Delicious Prose, Ironic Vision, & a Fun Odd Couple

Swords Against Death (1970), the second book in Fritz Leiber's classic sword and sorcery series featuring Fafhrd (the pale giant barbarian) and the Gray Mouser (the dusky, compact ex-slum boy), is a collection of ten entertaining short stories assembled by Leiber into a fix-up that, with some strain, is almost a composite novel dealing with the attempts of the duo to come to terms with the violent deaths of their beloved lovers at the end of the first book, Swords Against Deviltry (1970).

In the first story, "The Circle Curse" (1970), the friends are so sick of grief, guilt, and loss in Lankhmar that they leave the city forever, they believe, wandering the world of Nehwon and living by "thievery, robbery, bodyguarding, brief commissions as couriers and agents… and by showmanship," gaining "new scars and skills."

In "The Jewels in the Forest" (1939), Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser go on an amusing and suspenseful treasure hunt involving an architectural guardian, a quirky peasant family, and some rival rogues.

Multiple sets of characters compete for the possibly animated ruby-eyed skull and jeweled hands of an ancient Master Thief in the madcap "Thieves' House" (1943).

In "The Bleak Shore" (1940) a mysterious stranger puts a geas on the Mouser and Fafhrd to see if they can cheat Death, who commands sword-armed dinosaurs.

After their geas-quest, "The Howling Tower" (1941) finds the friends on their way back to Lankhmar, encountering belling ghost hounds, spooky bandages, and a cracked wizard.

In "The Sunken Land" (1942), Fafhrd catches a fish and finds an old ring its stomach: is he as lucky as he thinks or should he obey the Mouser's advice to throw the thing overboard?

In the loopy "The Seven Black Priests," still Lankhmar-bound, Fafhrd and the Mouser stir up a cult of black-skinned priests protecting a hill bearing an ominous stone face in the snowy Cold Wastes.

Back in Lankhmar, the friends are caught up in an avian crime wave that has left ladies of rank wearing protective gilded bird cages on their heads in "Claws from the Night" (1951).

"The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970) is an oddly moving story, in which the Mouser and Fafhrd take up housekeeping in a purloined ducal garden house set on the ashes of their former lovers. Although at first they enjoy their new digs (in which they find books of erotica and death), soon they are being visited by the ghosts of their loves, until they are compelled by impending madness to strike bad bargains with some mysterious wizards.

The collection closes with "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (1963), a satiric critique of mercantilism and consumerism. Are the inter-universal super-merchants who've set up shop in Lankhmar's Plaza of Dark Delights selling what the Mouser sees, lenses revealing "the blue heaven-pinnacle of the universe where angels flew shimmeringly like dragonflies and where a few choice heroes rested from their great mountain-climb and spied down critically on the ant-like labors of the gods many levels below"? Or what Fafhrd sees, "old bones, dead fish, butcher's offal, moldering gravecloths folded in uneven squares like badly bound uncut books, broken glass and potsherds, splintered boxes, large stinking dead leaves orange-spotted with blight, bloody rags, tattered discarded loincloths, large worms nosing about, centipedes a-scuttle, cockroaches a-stagger, maggots a-crawl"?

Despite ranging over roughly five decades (from the late 1930s till 1970), and despite Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser forgetting their dead lovers for entire stories, the tales in Swords Against Death mostly cohere in tone, plot, theme, and setting, unified by the rogue-adventure friends' relationship and by Leiber's baroque prose and sardonic vision. Leiber writes fresh and witty dialogue, as when the friends discuss a man who wrote poems daring adventurers to pilfer his jewels: "'The man's mind runs to skulls,' muttered the Mouser. 'He must have been a gravedigger or a necromancer,'" while Fafhrd chips in, "'Or an architect'" And he writes great descriptions, as in this one redolent with mood: "She stood breathless and poised, one hand touching a treetrunk, the other pressing some leaves, ready to fly away at the first sudden move. Fafhrd and the Mouser stood as stock-still as if she were doe or a dryad."

