Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series |
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March 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Two sought adventure —
The thirty-seven stories comprising Fritz Leiber's great series Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were written over a half-century (from 1934 through 1988), and not in their chronological order — both attributes of Goethe's composition of Faust. Leiber's two heroes, and their wonderful high and low adventures, among allies and foes in the fabulous city of Lankhmar of the dubious land of Nehwon, are great exemplars of the fantastic in literature. The sequence, and the range Leiber's stories mostly appeared first in magazines, beginning in John W. Campbell's Unknown in 1939. Over the years, they have been collected and re-collected in books bylined Leiber, as well as anthologized. One, The Swords of Lankhmar, is itself the length of a novel and usually appears as a separate book. Here we provide an overall sequence as the stories ideally should be read, and as they appear in the common seven-book set. Additionally we list inclusions in Leiber's other story collections: it's not too critical that you read them in order. The first readers of most of these stories just enjoyed them as they came — and then re-read them in the complete set. We mention some omnibus editions, but do not attempt to provide all appearances in general Leiber collections, or multi-author anthologies. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser taken as a whole is one of the greatest works of modern fantasy. Should you, however, happen upon a story or two and not care for them, do try a couple of others. Fritz Leiber gives us a stunning range and depth of fantastic realism here; and if the style is not so various as that of Faust, nor the landscape cover a spectrum as great a witch-flight as from "Auerbach's Tavern in Leipzig" to the "Classical Walpurgis Night", still Fafhrd and the Mouser can show you a merry ride. |
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More edition information: A very fine omnibus set from White Wolf, containing the 37 stories of 7 volumes (as listed above) recombined in 4 volumes. This includes Leiber's volume Forewords and additional introductions by other authors. Note that White Wolf forgot to provide page-numbers for the individual stories in the annotated contents for their second and fourth volumes; I recommend writing them in yourself, as I did.
A partial omnibus set from the Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC), containing the first 33 stories of 6 volumes (as listed above) recombined in 2 volumes.
The Book of Fritz Leiber and The Second Book of Fritz Leiber are also combined in the omnibus volume The Book of Fritz Leiber, Volumes I & II. Writers of the Dark is co-bylined H.P. Lovecraft because the book includes essays by Lovecraft. As with other authors, sometimes paperback editions are not as complete as hardcover editions with the same title.
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[Walpurgis Night. The Harz Mountains; the Country Around Schierke and Elend]
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© 2009 Robert Wilfred Franson |
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