Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Ill Met in Lankhmar
by Fritz Leiber
Years ago, in the days of my youth, I went through a fantasy kick and purchased many a fantastic narrative in paperback form. Among my collection was all six volumes of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, published by Ace Books. Less years ago, in the days of my not-so-youth, I winnowed my book collection and got rid of the tomes I figured I would probably not need to read again. Four of the six F&tGM books left my shelves and went adventuring. Not quite a quarter of a year ago, I found my self on vacation in need of reading material. I went on a paperback quest and purchased this volume--a collection of collections--a republishing of the first two volumes of Ace's series. Weird.
Anyway, enough back story. How was the book? Very good. Fafhrd and the Mouser's adventures are exciting and amusing. Like many sword and sorcery heroes, they are paragons of strength and skill, performing mighty deeds. But they also have very human foibles, getting dragged down by things like pride or drunken stupidity. All in all, the tales are a pleasure to read.
So, today, I find myself taking an old book off my shelf and putting a newer edition on my shelf. There might be a profound lesson to be learned from this, but I doubt it.
LibraryThing link
Years ago, in the days of my youth, I went through a fantasy kick and purchased many a fantastic narrative in paperback form. Among my collection was all six volumes of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, published by Ace Books. Less years ago, in the days of my not-so-youth, I winnowed my book collection and got rid of the tomes I figured I would probably not need to read again. Four of the six F&tGM books left my shelves and went adventuring. Not quite a quarter of a year ago, I found my self on vacation in need of reading material. I went on a paperback quest and purchased this volume--a collection of collections--a republishing of the first two volumes of Ace's series. Weird.
Anyway, enough back story. How was the book? Very good. Fafhrd and the Mouser's adventures are exciting and amusing. Like many sword and sorcery heroes, they are paragons of strength and skill, performing mighty deeds. But they also have very human foibles, getting dragged down by things like pride or drunken stupidity. All in all, the tales are a pleasure to read.
So, today, I find myself taking an old book off my shelf and putting a newer edition on my shelf. There might be a profound lesson to be learned from this, but I doubt it.
LibraryThing link
Labels: OnMyShelf
// posted by John @ 3:08 PM 
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