The Complete Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

This is what I believe to be the most accurate listing available online of all the published Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories written by Fritz Leiber. It also includes a vignette written by Harry Otto Fischer—the man who created the characters—and a fragment by Leiber that was posthumously published in 1997. At the end, I’ve listed the estate approved novel and two state approved short stories written by other hands. Note that I have not included information on the poem or poems published variously as “The Grey Mouser” and “The Gray Mouser,” owing to bibliographical complexity. A later post will consist of a variorum of this piece or these pieces.

 

I very strongly believe that series stories should be read in the order of composition when known, and in order of publication when not. There are several reasons for this, and I’ll probably post about those reasons at some point. This listing uses order of publication, though there is more information about order of composition for the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series available to researchers than there is for many other series characters. It must be said, however, that the ultimate “internal chronological ordering” of the stories, as published in seven collections published between 1968 and 1988, was set by Leiber himself, which I suppose makes a difference. Even there, though, those seven books were not released in the volume order in which they are now offered (though the modern order was Leiber’s preferred reading order).

 

You will find forty-four entries in what follows. There are forty pieces by Leiber: twenty short stories, ten novelettes, eight novellas, one fragment, and one novel. Note that some of what are listed as short stories, among them those written for the collections Swords against Wizardry, Swords in the Mist, and Swords Against Death, are very brief indeed, to the point of more properly being considered vignettes, though I have never seen them indexed as such. Those in the “Swords” books were written specifically to provide “connective tissue” between previously published stories in the collections, which, as has been said, was Leiber’s attempt to have the stories published in what he wished to present as internal chronological order.

 

Each entry lists the piece by title, then by the publication in which the piece first appeared with supplemental information as seemed appropriate, then by listed date of publication. Also provided is the length or form of each piece (short story, novelette, etc) and then which of the seven “Swords” books collects them, if any. Finally, many of the entries include a notes section, detailing some of the composition and publishing complexities specific to that item.

 

After the listing of individual pieces, I’ve listed the seven “Swords” collections twice. The first list details the order in which the books were originally published, and the second list provides the author’s preferred order. Modern reprints universally offer the seven books in this last order.

 

I took the information I needed to generate this list from four main sources, each of which have their merits and deficiencies. First, I used the original publications where possible, usually in digital facsimile. Many of the magazine appearances of “the Twain,” especially the earliest, are available as pdfs downloadable from the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction pages of the Luminist Archive of Periodicals. Second, I used the Internet Speculative Database’s bibliographical entry for Fritz Leiber, with its sublisting of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. Next, I used the incalculably valuable Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Magazine Index, at which I found no ordering errors, but which lists only those stories that appeared in periodicals. Finally, and no less valuable than the two websites just listed, was the “Bibliography of Newhon Sources” chapter of the Judges Guide to Newhon, published by the current holders of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tabletop roleplaying game license, Goodman Games.

 

[I here note, with no small degree of frustration, that the linking functionality of blogspot does not seem to be working, or at least I can’t make it work. Search engines should be able to find all the mentioned sources easily enough.]

 

I originally encountered Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the “Swords” series of Ace Paperbacks in the 1980s (so, before the release of the last volume, which I only recently read for the first time). Those seven books are now available in print on demand and electronic versions from Open Road Media. Note that the Opern Road editions do not include the valuable author introductions Leiber provided for the originals.

 

My preferred reading copies of the books are those produced by Centipede Press, who, in 2023, published the seventh book. These were collectible, limited run editions and are now out of print. I recommend finding them on the secondary market, though some may find them prohibitively expensive. I believe the abundant apparatus and gorgeous design and illustrations make them worth it to an afficionado (and indeed, some of the listed material is now only available in this set). Eighth and ninth volumes are forthcoming and will round out the Centipede Press run. They will consist of the estate approved pastiche novel and a book of art.

 

So, to it.

 

 

1)    “Two Sought Adventure” |  Unknown, vol. 1, # 6, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr.  |  August 1938 |  novelette |  Swords Against Death |   This was retitled “Jewels in the Forest” when first reprinted in Leiber’s 1957 Gnome Press Fafhrd and Gray Mouser collection, Two Sought Adventure, and has appeared under that title in all subsequent reprints.

