The book opens with an induction -- a way of introducing the listener to the world of Lankhmar, an auditory map of the lands and peoples of Leiber's original fantasy world. From there we move into the first story, "The Snow Women" which tells of how Fafhrd, a strong barbarian of the steppes, falls in love with Vlana, a southern prostitute and dancer come to meet the barbarians on their once yearly pilgrimage to the southernmost point of their lands.
The handsome Fafhrd is consumed with Vlana's tales of Lankhmar, and must find a way to escape the matriarchal society of the barbarian North to reach that fabled city. Always an outsider, Fafhrd finds his release and is thereby set on a collision course with the Gray Mouser. The story is highly erotic, if a bit slowly paced. It is more a slice of life description of who Fafhrd was before he became part of the action-adventure duo than a exciting tale in its own right.
In "The Unholy Grail" the Gray Mouser goes by another name and is wizard's apprentice to Glavas Rho, and illegal magic user in the lands of Duke Janarl. When the morally wavering Mouser returns from a pilgrimage to find his master dead and is made captive of Duke Janarl, he uses black magic to confuse his enemies and curse Duke Janarl to a slow but inevitable death. Near death himself, the Gray Mouser is found by Ivrian, the Duke's daughter, and nursed back to health through her secret knowledge.
The Gray Mouser is healed, only to be captured by the Duke again. The Gray Mouser stands on a cusp, will he commit himself to black magic and so live? Or chose white magic and die? Like Fafhrd's story before it, "The Unholy Grail" describes the transition of a character, but whereas Fafhrd must chose only between life in the wastes and life in the city, the Gray Mouser must choose between evil and good, and is therefore a much more exciting story than "The Snow Women."
One night in Lankhmar, two thieves steal gems from the house of Jengao the gem merchant only to be separately ambushed on their way to the thieves' home by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Successfully making off with the gems, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser see the advantages of forming an adventuring partnership (which includes their lovers) and chose as their first target the Thieves' Guild itself. But their enterprise may be their undoing when Krovas, Grandmaster of Thieves, retaliates. What a story! Well-deserving of its Nebula and Hugo awards, it is fresh, exciting and unpredictable, and is why Leiber tales have enjoyed longstanding popularity since the characters were first introduced in August 1939.
This particular collection is the place to start if you have an interest in sword and sorcery (a term Fritz Leiber is credited with inventing). "The Snow Women" is rather slowly paced, but will be of interest to readers as an origin story, and "The Unholy Grail" and "Ill-Met in Lankhmar" are exciting adventures. Leiber has significant mastery over the adjective, making the stories very vivid in their detail, so the stories translate very well into audio form. The reader is easily able, with just Leiber's words alone, to see the setting and action in their mind's eye with relative ease -- though this can also lead to a slowing down of the plot as reader Jonathan Davies plows through Leiber's voluminous descriptions.
Davies's careful and pleasant baritone gives the story a real life. His men are particularly excellent, with a wide variance of voices. Davies fails to really capture the women, as his falsettos carry too much of the masculine in them to really breathe life into Vlana and Ivrian. Still, Davies does make these stories entertaining with his vocal talents, and I wouldn't mind hearing him paired with a woman for future Leiber collections.
If you like sword and sorcery, action-adventure in a pre-medieval world, then Fritz Leiber's Swords and Deviltry is an excellent addition to your collection. (John Ottigner, SFSite)
At the start of “Lean Times in Lankhmar” (1959) the twain are separated because of lack of money. There are several amusing theories why this happened but none of them are confirmed. The Mouser ends up as an enforcer to Pulg who extorts money from small time priests while Fafhrd gets a religious awakening and becomes the only acolyte of Issek of the Jug. Fafhrd uses his skills as a skald to invent interesting adventures to the minor god and lots of people start to follow Issek’s pacifist ways. Of course, that means conflict with Pulg and his chief enforcer.
“Their Mistress, the Sea” (1968) is a very short story, only a couple of pages, where the duo recuperate from their previous adventures by doing a spot of pirating.
In “When the Sea-King’s Away” (1960) Fafhrd and the Mouser have been on the sea for a long time when Fafhrd starts to babble about the Sea-King’s wives and concubines who are lonely and looking for mortal lovers when the King himself is away. At first the Mouser thinks that his northern companion has lost his mind because of too long in the sun but then a passageway into the sea opens underneath their boat. The Mouser is hesitant to enter it but Fafhrd descends, looking for women and treasures. The Mouser has no choice but to follow his friend.
