I don't get it-----he needs to havce far more fan apprecaition sites.
Azimov can't hold his jock. ... Read more

Product Description
They are the two greatest heroes ever to walk the World of Nehwon: Fafhrd, the giant barbarian warrior from the Cold Waste; and the Gray Mouser, novice wizard, master thief, and swordsman unparalleled. In this one volume, fantasy legend Fritz Leiber takes readers through the first two books of the classic sword-and-sorcery saga: Swords and Deviltry and Swords Against Death. "Solid entertainment."--Kirkus Reviews. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

An oldie but a goodie
Love the Lankhmar books.

One thing to note:they are not what we would consider "books" today, although they are still being called that when they are sold.They are more like "chapters" that have been bound separately.So, get as many at one time as you can.This vintage hardback has two books in it, but it only takes about three hours to read the whole thing.

Fantastic Fantasy.A must read.
The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series is a great find for the fantasy reader.I highly recommend all the books in this series.Fritz Lieber is a fantastic writer, if you have never read his books you are in for a treat.

The Lankhmar series has two main characters Fafhrd the Barbarian and the Gray Mouser. Fafhrd is a barbarian and thief.The Gray Mouser is a small quick-witted thief and sometime wizard.They are best friends and go on many fantastic adventures together, which are told as a series of short stories.This book is a reprinting of two books: Swords and Deviltry (The First Book of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser); and Swords Against Death (The Second Book of Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser).

The first book describes where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser come from and how they meet.In the second book Fafhrd the Barbarian and the Gray mouser lose their first loves to death, and they set forth on a quest that leads them throughout Newhon on a series of adventures where they finally steal the mask of death from Death himself.

To sum up, if you like fantasy, you'll like this book.

Must read for any lover Fantasy Lover
Fritz Leiber is without a doubt one of the the most over-looked of a group of authors that are basically the fathers of the modern Fantasy genre.Ill met in Lankhmar is an excellent collection of short stories detailing the meeting and early adventures of the two most renowned Heroes/Rogues in the fabulous world of Nehwon Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.What is most enjoyable about the stories is the crisp action filled pace Lieber sets while still managing to describe everything in a way that gives you a feeling of immersion in the rich, exoctic world of Nehwon and the vast City of Lankhmar which is the Heroes main base of operations.The main characters are exceptional creations.Two lovable never do wells who usually emerge from there various adventures victorious but with little or nothing to show for it.There is a comic bent to their various escapades that is very enjoyable.Overall, just a great collection of short stories.

Most Underappreciated Work of Fantasy
Poor Fritz Leiber.He has never truly received the credit he deserves for fostering the fantasy genre.Along with the old Conan stories and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, this is amongst the most influential works of fantasy fiction.

Fascinating worldbuilding, intrigue and exciting characters abound in these tales, all told with Leiber's exceptional artistic skills.Not only are the plots and personalities compelling, but Leiber has a magical rhythm to his storytelling and descriptions.This is one of the few stories that is on my "reread" list.

Pick this up and you'll love the stories--and when you look at the copyright date of these tales, you'll come to appreciate just how much Leiber has affected the fantasy authors that have come since.

Short Stories with Fun and Action
The book reads like a series of short stories. Cele Goldsmith commissioned Fritz Leiber to write a series of Fahrd and Gray Mouser stories for Fantastic Stories pulp (one of the two early plups edited by Cele Goldsmith).That says it all.They are a fast read with plenty of action and very little of the long, dreary and seemingly endless descriptions of scenery etc.. found in many other books.The stories revolve around characters and the deeds of those characters.Unlike Jordan's Wheel of time series, which provides pages and pages of explanation of the types and colours of curtains found in each room of a house, something happens on every page.

Fahrd is like a Viking big, lustful and not scared to kill. Gray Mouser is an apprentice wizard that is not scared to use the black arts to get revenge eg. burning enemies to a crisp.Forget political correctness which is expected in so much of the literature these days, you will not find it in this book.It is like the old Star Trek (kill anything that gets in your way) and unlike the Next Generation (lets us open up the lines of communication so we can have meaningful dialogue).

If you like short stories that are well written, do yourself a favour and get a copy of this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Leiber humor strikes again
If you've read any work by this author you already know and probably love his wit.This one's another of the forgotten treasures of the past.For many years you'd have been unable to find it at all.Now, thanks to the amazing pool of Amazon readers these old tomes are trickling out to hungry readers again.

I'd suggest you try other Leiber's first.If you find him compelling, as I always have, pick this one up and give it a read.I think you'll value it a lot higher than many of the more contemporary books now in the marketplace. ... Read more

Product Description
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have traveled the width and breadth of the land of Nehwon in search of adventure and fortune. Now lost at sea, their ship drawn out on the Great Equatorial Current, their journey brings them to Rime Isle, a tragic island populated by vagabonds and wanderers. The island is also home to a race of gods, schemers, and manipulators that plague the humans for their amusement. Will Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser be able to escape the island, or be trapped forever as pawns of the gods? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A significant improvement!
Swords and Ice Magic is a HUGE improvement over its predecessor. It was good to see Leiber get back on track instead of putting together standard "run around the dungeon" fare. I am looking forwards to the next installment now, instead of feeling like I was reading only to be a completist. ... Read more