I may be unfair to Leiber. He did go off on tangents, exploring weird and metaphysical possibilities.

But overall a traditionalist.

That all being said, I am not likely to read further Fafhrd & Gray Mouser books, in a very long time, hence. The first five books completes my introduction learning and cultivation from this series. Similar to Dale, I feel something is lacking for me personally, although I don't feel active dislike. For the sake of argument, I have been obliged to oppose Dale's diametrically negative opinions regarding Leiber. Leiber is a very good fantasist, a sharp psychologist, and a masterful prose artist. I must defend his talents, for he is one of the greats. But, ... what I miss in these books, ... is more of a spiritual detachment from the material. The continual chase after treasure, money, alcohol, and wenches, gets miserly and dissatisfying. Leiber was himself an alcoholic, struggling with the sordidness of that morass, and I never sense in these books that he soars above the physical and worldly identification.

Knygatin, since you've read so many of these Fafhrd - Mouser stories recently, I gather, would you like to name some of the stories that you think are the best, along with The Swords of Lankhmar?

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin, since you've read so many of these
> Fafhrd - Mouser stories recently, I gather, would
> you like to name some of the stories that you
> think are the best, along with The Swords of
> Lankhmar?


My absolute favorite story is "The Jewels in the Forest". One of his earliest. It is very exciting, and has some fine fantastic/magical situations. It opens with an ancient description of the year, month, and day (sort of like Clark Ashton Smith), and then succinctly captures an atmospheric bucolic scene, like a painting by Bruegel.

Before that, the "The Circle Curse" begins the book, introducing the sorcerer Sheelba of the Eyeless Face who lives in a walking hut. Any story featuring Sheelba and the walking hut is worthwhile. It returns with full force in The Swords of Lankhmar.

"The Sunken Land" is memorable.

"When the Sea-King's Away" is a great little underwater adventure. Imaginative.

Anyone interested in mountain-climbing should find "Stardock" interesting.

"The Lords of Quarmall" is a very dark underground drama. Not a particular favorite though, too much jumbly back and forth actions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 18 Sep 21 | 02:21AM by Knygatin.

"The Unholy Grail" has some fine medieval scenes, and Gray Mouser's beginning practices of magic. Fritz Leiber was really cast in a different time.

"But, ... what I miss in these books, ... is more of a spiritual detachment from the material. The continual chase after treasure, money, alcohol, and wenches, gets miserly and dissatisfying. Leiber was himself an alcoholic, struggling with the sordidness of that morass, and I never sense in these books that he soars above the physical and worldly identification."

Leiber was a materialist of sorts, so I'm puzzled why you would find this surprising. If you'll notice, though, The Twain are repeatedly stripped of their (mostly) ill-gotten gains from chasing after wealth and sensation, briefly humbled by the ephemeral nature of worldly possessions, status, and experiences. While I agree that Leiber never "soars" *above* the physical and worldly, I think that's precisely the point. It's an intentional artistic approach. As stand-ins for himself (and ostensibly HOF), Fafhrd and the Mouser are forced to wallow in material realities and are continually faced with their own mortality and unimportance in an indifferent universe they can never truly understand.

As Leiber puts it in the introduction to his own self-selected collection "The Best of Fritz Leiber", "The Supreme Goddess of the Universe is Mystery". As someone who described his two main influences as Shakespeare and H. P. Lovecraft, I think this aesthetic exhibits exactly what one would expect (and want, in my case) from someone who continues and celebrates the stylistic tradition of the former while refining, nay sublimating, the more sophisticated modern worldview (in the narrow sense) of the latter.

While CAS was certainly an influence on Leiber, I would argue that it's more in choice of milieu as backdrop for these tales. His modulation of language is much more precise, if less poetic and more dramatic, than CAS's, and his lexical range is of an entirely different sort, favoring the Elizabethan rather than italianate flourishes and homonymic proliferation of Smith.

I myself think Leiber is one of the best fantasy writers exactly *because* he engages with the worldly and material through "low fantasy", while championing (through his champions) the human spirit of adventure that makes both high fantasy and S&S so alluring. He avoids the essentially trivial nature of a Dunsany, as well as the unconscious self-parody of REH's Conan or Moorcock's Elric.

All that said, most of his "science fiction" I can barely read. IMO with some evidence, he wrote most of this stuff because it was what was selling (hello Misters Heinlein, Asimov, et al.), and it just wasn't his forte.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 18 Sep 21 | 09:15AM by Radovarl.

