Fafhrd/Gray Mouser

Thank you Audible for making Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd/Gray Mouser series available. The narrator Jonathan Davis does an outstanding job of bringing life to this saga. Mr. Leiber was such a wonderful wordsmith. Listening to this series is such a treat after reading them all 25+ years ago. Highly recommend this book (and others in the set) to those who enjoy 'high adventure, sorcery and witchery' and lots of dialogue.

43 people found this helpful

Not just for men!

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 who like to read stuff that has warrior babes on the covers.

But when I saw this on audio (finally), I decided to give it a try because it's classic fantasy literature.
So, I put Swords and Deviltry on 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 (the excellent Jonathan Davis) 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.

25 people found this helpful

How we were meant to read Fantasy

I really don't know how i missed this author for so long. Mr.Leiber truely was a master of his craft. This is fantasy in its purest form. After listening to the first 3 of the novels in the series, I now realize that most of the previous "sword and sorcery" style fantasy authors i have read to date are simply pale imitators, all striving to capture or reproduce what Mr. Leiber has created.

These novels raise the bar to a new level that most fantasy authors will rarely achieve.

That being said, the narration is decent, but not spectacular. The narrator often seems confused as to which minimally varied tone he has assigned to which character. Since there are often only 2 main characters in many of the stories, his confusion is less then laudable.

21 people found this helpful

Pleasantly surprised

What made the experience of listening to Swords and Deviltry the most enjoyable?

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but it was quite enjoyable. There are no pretenses of being anything more than a good adventure story that happens to be set in an world where magic and sorcery is real. While describing a vivid and diverse imaginary setting, it avoids the tedium of an overly complex mythology (which many writers since Tolkien have attempted, but few have succeeded). The characters are interesting (although perhaps with a level of development meant to appeal primarily to a male, young adult, readership). The female characters are mostly consorts, conquests and occasional foils for the male protagonists. The plot is somewhat predictable, but the skillful storytelling makes it enjoyable nonetheless.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Swords and Deviltry?

Fafhrd's rocket-assisted ski jump was laugh-out-loud funny.

What about Jonathan Davis and Neil Gaiman (introduction) ’s performance did you like?

This was the first reading by Davis that I've listened to. The characterizations were quite good and I was able to distinguish the characters without much trouble.

18 people found this helpful

Classic Fantasy

Written long before Fantasy had become a genre, these aew classic fantasy stories. While these stories have been placed in internal chronological order, it is important to realize that these were stories written, not as an epic fantasy like LOTR or Game of Thrones, but as short stories, more akin to the Conan stories. Soem are long on style and short on plot, but they bring you into the minds and the world of these two intriguing characters. Marvelously read, I look forward to reading the second installment.

18 people found this helpful

All in all a pretty good book

While this will likely never be on the top of my favorites list, it is a solid novel with well developed characters. The story line blends a classic Conan-type genre with a bit of the dry sense of humor you can find in the more serious parts of a Terry Pratchett novel.
I will likely get the second book in the near future...

11 people found this helpful

Disappointing

I just got done with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. So...maybe I'm disappointed because I'm trying to compare this to those...

This book is some back story for each of the main characters, as well as the story of how the two met. The characters, the world, the stories seem...thin..."like butter scraped over too much bread".

I know this is fantasy...so this may sound strange...but...things seem...too far-fetched to be possible...or believable...and not far-fetched in an interesting way - kinda boring.

I know...only being the first book...the characters are "young" - not developed yet - but I really have a hard time finding any sort of connection with them. They don't seem to have much personality yet (except in one part where Fafhrd is returning a snow-balled girl to her tent). This may be why I'm having a hard time making sense of their motives...

Overall, I think this book could have been summarized in about 10 minutes, without losing anything.

Now...after being so harsh...I will say that it was better than many books I've read, and I'm definitely going to get and listen to the next book in the series. AND, if someone had offered to summarize this book for me in 10 minutes, I would have chosen to listen to the whole thing, and would even make that decision knowing what I know now...if that makes sense.

8 people found this helpful

Very outdated and misses the last chapters

I remembered the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories from my teenage years and I loved them a lot then, so I thought I'd try it as an audiobook now. But I guess the 35 years in between have changed a lot: not only have I changed, but also the way in which action and fantasy stories are built up nowadays. So with this story I didn't find a hoped-for fun and thrilling adventure, but a rather dull story, with two-dimensional characters having stilted conversations interspersed by Errol Flynn-like action scenes. Also, the first part is about Fafhrd, the second about the Mouser and only after that do they meet; which I found a boring way to tell the story, it would have been more fun if their stories each moved forward by alternating chapters.

The last part of this book is actually missing; you’ll have to spend an extra credit (or some money) and buy the 2-hour story Ill met in Lankhmar, to know how it ends. Which is ridiculous of course and makes me give it 1 star overall,
I didn’t know this when I bought both titles and started at random with Ill met... which made no sense at all to me of course. Only after finishing this title did I realize I listened in the wrong order. Very annoying.

Oh well, I'm glad I tried it anyway. But I won't be back for any sequel parts.

6 people found this helpful

The book seems disjointed

I really enjoy this type of book, heroes and thieves and swordplay and thieves ... But this book is poorly written. New mythological concepts, descriptions of magic and miscellaneous thoughts of the character are mixed in with the story to the point of being excessive. The actual story becomes very difficult to follow because of this.

This book has not been enjoyable, I've listened to about half of the book now and I keep on listening hoping the story/narration will improve.

This book may have some literary significance as an early "father" of the genre, but it certainly is not one I'd recommend buying.

6 people found this helpful

Grand high adventure

Science Fiction and fantasy Grand Master Fritz Leiber's immortal creation take life in this wonderful audio book. Grand high adventure, bawdy, brutal and bouncingly fun! Classic sword and sorcery! If you are a true fan of fantasy novels such as Conan or Elic, you will enjoy this series!

6 people found this helpful