2)    “The Bleak Shore”  |  Unknown, vol. 4, # 3, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. |  November 1940 |  short story |  Swords Against Death

3)    “The Howling Tower”  |  Unknown, vol. 5, # 1, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. |  June 1941 |  short story |  Swords Against Death

4)    “The Sunken Land”  |  Unknown Worlds, vol. 5, # 5, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. |  February 1942 |  short story |  Swords Against Death

5)    “Thieves’ House”  |  Unknown Worlds, vol. 6, # 5, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. |  February 1943 |  novelette |  Swords Against Death

6)    Adept’s Gambit |  Night’s Black Agents, collection, Arkham House |  January 1947 |  novella |  Swords in the Mist |  This was the first Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story written, having been completed in 1936. It was initially published in Leiber’s first book, then did not appear again until it was reprinted in the May 1964 issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, vol. 13, # 5, ed. Cele Goldsmith.

7)    “Dark Vengeance”  |  Suspense Magazine, vol. 1, # 3, ed. Theodore Irwin |  Fall 1951 |  novelette |  Swords Against Death |  This was retitled “Claws from the Night” when first reprinted in Leiber’s 1957 Gnome Press Fafhrd and Gray Mouser collection, Two Sought Adventure; it has appeared under that title in all subsequent reprints.

8)    “The Seven Black Priests”  |  Other Worlds, vol. 5, # 5, whole # 29, ed. Bea Mahaffey and Ray Palmer |  May 1953 |  novelette |  Swords Against Death

9)    “Induction”  |  Two Sought Adventure, collection, Gnome Press |  January 1957 |  short story |  Swords and Deviltry

10) “Lean Times in Lankhmar”  |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 8, # 11, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  November 1959 |  novelette |  Swords in the Mist |  The issue of Fantastic Science Fiction Stories in which this story appeared was a special “all Fritz Leiber” issue.

11) “When the Sea King’s Away”  |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 9, # 5, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  May 1960 |  novelette |  Swords in the Mist

12) Scylla’s Daughter |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 10, # 5, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  May 1961 |  novella |  none |  This novella was begun as “The Tale of the Grain Ships” in 1936 but set aside. It has only been reprinted twice, in anthologies in 1986 and in 1997, but never appeared in any Leiber-specific collection, having been incorporated into the 1968 novel, The Swords of Lankhmar.

13) “The Unholy Grail”  |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 11, # 10, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  October 1962 |  novelette |  Swords and Deviltry

14) “The Cloud of Hate”  |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 12, # 5, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  May 1963 |  short story |  Swords in the Mist

15) “Bazaar of the Bizarre”  |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 12, # 8, ed. Cele Goldsmith |  August 1963 |  novelette |  Swords Against Death

16) The Lords of Quarmall |  Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, vol. 13, #s 1 & 2, both ed. Cele Goldsmith |  January 1964 and February 1964 (serial) |  novella |  Swords Against Wizardry |  This must be considered as co-authored with character creator Harry Fischer, who wrote 10,000 words of the piece in 1936.

17) Stardock |  Fantastic, vol. 15, # 1, ed. Joseph Ross |  September 1965 |  novella |  Swords Against Wizardry

18) The Swords of Lankhmar |  Ace Books |  January 1968 |  novel |  eponymous

19) “In the Witch’s Tent”  |  Swords Against Wizardry |  July 1968 |  short story |  Swords Against Wizardry

20) “The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar”  |  Swords Against Wizardry |  July 1968 |  short story |  Swords Against Wizardry

21) “Their Mistress the Sea”  |  Swords in the Mist |  September 1968 |  short story |  Swords in the Mist

22) “The Wrong Branch”  |  Swords in the Mist |  September 1968 |  short story |  Swords in the Mist

23) The Snow Women |  Fantastic, vol. 19, # 4, ed. Ted White |  April 1970 |  novella |  Swords and Deviltry

24) Ill Met in Lankhmar |  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, vol. 38, # 4, whole # 227 |  April 1970 |  novella |  Swords and Deviltry

25) “The Circle Curse”  |  Swords Against Death |  July 1970 |  short story |  Swords Against Death

26) “The Price of Pain-Ease”  |  Swords Against Death |  July 1970 |  short story |  Swords Against Death

27) “The Sadness of the Executioner”  |  Flashing Swords! #1, anthology, ed. Lin Carter, Nelson Doubleday |  April 1973 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

28) “Trapped in the Shadowland”  |  Fantastic, vol. 23, # 1, ed. Ted White |  November 1973 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

29) “The Bait”  |  Whispers, vol. 1, # 2, ed. Stuart David Schiff |  December 1973 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

30) “Beauty and the Beasts”  |  The Book of Fritz Leiber, collection, DAW Books |  January 1974 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

31) “Under the Thumbs of the Gods”  |  Fantastic, vol. 24, # 3, ed. Ted White |  April 1975 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