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dale Nelson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Knygatin, since you've read so many of these
> > Fafhrd - Mouser stories recently, I gather,
> would
> > you like to name some of the stories that you
> > think are the best, along with The Swords of
> > Lankhmar?
>
>
> My absolute favorite story is "The Jewels in the
> Forest". One of his earliest. It is very exciting,
> and has some fine fantastic/magical situations. It
> opens with an ancient description of the year,
> month, and day (sort of like Clark Ashton Smith),
> and then succinctly captures an atmospheric
> bucolic scene, like a painting by Bruegel.
>
> Before that, the "The Circle Curse" begins the
> book, introducing the sorcerer Sheelba of the
> Eyeless Face who lives in a walking hut. Any story
> featuring Sheelba and the walking hut is
> worthwhile. It returns with full force in The
> Swords of Lankhmar.
>
> "The Sunken Land" is memorable.
>
> "When the Sea-King's Away" is a great little
> underwater adventure. Imaginative.
>
> Anyone interested in mountain-climbing should find
> "Stardock" interesting.
>
> "The Lords of Quarmall" is a very dark underground
> drama. Not a particular favorite though, too much
> jumbly back and forth actions.

Thanks for taking time to list these, along with "The Unholy Grail." My wife returned from a multi-city trip by air, the day before yesterday, and we are going into semi-quarantine, although we're vaccinated. So I don't intend to submit any interlibrary loan requests for a little while. But I'd like to revisit several of these stories eventually. But isn't the Sea-king one the story with the line I always disliked? There's a description of some cute (probably underage) girl, with the sentence, "Naturally, she was naked." That "naturally" gives the whole game away, doesn't it? Leiber is flaunting the made-upness of his story with a bogus sophistication. Mr. Clever-Clever. However, stories he wrote earlier avoided that kind of literary coquetry, right?

At any rate it must be decades since I have seen the story with that line, but, as you can see, it has stuck in my mind for a long time. I think I read it when it was first published in Fantastic or Whispers.

What about "Bazaar of the Bizarre"? I don't remember much about that other than that the goods on display were not what they seemed to be (right?). It seems to me I used to have the issue of Fantastic in which it was first published. That was during the period of Cele Goldsmith's editorship, I think. I never had more than a few of those issues, all second-hand. My favorite thing from the ones I did have is an issue with a four-page letter about Mervyn Peake written by Michael Moorcock. I used to be quite a Peake fan, and hope that sometime I'll return to Gormenghast and complete an overdue second reading. I've read Titus Groan twice. The first time was in a college course taught by my favorite professor of the time. The second time was in a college course I tauight myself.

Thank you Radovarl, I agree with your valid points. I wouldn't say I am "surprised" at Leiber's materialist perspective, just not completely satisfied with it; I prefer CAS in that sense, because, he seems better at detaching himself from the worldly perspective, poverty, and failures. He "soars" in another way, in his stories, I mean.

I think this must be very much a matter of personal taste, preference, and individual existential needs. I well understand that many readers prefer Leiber over others. Perhaps he can be categorized as a realist in the fantasy genre? Or "low fantasy" as you term it. I definitely appreciate his mastery of and understanding in describing the physical world, and the behaviors and motivations of characters struggling their ways through hardships, and dealing also with their failures and re-motivation of themselves.
After all, even if a person finds relief in discovering the spiritual, he still has to deal with the world to some measure, like everybody else.

I have only read a little of his science fiction so far. I liked "The Enchanted Forest". The first scene is similar to Jack Vance's Star King, in which a talented wastrel (or elvish superhuman) alone and exalted steps out of his spaceship onto a new world. Great stuff. "The Haunted Future" (I think that is the title) was pretty interesting. I believe he soars higher from the materialistic in his science fiction stories!

Dale, I don't recall that line, "Naturally, she was naked.", you mention.

I know that "Bazaar of the Bizarre" is highly regarded, and I remember it as being rather well written and rich, but the story and its details have not stuck in my memory.

The story with the "Naturally, she was naked" line might be "The Bait." It probably was in Swords and Ice Magic, about which a Goodreads member commented:

-----A lacklustre collection of late-career Leiber which would have better remained unpublished.

I really wanted to enjoy this one; I have fond memories of reading the Gray Mouser stories as a teen. Sadly, to this middle aged man, this late-career collection of Leiber's stories came across as a publisher-led exercise in barrel-scraping. For sure there were some glorious turns of phrase, but the first four stories all seemed to be little more than fragmentary re-writes of Leiber trying to nail down an idea about symmetry or dualism which he never quite pulled off. The final two were ok, I guess, but with issues. While the heroes of these tales have always been sociopathic sex-pests to an extent, in this one they seemed to cross a line from bawdy to creepy. There's just a little bit too much "barely more than a girl" and "budding breasts" going on here. A shame.----

It wouldn't be fair to judge the whole cycle of Fafhrd-Mouser stories by the worst ones, of course!

