Review: The First Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
I finally got around to reading some classic Swords and Sorcery fantasy: the stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber. I have two volumes of the collected works. This first volume was 762 pages and they are told in chronological order.
I’ve read all the Conan stories in the past and heard about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories being the other main classic of swords and sorcery. Overall they did not disappoint. The book was fairly easy reading and while it’s probably the longest thing I’ve read in a while, it didn’t take me to long or feel like too much effort to get through it all.
Quality of stories varied. Some felt a bit basic, others more interesting. I think this may have been because while the book tells the stories in chronological order, starting with how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser become Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, they were written in a different order. It was later in his life, after writing all these stories for various magazines and in various places, that Fritz Leiber decide to collect them all in a collection and fill in missing gaps with new stories and overall round things out so you’d have one somewhat cohesive narrative throughout it all. Thus I think some of the stories were probably written quite early in his career, right before or after others written quite late, probably when his writing skill had improved.
Overall it has an interesting affect where you start off with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser when they’re younger and as the stories go on, although I don’t think it’s really mentioned explicitly, they begin to age and grow more grizzled and wiser. They’re not the same young cocksure individuals as they were when they were younger and just starting to adventure.
While the stories are very episodic and it’s all short stories, there kind of is an overall loose arc to things that kind of feels very much like life. Our lives can feel very episodic at times, and often are, but as we age the throughline is not so much how our experiences make sense when viewed in a purely chronological cause and effect order, but how we have been changed by them over time. The througline is not the events in our lives, but how they have effected us and only realized in retrospect.
When Fritz Leiber is good, he’s very good. The thing that stands out to me the most about his writing is his ear for dialogue. He was born to parents who were actors and spent a lot of time around actors and in the theater scene. He knows how to write characters that feel very dynamic, where it’s very engaging just to see them talk and interact like you would characters in a stage play. There is a finely tuned sense of comedy and dramatic irony to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. They’ll bicker with each other and play off each other like a classic comedic duo or one of Shakespeare’s comedic characters. They’re well defined and each helps balance the temperament and flaws of the other.
The stories don’t take themselves too seriously and are fun. In this manner they really embody the whole swords and sorcery genre. Most of them are fairly imaginative and it’s entertaining to see how Fafrd and the Gray Mouser are going to get themselves out of whatever misadventure they’ve gotten themselves into. The worldbuilding is evocative but kind of loose where you can tell Fritz Leiber is just making it all up as he goes along and picking the names of things based on what feels most memorable. All in all, it kind of feels like a D&D campaign that an imaginative GM is just making up on the fly.
It also never gets too dumb. While it’s comedic it’s never pure comedy where the characters take themselves and what they are doing seriously and the world, while not super grimdark, is also not a cakewalk. The comedy tends to come from how Fafrd and the Gray Mouser bicker with each other and others and from situational things. Things often happen by chance that heighten the irony or dramatize the stakes. We as the audience often realize or know things that the characters don’t and watch with amusement how things unfold.
I think this is a very good takeaway for D&D campaigns. I find even if you want it to be a fun beer and pretzels affair, you need to kind of play the setting straight. It’s the players who will come up with the comedy through their characters and their antics. If both the characters and the setting are comedic then it all kind of gets too dumb.
Some of the stories are definitely better than others. There’s simply only so many plots you can have with short stories and these characters and more than a few of them have the relatively simple plot of: they are in search of some treasure they heard about; they get into some situation; and they get out of said situation with some fighting and trickery. This works most of the time but some times feels more like the story is going through the motions rather than being something different or really interesting. The stories also feel a bit dated and horny at times. Fafrd and the Gray Mouser seem to be continually lusting after nubile dancing girls and resuce/rewarded with various damsels in distress.
Which I guess works as the intended audience for a lot of the fantasy magazines he was publishing in was probably 15 year old boys, but, as an adult and reading all these stories one after another, it can make you roll your eyes at times.
I have the second volume of these stories; The Second Book of Lankhmar, but will probably take a break for a bit and read something else before reading it. Overall I enjoyed these stories. I think I like the world and setting of Conan better. But definitely like the whole characters and comedic duo of Fafrd and the Gray Mouser more.
I’d recommend these stories to most people. I know there’s a graphic novel series of them, I haven’t read it but can see why it would work well and be well suited towards that visual style of storytelling. I’d probably also recommend that more casual readers just pickup a “best of” collection. Both volumes of the completed works is probably over 1000 pages and there are enough middling stories in the complete works that you’d be fine just reading the “best of” unless your a hardcore fan or more serious reader like I am.