I've never read any Lhankmar, grey mouser etc but I sense I would like it.

What is the best book to start with do you think?

Cheers

Quote from: Psikerlord;960780I've never read any Lhankmar, grey mouser etc but I sense I would like it.

What is the best book to start with do you think?

Cheers

The original tales by Fritz Leiber.

The Swords of Lankhmar is the closest Leirber came to a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novel. It is a picturesque narrative full of the humour and sly perversity of his best writing.

I think his single greatest story is Lean Times in Lankhmar which can be found in Swords in the Mist.

Really though you can't go wrong if you pick up almost any of the short story collections.

Best to not start with Swords and Ice Magic or The Knight and Knave of Swords as they are elegiac stories that carry more weight if you've read all the previous tales.

Swords and Deviltry, which comes first chronologically, contains two novellas about the characters before they meet, The Snow Women and The Unholy Grail. While these are perfectly fine stories, things just aren't quite as fun until they meet up, so I don't recommend these as a starting point. The third novella in that book, Ill Met in Lankhmar, about their actual meeting, is a much better place to start if you are big on origins.

However, I'd actually recommend just starting with the second collection, Swords Against Death and getting a full collection of  ten stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser having adventures together. It's a well put together collection ranging from the '40s to the '70s. Ill Met in Lanhkmar wasn't written until 1970, so it isn't the kind of series where you need to understand how they met.

If you like what you see, you can go back to Swords and Deviltry for origins, or just push forward to Swords in the Mist.

Definitely skip the Snow Women...I couldn't even get through the story! I would say read them in the order they were actually published.

I agree with Baulderstone, and I'll add that the last two collections are dominated by some really bad and off-putting long pieces, although even they have some good shorter pieces.

I've noticed that rankings of the stories overall vary--except for universal hatred of "The Mouser Goes Below" and universal approval of Swords of Lankhmar--its stories may not be everyone's favorites but it's got continuity and consistency. By contrast I really didn't enjoy "Adept's Gambit", which I've seen get positive mentions, and I really enjoyed "The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars", and "Bazaar of the Bizarre", which others don't care for.

I do not hate The Mouser Goes Below so it is not universal.

The later volumes are certainly divisive, but we can probably all agree that they aren't the place to start.

For sure.

I think reading them in chronological order works fine. The two pre-meeting stories are fine, especially the Mouser one. Ill Met in Lankhmar is great. I don't think publication order (ie starting with Adept's Gambit) is a particularly great idea.
Obviously don't start with the last two novels/collections.

Thanks very much all, you've given me some good pointers to start, cheers . I'm looking forward to this.

Just to add my two pence but chronological is the way I wish I'd gone.

I've been reading these as of late myself, and I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that struggled with the later collections.

I'm quite cranky I missed the DCC lankhmar Kickstarter. Anyone know of a way to get in on it?

Here are the "original" F&GM stories:
1 "The Jewels in the Forest" AKA "Two Sought Adventure" (1939)
2 "The Bleak Shore" (1940)
3 "The Howling Tower" (1941)
4 "The Sunken Land" (1942)
5 "Thieves' House" (1943)
6 "Adept's Gambit" (1947)
7 "Claws from the Night" AKA "Dark Vengeance" (1951)
8 "The Seven Black Priests" (1953)
9 "Induction" (1957)

What you notice is that Leiber wrote the early stuff from 1939 to 1943 then a lot more irregularly from 1947 through 1957, when Two Sought Adventure came out. This group is, in my opinion, the absolute best of the stories and can be read in pretty much any order.

1959-1977 is when the bulk of the stories were written, most of the fiction that was published as paperbacks in the 1970's when fantasy novels became popular. These are good stories, aimed at trying to "fill in the gaps" and make a complete chronology.

Then a gap of five years before the last flurry of 1983-1988. These stories are, in my opinion, Leiber's weakest as it seems like he was recycling some of his own ideas. On the other hand, there is roughly fifty years from the writing of the first story to that of the last one, and that's a pretty amazing accomplishment.

Quote from: finarvyn;960832Here are the "original" F&GM stories:
1 "The Jewels in the Forest" AKA "Two Sought Adventure" (1939)
2 "The Bleak Shore" (1940)
3 "The Howling Tower" (1941)
4 "The Sunken Land" (1942)
5 "Thieves' House" (1943)
6 "Adept's Gambit" (1947)
7 "Claws from the Night" AKA "Dark Vengeance" (1951)
8 "The Seven Black Priests" (1953)
9 "Induction" (1957)

What you notice is that Leiber wrote the early stuff from 1939 to 1943 then a lot more irregularly from 1947 through 1957, when Two Sought Adventure came out. This group is, in my opinion, the absolute best of the stories and can be read in pretty much any order.

1959-1977 is when the bulk of the stories were written, most of the fiction that was published as paperbacks in the 1970's when fantasy novels became popular. These are good stories, aimed at trying to "fill in the gaps" and make a complete chronology.

Then a gap of five years before the last flurry of 1983-1988. These stories are, in my opinion, Leiber's weakest as it seems like he was recycling some of his own ideas. On the other hand, there is roughly fifty years from the writing of the first story to that of the last one, and that's a pretty amazing accomplishment.

You know, I never realized the stories were that old. I never checked the copyright or first publication dates. I always pictured Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman from Midnight Cowboy in the lead roles for some reason.