Knygatin, yes I of course agree that these are purely matters of taste. While I enjoy Smith's style immensely, and really like the exalted language of his "extended prose poem" short stories, I find it more difficult to become invested in his characters. I cannot bring myself to identify as much with his characters, however memorable, as I can with the flawed, oh too human characters of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouse saga (the Twain, also secondary characters). They feel "real" in a way CAS's don't. But clearly that is not what every reader is seeking, and not every reader is into that vibe all of the time, and obviously that's cool.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The story with the "Naturally, she was naked" line
> might be "The Bait." It probably was in Swords
> and Ice Magic, about which a Goodreads member
> commented:
>
> -----A lacklustre collection of late-career Leiber
> which would have better remained unpublished.
>
> I really wanted to enjoy this one; I have fond
> memories of reading the Gray Mouser stories as a
> teen. Sadly, to this middle aged man, this
> late-career collection of Leiber's stories came
> across as a publisher-led exercise in
> barrel-scraping. For sure there were some glorious
> turns of phrase, but the first four stories all
> seemed to be little more than fragmentary
> re-writes of Leiber trying to nail down an idea
> about symmetry or dualism which he never quite
> pulled off. The final two were ok, I guess, but
> with issues. While the heroes of these tales have
> always been sociopathic sex-pests to an extent, in
> this one they seemed to cross a line from bawdy to
> creepy. There's just a little bit too much "barely
> more than a girl" and "budding breasts" going on
> here. A shame.----
>
> It wouldn't be fair to judge the whole cycle of
> Fafhrd-Mouser stories by the worst ones, of
> course!


"The Bait" is by almost any standard the worst F&GM story, for all the reasons you cite. Leiber is an odd creature when it comes to women. He was comically sexist at times, and at others he bends over backwards to make an entire story a quasi-feminist argument of sorts. I'm thinking of "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" here, as well as parts of a few other stories. Heck, in one or more of the stories in Knight and Knave of Swords he has ex-paramours of the Twain starting a feminist collective in Ilthmar (or Sarheenmar, can't recall), a reference which clearly repudiates the past behavior of Fafhrd and the Mouser, who as you say are "sex-pests" at times. I would argue The Mouser is by far the creepier of the two in this way; Fafhrd's a decent fellow with a strong but wholesome libido, while his companion verges into near-sadism and other sexual bizarrerie on a few occasions. I think it boils down to Leiber essentially being a bit sex-crazed, a lot repressed, but generally on the "right" side of feminist issues. Let's remember, in the sixties-thru-eighties when this phase of the saga was being written, Ursula Le Guin and other female writers were being published in Playboy magazine. It's easy to see why some of this falls flat now, but at the time it might have seemed to him that "sexual liberation" was his theme.

Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin, yes I of course agree that these are
> purely matters of taste. While I enjoy Smith's
> style immensely, and really like the exalted
> language of his "extended prose poem" short
> stories, I find it more difficult to become
> invested in his characters. I cannot bring myself
> to identify as much with his characters, however
> memorable, as I can with the flawed, oh too human
> characters of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouse saga (the
> Twain, also secondary characters). They feel
> "real" in a way CAS's don't. But clearly that is
> not what every reader is seeking, and not every
> reader is into that vibe all of the time, and
> obviously that's cool.

I think that this is a fair assessment, re accessibility of characters developed. F & the Mouser are knowable in the sense that they stem from, basically, a college jock (Fafhrd) and a principled opportunist, like Bugs Bunny (Mouser).

CAS's most effective characters are selected from strata that we're unlikely to have ever met--profoundly warped characters in the mold of Charles Manson, obsessives like Faust, and other such exotics. He lets us see inside their psyches.

To me, some of his less effective characters are drawn from more common folk, as in The Charnel God.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think you're slightly unkind to Fafhrd with the "college jock" label (he's more thoughtful and less of a bully than that implies), but dead-on with likening the Mouser to Bugs Bunny, which has me chuckling.

I agree that CAS attempts characterizations which are less easy to identify with, and succeeds admirably in some cases. But I also think part of this is that he had much few social contacts than Leiber the social butterfly, whose experience of actual living breathing human beings was vastly greater than CAS's. This leads to more realistic depictions, I would say, of a wider variety of types.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Sep 21 | 12:26PM by Radovarl.

Radovarl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you're slightly unkind to Fafhrd with the
> "college jock" label (he's more thoughtful and
> less of a bully than that implies), but dead-on
> with likening the Mouser to Bugs Bunny, which has
> me chuckling.


Hah! I'm glad you found it amusing!

More seriously, I was a BIG fan of these stories back in my early 20s. On re-reading some, I realized that they're something like watching a James Bond film, in that you know, essentially, what you'll be getting.

It's probably the same reason I don't watch James Bond films anymore.

--Sawfish

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~