Swords and Deviltry

I thought the book opened really well, very descriptive flavourful text and the beginnings of an interesting world.

It went downhill quick for me though. I found the dialogue overly stiff and formal, and the female characters are questionable. Early into the novel the main character seduces a travelling actor, strips and enters her bed while she's asleep (we don't hear her reaction we just know she approves because she compliments his sexual abilities in the next scene). Then, after a short back and forth where he tells her he's in love with her or whatever, she proceeds to recite her entire backstory to him complete with a murder of “insert loved one” that she is avenging long-con style. To top the scene off, we have a painfully on the nose discussion about how civilized people are the real barbarians.

If dialogue and engaging plot is unimportant to you then I might recommend this book. I was quite enjoying it until the dialogue & plot kicked in.

Although I've long heard of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, it's only just now in 2016 that I've met them for the first time; and it was quite interesting to do so, although swords and sorcery isn't really my field.

For fiction of this vintage, it's quite well written, and doesn't seem dated. But Fritz Leiber was theatrically inclined and so is his fiction, somewhat exaggerated and over the top. His two heroes are quite engaging, although there's rather a lack of other likeable characters.

I suppose these stories were an influence on Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the setting being roughly similar, although his treatment of the material is different.

I see that some reviewers complain about the role of women in these stories, but I don't see much to complain about. This is mediæval fantasy; if you expect to read about 21st-century people behaving in 21st-century ways, you should confine yourself to reading stories set in the 21st century. There are women of strength and ability here, but they're not liberated or feminists, and it would be anachronistic if they were.

The men aren't typical of the 21st century, either. They're not meant to be.

I give the book a middling rating because I liked it well enough, although it seems unlikely to become one of my favourites. Not really my kind of thing. Maybe I'll read more books in the series, maybe not.

More years ago than I really care to count I read several Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. I remember very few of the details now, but I do remember that I enjoyed them. So, this book was a welcome trip into the past for me. It consists of four linked stories – a short story, two novellas, and a novelette. Together they form the origin story for those two likable, deadly, and very unlikely rogues.