“The Wrong Branch” (1968): After their underwater adventure, the friends are convinced that the Sea-King has put a curse on them and they decide to consult Ningauble of the Seven Eyes for a cure. However, they find themselves in a whole new world: the Ancient Earth.
“Adept’s Gambit” (1947): The duo are quite at home in the new world, in Tyre. However, they are plagued by a new curse: when Fafhrd kisses a girl, she’s transformed into a sow. At first Fafhrd suspects the Mouser is playing a horrible prank. But then almost all of the girls the Mouser kisses are turned into slugs and they decided to consult Ningauble. The Gossiper of Gods tells them, after beating around the bush, that an adept is targeting them, and in order to fight the adept the duo will need various items. While lots of modern writers would have made an entire book out of each item, Leiber takes just a funny paragraph or two, and then the actual adventure begins. The story starts out funny but soon feels more like horror. The Elder Gods are mentioned a couple of times.
All of these stories are funny with lots of witty but long sentences. When the Sea-King’s Away especially has great descriptions. The second story makes fun of religions.
I found it a bit strange that Leiber brought the duo to Earth but then didn’t involve them in any historical or mythic stuff. There are a few references to myths created by deeds they had done, for example, Fafhrd and the Mouser supposedly defended a city against Alexander the Great, but they were actually a bit frustrating to me. I’d have preferred to read that story!
Still, the stories are funny and entertaining, especially the second one which pits Fafhrd and the Mouser against each other, sort of. And makes a point about the gods in Lankhmar and the gods of Lankhmar (you just don’t piss off the latter). (Mervi's Book Reviews)
"In the Witch's Tent" is a very short introductory story in which Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser visit a witch who prophesies about the events to come in the next story.
In the novella "Stardock" (1965, Fantastic), our heroes and an ice-cat companion climb the forbidding mountain Stardock where they hope to find "a pouch of stars." This story is slow in the beginning when the boys are climbing, but once they conquer Stardock, things get pretty exciting and, after leaving some incubating DNA behind, they leave the mountain with a bag of jewels that can only be seen at night. All of Fritz Leiber's stories are gorgeously written, but "Stardock" has some of my favorite lines:
Fafhrd said dreamily, "They say the gods once dwelt and had their smithies on Stardock and from thence, amid jetting fire and showering sparks, launched all the stars; hence her name. They say diamonds, rubies, smaragds -- all great gems -- are the tiny pilot models the gods made of the stars... and then threw carelessly away across the world when their great work was done."
I wish I could play those lines for you from the audio version read by Jonathan Davis. It's beautiful.
"The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" (1968, Fantastic) is a fun short story that takes place after the boys return to the city after their conquest of Stardock. Apparently they got sick of each other on the way home (that happens occasionally and is a clue to the type of story that comes next), so they split up the jewels and went their separate ways. Both are trying to sell their share of the jewels, which is a problem because these gems can only be seen at night. When the story begins, the reader assumes that "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" refers to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but we all learn soon enough that what the Mouser says is true: Deal with a woman -- surest route to disaster.
"The Lords of Quarmall" (1964, Fantastic) is one of my favorite Leiber novellas. Having split up for a time, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser have, unbeknownst to them, each been hired to be the champion of two horrible brothers who hate each other and who want their father's throne. The brother who hired the Mouser lives in subterranean caves underneath the brother who hired Fafhrd. Even though we can guess how the story will end, this is a creative tale with a grand setting. Fritz Leiber's fantastic imagination is on full display in this story, and it beautifully highlights the sweet relationship these two rogues have with each other. (Amazon)
It should come as no surprise to anyone that this mission for the Overlord is not as simple as it first appears. Before long, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser find themselves contending with unexpected obstacles, not least being the truth about the rats and their trainer, leading to one of the more unusual adventures they've ever undertaken, which is saying something!