I enjoyed Jonathan Davis reading the third person narration of the stories in an American voice flavored by British and or Australian English and rare rolled Rs, and the Gray Mouser's lines in a quasi Australian-British accent and Fafhrd's in a straightforward American one, making it easy to distinguish between the two friends. His deeply intimidating Sheelba and purringly epicine Ningauble are spot on. Best of all, Davis revels in Leiber's rich and quirky prose, which percolates with alliteration and rhyme and archaic or obscure words.

Unlike Robert E. Howard's laconic loner Conan, Fafhrd and the Mouser are often a garrulous comedy duo, bantering about their different predilections and stratagems. Fans of the contemporary realistic fantasy of Martin, Erikson, Cook, and the like may not enjoy Leiber's old sword and sorcery, but I found that the dry wit, baroque style, anti-heroism, imaginative adventures, satires on religion and civilization, vividness of Nehwon and Lankhmar, and humor and horror, all make most of his stories (apart from their dated sexism, by which women--"girls"--are untrustworthy or "for dessert") entertaining.

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I love Neil Gaiman, but...

I chose this audiobook based on his rave reviews. After listening to it two audiobooks on half price sale, I decided it was better to get them from the library.

Even after that it was hard finishing them. Neil's memories of these are a bit more romanticized in his reflections as an adult. I think there are better books for my valuable credit.

The mouser and his companions adventurers simply weren't anything tremendous to write home about.

They were okay. Not a dud. But at $20 or even $12 a book its a bit pricey.

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Not as good as Deviltry

The second installment of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser saga did not disappoint. What I really enjoyed in Swords against Death was the introduction of Fafhrd and Mousers unusual mentors, the mysterious wizards/warlocks Sheelba of the eyeless face and Ningauble of the seven eyes.

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Getting to know old freinds again

Listening to this was like getting to know old freinds again. The voice acting and narraration is superior and done right. Really brings the characters to life. I will buy more in the series.

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Classical rogue

Swords Against Death is the second collection of stories about Fafhrd, the big northern barbarian, and The Gray Mouser, the small thief from the slums. For the past three years, the two have grown so close that they are now (as Neil Gaiman suggests in his introduction to the audio version) like two halves of the same person. They???ve been traveling the world together in an effort to forget their lost loves.

During their travels ???they acquired new scars and skills, comprehensions and compassions, cynicisms and secrecies ??? a laughter that lightly mocked, and a cool poise that tightly crusted all inner miseries,??? but they haven???t been able to assuage their guilt or lessen their feelings of loss outside of Lankhmar, the city which they swore never to return to.

But as Sheelba of the Eyeless Face prophesied (???Never and forever are neither for men. You???ll be returning again and again.???), Fafhrd and the Mouser are persuaded to return to Lankhmar where, it turns out, they have not been forgotten, and soon the duo is back to their old tricks and dealing with their former enemies in these stories: ???The Circle Curse,??? ???The Jewels in the Forest,??? ???Thieves??? House,??? ???The Bleak Shore,??? ???The Howling Tower,??? ???The Sunken Land,??? ???The Seven Black Priests,??? ???Claws from the Night,??? ???The Price of Pain-Ease,??? and ???Bazaar of the Bizarre.???

Some of the stories are better than others (my favorite was ???Bazaar of the Bizarre???) but all are ???classical rogue??? (Neil Gaiman???s term) and all are worth reading simply because they???re written in Fritz Leiber???s gorgeous prose, which is thick with alliteration, insight, and irony.

Jonathan Davis who does a terrific job with this series. His voices for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are perfect ??? Fafhrd sounds pensive, intellectual, and introverted while Gray Mouser sounds a bit greasy and common. I highly recommend this format; it adds an extra dimension to these fun stories.

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Better than book 1...

