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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2106154" data-attributes="member: 812">So I dropped sixty bucks in my local used-book store, and came away with (among many other treasures including the d20 Menace Manual for $20) a copy ofThe Swords Of LankhmarThe old Ace paperback, with the Jeff Jones cover of Karl Teurhez on his dragon.And I fell in love in all over again.TSoL was the first Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser book I ever read. It was probably the first non-Tolkein fantasy novel I ever read (my memory on all that gets blurry -- ERB's Barsoom books might have come previously). I haven't read it in well over a decade and probably longer. Not since my teenage years, I shouldn't think.Man have I been missing out.What a GREAT book! It's got two of the best heroes of all time, a great map of Nehwon, fantastic swordfights, humour, terror (often combined with humour in Lieber's effortless way), a lively cast of memorable supporting characters (even the minor characters like the girl who tricks Fafhrd into sleeping with a cow stand out clearly in the mind). And all told in Lieber's unique style with its half-baroque, half-colloquial language that evokes a world wholly its own.HUGE climactic sequence, beautiful girls all over the place, magic and mayhem and surprises and the weird and wonderful world of Nehwon with all its craziness.This is what fantasy adventure novels are all about.Damn, I'd LOVE to make this into a movie. It roars along at a spectacular click, not an excess word anywhere, just enough description to give you what you need to fill in the rest. Torture, titillation and triumph.And a lot of sex. It's a very sexy novel, both in the nature of the world (Nehwon seems as nearly driven by sexual urges as is, say, our world) and the attitudes of the characters.But ultimately, the novel is about a great friendship, about two great spirits who love each other deeply in a manner that is BEYOND sex (and I think that's maybe the point of the book, inasmuch as it has a point). It's about the things we will do for love. Love unconnected to lust or greed or insecurity. And how that love can surpass and embrace all else.If you haven't read this, you're missing out on a great classic of fantasy adventure.</blockquote>

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