32) “Trapped in the Sea of Stars”  |  The Second Book of Fritz Leiber, collection, DAW Books |  September 1975 |  short story |  Swords and Ice Magic

33) “The Frost Monstreme”  |  Flashing Swords! #3: Warriors and Wizards, anthology, ed. Lin Carter, Dell |  August 1976 |  novelette |  Swords and Ice Magic

34) Rime Isle |  Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, vol. 1, #s 1 & 2, ed. David G. Hartwell |  May 1977 and July 1977 (serial) |  novella |  Swords and Ice Magic

35) “Sea Magic”  |  The Dragon Magazine, vol. 2, # 5, whole # 11, ed. Timothy J. Kask |  December 1977 |  short story |  The Knight and Knave of Swords

36) “The Childhood and Youth of the Gray Mouser”  |  The Dragon Magazine, vol. 3, # 4, whole # 18, ed. Timothy J. Kask |  September 1978 |  vignette |  This brief piece was written by Harry Fischer. Its only subsequent appearance has been its reprinting in the Centipede Press Swords and Deviltry.

37)  “The Mer She”  |  Heroes and Horrors, collection, Whispers Press |  December 1978 |  novelette |  The Knight and Knave of Swords

38) The Curse of the Smalls and Stars |  Heroic Visions, anthology, ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Ace Fantasy Books |  March 1983 |  novella |  The Knight and Knave of Swords

39) “The Mouser Goes Below”  |  Whispers, vol. 6, #s 3 & 4, whole #s 23 and 24, ed. Stuart David Schiff |  October 1987 |  short story |  This was combined with “Slack Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring Hisvet” when reprinted under this title in The Knight and Knave of Swords.

40) “Slack Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring Hisvet”  |  Terry’s Universe, collection, ed. Beth Meacham, Tor |  June 1988 |  short story |  This was combined with “The Mouser Goes Below” into “The Mouser Goes Below” in The Knight and Knave of Swords.

41) “The Tale of the Grain Ships: A Fragment”  |  The New York Review of Science Fiction, ed. Ariel Haméon, David G. Hartwell, & Kevin J. Maroney  |  May 1997 |  fragment |  This was reprinted in a collection of Leiber ephemera and rarities in 2010 and is otherwise only in the Centipede Press The Swords of Lankhmar.

42) Pastiche: Swords Against the Shadowland |  White Wolf Publishing |  August 1998 |  novel |  none |  This is an estate approved pastiche novel by Robin Wayne Bailey.

43) Pastiche: “Guilty Creatures”  |  Tales From the Magician’s Skull #6 |  July 2021 |  short story |  none |  This is an estate approved pastiche short story by Nathan Long.

44) Pastiche: “Pawns’ Gambit”  |  Tales From the Magician’s Skull #9 |  January 2023 |  short story |  none |  This is an estate approved pastiche short story by Nathan Long.

 

The “Swords” Collections in Order of Initial Publication

 

1)    The Swords of Lankhmar (Vol. 5), January 1968

2)    Swords Against Wizardry (Vol. 4), July 1968

3)    Swords in the Mist (Vol. 3), September 1968

4)    Swords and Deviltry (Vol. 1), May 1970

5)    Swords Against Death (Vol. 2), July 1970

6)    Swords and Ice Magic (Vol. 6), July 1977

7)    The Knight and Knave of Swords (Vol. 7), December 1988

 

The “Swords” Collections in the Author’s Preferred Reading Order

 

1)    Swords and Deviltry (Vol. 1), May 1970

2)    Swords Against Death (Vol. 2), July 1970

3)    Swords in the Mist (Vol. 3), September 1968

4)    Swords Against Wizardry (Vol. 4), July 1968

5)    The Swords of Lankhmar (Vol. 5), January 1968

6)    Swords and Ice Magic (Vol. 6), July 1977

7)    The Knight and Knave of Swords (Vol. 7), December 1988

Will no one rid me of this persistent untruth?

Fritz Leiber did not coin the term sword and sorcery (or, as he originally phrased it, sword-and-sorcery) in the pages of the famous fanzine Amra. 

Here’s what happened.

Michael “Mike” Moorcock wrote an article in Amra, volume 2, number 15, dated May 1961, entitled “Putting a Tag on It,” in which he is responding to a letter from Sprague de Camp (provenance not cited) that used the term “Prehistoric-Adventure-Fantasy” to describe the “Thing.” Moorcock proposes “Epic Fantasy.” (He also, of interest to our taxonomists—among whom I number myself—lists his five requirements, A through E, of a “basic general formula” for s&s.)