I still can't seem to connect with these two characters. It's possible that it's something to do with the narrator, though I thought he did a great job on Snow Crash...and he certainly doens't lack experience... Maybe it's just a hard book to read aloud. I dunno...but from chapter to chapter...it doesn't seem like these characters are developing. I don't like or dislike them...I just feel like I don't know them...and almost like they're different characters every time a new chapter starts.

Also still find the stories to be...missing some depth...and some are boring (yes, I know some are just to lead to others), and strange to say about fantasy...but some things are not terribly believable.

But as I said in my review of book 1, I'm just coming off of Jordan's Wheel of Time and Martin's Song of Ice and Fire...maybe just hard to compete with that. And maybe I'm expecting this to be one epic saga...and maybe it's just not...or at least not in the way I'm used to...

I would give this a 3.5, but not a 4 (so it gets a 3). And sorry, but I don't give credit for the "Citizen Kane factor" - I sat through it in film class and listened to the professor tell me how great it was...but as a movie compared to other movies I like, Citizen Kane was boring, slow moving, and had a boring ending - however groundbreaking and innovative it was for the time.

That said...there are plenty of good things about this book... and I'm going to go get book 3 now.

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Like reading your RPG adventure

I think I am too much of a role player to appreciate this as a novel. You may enjoy it, but I do not find it cohesive.

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not nearly as good as the first book

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If you loved the first book, don't bother with this one. None of the heros' previous knowledge actually informs their decisions in this one. In short, they are idiots, but in the first story, they were both were very clever, resourceful, and highly cognizant of the dangerous magical world in which they lived. In this book, they insist on disbelief in magical and mystical possibilities, and so fall stupidly into one situation after another due to "ignorance". It was VERY disappointing. I couldn't finish this book.

Has Swords Against Death turned you off from other books in this genre?

I won't read any more books in this series, but I very much enjoy books in this genre.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator seemed to fall out of character quite a bit, I often could not tell when Fathrd or the Gray Mouser was speaking. It would sound like Fathrd's voice, then the story would indicate that it was the Gray Mouser who was speaking. This was confusing.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Swords Against Death?

I would cut all the repetitive scenes, where Fathrd falls under trances, due to his ignorance. He should have known better, his own mother is a terrifying witch with tremendous power, and it took him a great deal of skillful, thoughtful maneuvering to outwit her. What happened? Lobotomy. He must have had a voluntary lobotomy. It's very disappointing. It seems that the author got extremely lazy in his situation set ups. As his editor, I would have insisted that he keep the characters original strengths and build on them, which would have called for more creative writing.

Any additional comments?

I want my $$ back.

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Wonderful Writing but a Major Disappointment

Listening to this book over 30 years since I'd first read it was an interesting experience. It was immediately apparent why Leiber is a legend of the genre. His writing is just so far superior to that of most writers. And the narrator was perfectly suited to Leiber's style. My only complaint, and it's a big one, is that this was not so much a novel as a series of short stories, each about some quest for a valuable object. I'm not a big fan of short stories in an audio format and would not have purchased this book had the blurb told the truth about it. AudioBooks should be sued for false advertising. I am now in a quandry as to whether listen to other books in the series. That's too bad because I love listening to Leiber.

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DAY OF THE TOAD

The best part of this book was when he gave you dates. The year of the Lion or Behemoth, the month of the Dragon or Hedge Hog, the day of the mouse or Toad, etc... The rest of the book was narration, the main characters barely spoke.

I knew I was in trouble when Gaiman began the narration. Audible had a project where Gaiman introduced some books that where no longer popular, but he loved and wanted to bring back. A great idea on paper, but there was a reason, these books did not stand the test of time and before you get all cranky with me, do your research. Take a look at the ratings on these books and most of them were bought by fans of Gaiman, who really wanted to like these books. Almost all of these books where failures.

Since I have already PO'd a few people let me continue with Davis the narrator. I have yet to like a book, he has narrated. I do not like his style, I do not like it with green eggs and ham, I do not like it Sam I Am. It is now to the point where I will not buy a book if he is the narrator.

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