As I mentioned some weeks ago in another context, I'd never read this novel in my younger years. I'm not even sure I was aware of its existence until comparatively recently, when I was warned by others that Leiber's later Lankhmar tales, starting with The Swords of Lankhmar were not as accomplished as his earlier ones. I think that warning was a fair one, if taken in context. This novel is a bit more ponderous than the short stories that won me over to Leiber as a teenager. Some of that is a function of its length: novels are almost always less fast-paced than are short stories. However, some of it is also a function of Leiber's having changed -- or "matured," if you prefer -- as a writer when he wrote this. Though still packed with all the excitement and derring-do one would expect of a swords-and-sorcery story by one of its acknowledged masters, it's also strangely introspective at time, a reflection not only of its writer's age but also of his characters', for, unlike many pulp fantasy writers, Leiber does not shy away from showing his protagonists growing older and being affected by that growth.
Regardless, The Swords of Lankhmar is a superb fantasy story well told. Reading through it, I found myself many times thinking, "This is what D&D is supposed to be like" -- lovable rogues, evil wizards, dimension-hopping zookeepers, dark and decadent cities, and rats. Forget Vance and Howard and Tolkien (well, not literally), because Leiber is where Dungeons & Dragons was born. Even if you've already read and enjoyed his stuff, it's worth picking up again. You won't regret it. (James Malisszewski, Grognardia)
Leiber's version of Tarzan is a good deal like Philip Jose Farmer's, only more virtuous and likeable. Well educated and sophisticated, he travels by jet with a letter of authority from Queen Elizabeth in his billfold, but he's more at home sharing at meal of raw peccary with the lion Major. We follow the Apeman's thoughts on many subjects, especially the nature of violence, and Leiber avoids the preachy little sermons Burroughs sometimes threw in.
It's interesting that when the Apeman strips off his light tweed suit and appears in loincloth, he suddenly becomes a bit frightening. "In putting off his clothes, he seemed to have become taller and at the same time brawnier and leaner, while his face had grown graver and harder..." His mannerisms change also as he beomes his truer self. One of his friends says, "You don't look like the same man at all."
The animal language that Burroughs devised (where 'numa' means lion) is described here as growls, grunts and rumblings rather than actual spoken words. The fact that a jaguar in Brazil responds to the African "vando sheeta" impresses Tarzan, who thinks, "Yes, it must be deeper than what human beings call language, as I've always thought.' There is also one very intriguing comment that "only a Neanderthal among men" would have understood this..there's something to think about.
The only real criticism I have of this book is that there is just too much travelogue and historical background about Brazil in the first half. Characters launch into detailed speeches with dates and names that read as if cut and pasted out of a textbook. At 316 pages, VALLEY OF GOLD would have benefitted from some judicious trimming.
Leiber goes to some lengths to explain exctly what kind of a megalomaniac Augustus Vinaro is. More than the standard James Bond-villain, Vinaro has an elaborate religion of Death worship that slowly reveals his increasing insanity. The precarious relationship with his captive girlfriend is believably ominous as she tries to cope with his touchy genius. The exploding jewelry (a simple visual gimmick in the movie) is given deep symbolic meaning here.
A touch I really enjoyed is that whenever Tarzan reflects on one of his past adventures, a footnote mentions the Burroughs book in which it happened. VALLEY OF GOLD doesn't go into the earlier stories in detail but the frequent (and accurate) references really help to convince that this is in fact Tarzan. And it is very satisfying that even TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN is mentioned as a past event, not dismissed as apocryphal. As when the Apeman casually says he has discovered living dinosaurs in Pal-Ul-Don, the statement simply stands for itself.
There are quite a few similarities between Tarzan and Doc Savage here, other than the constant references to "the bronzed giant". Although the Apeman is an expert shot and guns are one of his hobbies (!), he has a strong compulsion not to use a gun in a real fight and his reasoning is reminiscent of Doc's. "...he detested the way such guns made people rely on their machines and armies, not on the strength of their own bodies...and on the wit of their own minds." Far away, on the 86th floor, a voice says, "You've got that right."
There is much more in this book worth noting, including the idea that Tarzan himself is not certain why he has stayed young for so long, or how long it will continue to last. But the main point is that TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD is well-crafted and thought out, thoroughly entertaining and deserving of more attention that it has gotten. I have only once actually seen a copy in a lifetime spent haunting used bookstores and local libraries, and it's a shame that this adventure is not kept in print. (ERBZine)
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