In the next issue, volume 2, number 16, early July 1961, in the “Blunders” editorial, a writer who was certainly George Scithers (using the editorial “we”), says of the demise of the two major heroic fantasy magazines: “Indeed, Weird Tales and Unknown/Unknown Worlds are long defunct; both were noted for swordplay-and-sorcery stories.”

And yes, in a letter (“Swackle”) later in that same issue, on page 21, Leiber writes: “I feel more certain than ever [that this field] should be called the sword-and-sorcery story.” Note the brackets. And note further, the editorial insertion immediately following Leiber’s purported letter to Amra: “The above paragraph was written to and printed in Ancalagon, a fanzine published by G R Heap, address cited.” 

The first issue of Ancalagon, which was an organ of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, was dated March 1961. It was edited by George Heap, who, in an interesting sidelight, published the sole issue in Volume 1 of Amra in 1955, four years before Scithers and company took up the title with the second volume. The issue opens with Heap’s “On Fantasy-Adventure.” It is a six page single-space typed discussion of what to name what Moorcock would, two months later, call “epic fantasy.” There’s a suggestion here  that the whole question of terminology may have originated at a recent “Hyborian Legion muster.” More on the Hyborian Legion later, perhaps.

It is in the second issue of Ancalagon (only three would appear), dated April 1961, that Leiber makes his famous pronouncement in a letter of perhaps 350 words. The quote that Scithers et al changed up a bit, in the original letter, reads: “ANCALAGON looks nice, especially the cover (where the art seems nicely gaged to the method of reproduction) and the article on fantasy-adventure—a field which I feel more than ever should be called the sword-and-sorcery story.”

He goes on to write:

“At any rate I’ll use sword-and-sorcery as a good popular catchphrase for the field. It won’t interfere with the use of a more formal designation of the field…when one finally comes along or is finally settled on.”

I find the article in the first issue of Ancalogon of considerably greater interest and of greater substance than the Moorcock piece cited above. There’s also another letter in Ancalogon #2 besides Leiber’s of some length that adds to the discussion written by Gary Deindorfer of Morrisville, PA, and a third, shorter, attributed to a “grh.”

The whole issue of nomenclature, then being discussed side by side with the same battles over definition that continue down through today, is spread out over quite a few issues of several early 60s fanzines. You can find the issues of Ancalagon, but not Amra, at fanac.org.

Conan: Black Starlight by John C. Hocking

This second entry in Titan Books’ Heroic Legends series, which chronicles new adventures of Robert E. Howard’s many fantasy characters, is to my mind the best of the excellent lot, at least thus far. Conan: Black Starlight is written by John C. Hocking, considered by many to be the finest living writer of fiction’s most famous barbarian. 

I will describe in a moment the placement of this story in the Conan mythos, which is just a bit complicated, but must first offer, in the strongest possible terms, assurances that this story may be productively read on its own. It absolutely stands as a single, unified piece full of robust action, cosmic horror, and resolute courage in the face of impossible odds—all the hallmarks of the best sword and sorcery in general and of a Conan tale in particular.

But completists may be interested in knowing that the story serves as a “midquel” between Hockings’ two

full-length Conan novels. Conan and the Emerald Lotus was first published in 1995 as part of Tor Books’ lengthy series of homage novels and is justly considered the best of that line. A long-delayed and much-anticipated sequel is Conan and the Living Plague. Both books have just been published by Titan Books in an omnibus edition, Conan: City of the Dead.
 
I again rush to say it is not necessary to read the two novels to read Black Starlight with delight. That said, treating this story as the middle course in a fantastic feast between the two novels to be found in the new omnibus would certainly provide a reward different in kind but not in degree of enjoyment. I did not read the three in sequential order, but I certainly plan to when I inevitably return to this wonderful tale, by this wonderful writer.

Conan: Black Starlight and Conan: City of the Dead are available wherever ebooks are sold.

 

Swords and Sorcery Magazine, May 2023 (#136)

Swords and Sorcery Magazine continues its astonishingly consistent publication schedule with this, the 136^th issue. Since launching over ten years ago, the magazine has only very rarely missed a month, usually offering up three stories, those usually being of excellent quality. Here are my thoughts on this month’s offerings.

 
Mike Adamson, a small press stalwart with over 75 published stories to his name, starts us off with “The Black Cult of Tarantium,” which is as sword and sorcery a title as you could possibly ask for. The story opens with several paragraphs of worldbuilding in the form of summary, making me wonder if this story, and its protagonist the warrior priest Zareft, are part of a series. It’s not an overly-elegant beginning, throwing a bunch of unfamiliar proper nouns at readers—a technique that can work splendidly (“Know, oh prince…”)—but here is a bit of a slog.
 
