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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9726099" data-attributes="member: 8461">I just finished reading Fritz Leiber's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_and_Deviltry" target="_blank">Swords and Deviltry</a>, and came away suitably impressed.Notwithstanding the exceptionally short stories that I read <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-are-you-reading-in-2024.701874/post-9525434" target="_blank">last year</a>, this was my first read-through of The Twain's exploits (though they're never called that in this book), despite being familiar with them, Lankhmar, and Nehwon, mostly through their presentations in various old D&D products. Having read through Leiber's own writing at last, I find myself having a much better appreciation for the characters.Being the first chronological stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (albeit not the first that Leiber wrote, I'm given to understand), the book has four tales to tell. The first is little more than a two-page introduction, setting the proverbial stage. After that, we get Fafhrd's origin, then Gray Mouser's, and finally their meeting and teaming up.Reviewers far more skilled than myself have written about what makes Leiber's work so compelling, but for me it's that his writing has a skillful mixture of evocative and informative, never delving into purple prose but always being just flowery enough that it's never workmanlike. Combined with the fact that he seems to weave between action and exposition so surely that he makes them seem like two sides of the same coin, and it's no wonder that he's regarded as one of the great writers of his genre. The man could make checking your mailbox seem like an adventure and a commentary on your personality all at once.My one critique is the ease, during the final story ("Ill Met in Lankhmar"), with which Fafhrd and Gray Mouser become friends. To be fair, this is lampshaded both by the circumstance (where they unexpectedly try to rob the same group of thieves at the same time) and by their having very briefly met before (given a brief reference in each of their respective origin stories). Still, it feels just a tad too convenient how they become fast friends, though I'd posit that it's how the story ends that cements their partnership. As far as literary sins go, this is barely a venial one.I've heard for some time that Leiber's stories were among the most central in the pantheon of writing which inspired Gary Gygax; having finally partaken of them myself, I can absolutely see why that was.</blockquote>

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