The reportage continues until the first line of dialogue, which doesn’t show up until well past the halfway point of the story. Descriptions of both the physical setting and of recent events are only very occasionally interspersed in the first half with a paragraph or two about actions being taken by Zareft, but even those are static.
 
Adamson writes here in consistently long paragraphs, usually of 150 to 200 words, only very rarely breaking the pattern with a welcome paragraph of one or two sentences. Even his dialogue is buried in such paragraphs, consisting mostly of long recitations of the villain about his plans and powers. The hero never speaks.
 
The story itself would be quite interesting but for the stylistic choices the author has made. Sword and sorcery characters who depend upon religious faith (upon even efficacious prayer, as is the case with Zareft) are few and far between. The world of the story is interesting and feels like it has a real history, but it is described rather than inhabited, just as Zareft remains something of a cypher despite the reader’s access to his inner thoughts. The piece has its merits but was ultimately a miss for me.
 
“In the Attic of the Mountain King” is by Dan Crawford, who has been writing material of genre interest for almost forty years—including a fantasy trilogy from Ace in the 1990s—most recently in Wyngraf. I love the allusion to Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite” in the title, but far from being an otherworldly “hall,” the “attic” of the title turns out to be an over-crowded curiosity shop.
 
The proprieter is one Olki, who has been in business for at least four and a half centuries. He is happy for an interruption to a task he loathes—tidying up—when he welcomes a customer, a would-be future queen of a dynasty that lost its throne seven hundred years in the past.
 
The secret of this delightful story is that it is anthropological in its methodology. Just as archeologists and anthropologists construct the past out of physical culture, here, the author constructs an entire fantasy world out of magical swords, self-thumping drums, and, of course, ancient tomes of wisdom, all haphazardly arrayed in Olki’s enormous shop, itself concealed somewhere deep in a swamp. 
 
But despite how dusty everything on the shelves is, there’s no dustiness to this prose and this worldbuilding. Crawford knows what he’s doing, and he plays tropes like the strings of one of his magical harps. Everything the proprietor and his customer seek or examine will be familiar to readers of fantasy in its generalities if not in its particularities, and those particularities are rendered with warmth and humor. Any fan of secondary world fantasy, not just sword and sorcery, will find much to admire in this piece.
 
At 8,000 words, “The Bog Witch of Dirk-au-fen” by Vincent Wolfram just nudges into novelette territory and is quite a bit longer than either of the other offerings in this month’s issue. Wolfram has trod light upon the internet indeed, but his biography here lists several previous publications and I assume he’s the same Vincent Wolfram who wrote Dread Sonnets, a horror poetry collection.
 
The language of this story certainly shows a poet’s hand. Here is one exemplary sentence from the very beginning of the tale: “The highland fields he had crossed were green, the mournful rains of autumn sustaining the grasses a little longer before frost turned them as white-haired as old men.” Lovely.
 
Our protagonist is a giant, “twenty hands tall,” named Bron of Sindrum. He and his long-horned bull mount, Vincarlo, are far from home and on an early winter’s day come to the village of Dirk-au-fen, which he finds being whipped into a paroxysm of witch finding.
 
The religious leader of the village recognizes Brom as the “Banesman of Chokefast,” a dragonslayer. Brom’s reaction to being so named, and his reaction to the villagers’ chattering about his legendary deed, bring to mind Barbara Hambly’s extraordinary novel Dragonsbane, with its reluctant foe of wyrms. For me, that’s high praise indeed.
 
Befriended by a villager, Brom accompanies the man into the swamp to fish for dinner. Brom is a vegetarian but agrees to haul in catfish for his host and his ailing wife. They are attacked by a monstrous agent of the witch of the title, but Brom handily deals with the matter, laughing all the while. The witch appears, “beautiful for a ghost-woman of the fen” with “moon-wan hands.” More poetry. (As an aside, I’m always delighted when I get to log on to the Oxford English Dictionary to look up a word new to me; here, one is “ingleside,” a chiefly Scots term for fireside. Even better, “treacher,” an obsolete word from Middle English describing a deceiver or a cheat.)
 
From there, the plot unfolds first at a leisurely, then at a quickened pace. Everything that is revealed is logical, and the secret behind the village’s woes is refreshingly original and topical at the same time. The relationships in the story are earned on the page with solid characterization and excellent dialogue.
 
A question raised at the outset is left unanswered at the ending, one having to do with a burden Brom carries, and his apparent quest to rid himself (and the world?) of it. This indicates that there may have been further tales of Brom, or at least, hopefully, that there will be more.