Fritz Leiber

[Fried Egg]

I've heard so much about Fritz Leiber and it sounded like his work should be right up my alley. I finally found one of his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books: "Swords of Lankhmar" and exitedly tucked into it.

However, I found his style quite dry and difficult to engage with. The story had it's moments but ultimately, it was a disappointment. I wonder if he is better suited to the short story form (since I believe that much of his work, particularly about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, are short stories) than novels? What I'm really hoping for is that someone will tell me this book is an exception and the rest of his work is work checking out.

Or, perhaps I just don't gel with his writing style?

 

[D_Davis]

I have tried numerous times to dive into Leiber's fiction, and each time I find myself struggling with his prose. I often find the synopsis of his stories to be exciting, but once I start reading them I get bored, confused, and turned off.

I appreciate and respect him as an author, but I just don't get on with his style much.

Some of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories are pretty awesome though.

 

[Ian Whates]

Leiber remains one of my all-time favourite authors. Love his stuff (The Wanderer aside) and I rate the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories among the very finest fantasy ever written.

It may not have helped, FE, that you've started with a book in the middle of the series (I never have a problem with this, but I know some do) and with one which, unusually for the series, was written as a novel as opposed to a collection of previously published shorts.

 

[Omphalos]

I like Lieber's SF, but I absolutely love his fantasy, and considering that I am not a normal fantasy reader I think that is saying something. Someone here advised me to get the Millenium books of Lankhmar. I picked them up at U-Books in Seattle recently and while i have not read them through yet, what I have read is excellent.

I also just got some short fiction and I love Gonna Roll the Bones, and a few others.

Oh, and I liked the Wanderer plenty too.

 

[Pyan]

What Ian said.

Try Swords and Deviltry, or Swords Against Death: the short story format is much easier to get into...

 

[clovis-man]

As alluded to earlier, Leiber's short fiction is among his best writing. Try A Pail of Air to get a good taste of it, especially as related to his SF offerings. The title story is among the best and it also includes "Gonna Roll the Bones".

For SF novels, A Specter is Haunting Texas is a good post apocalyptic, tongue in cheek, black humor tale that shows his unique style of cynicism. He led a difficult life and I think it is reflected in his jaundiced view of the cosmos.

 

[Connavar]

I have tasted his classic fantasy series and it was awesome story. His style is perfect for his kind of fantasy.


When i get my ordered Masterworks collection i can tell you more if i really enjoy his work.

 

[Beamer]

I have about 10 or 15 of his books about half of which are the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories and while I have not reread them recently I remember them quite fondly. As I recall his stories tended to be a bit on the funny side and did not take themselves too seriously.

 

[j d worthington]

The Fafhrd/Mouser tales rather run the gamut, from low farce to high tragedy. That's one of the great things about the series, is that they do represent a rather broad spectrum, with the lyrical, the eerie, the poignant, the pensive, the bawdy, the ludicrous, and sublime all present....

 

[J-Sun]

Yeah, I wouldn't say the series as a whole has any one dominant flavor. But "Lean Times in Lankhmar", if I've got the right story in mind, is one of the funniest stories I've read in my life. And then many were quite serious.

Perhaps what makes Leiber so great to me is that I'm not a big fan of fantasy or horror and I love Leiber's stuff like Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness. And I'm not a big fan of S&S, but I love the Fafhrd/Mouser tales. Not a big fan of time travel, but love The Big Time and the Changewar stories. Not a big fan of the disaster novel, but I like The Wanderer, which is part disaster novel. He seems to bring intelligence and charm to anything he turns his hand to, turning (relative, subjective) dross into gold.

'Course, you could say I don't know anything about these subgenres if I don't like them, and so don't know what makes good or bad, and Leiber's bad. That may be true of me, but I don't think it's true of Leiber, nonetheless.

Reading over the thread again, maybe Omphalos was making the same point with "I absolutely love his fantasy, and considering that I am not a normal fantasy reader I think that is saying something."

Anyway, as far as what started the thread and Fried Egg and D_Davis not liking the style, I'm not sure what to say - I never noticed any problems with it. Maybe if there was a particular description of the aspect of the style that grated? But I do recognize that it's a very subjective thing and sometimes authors simply don't click.

But as far as The Swords of Lankhmar, IIRC, it was an atypical Lankhmar novel and probably not the best entry point. It actually started as a story (like the rest) and was expanded into a novel and the fault line between story and novel showed, and the novel part seemed a little longer than it should have been. In this case, that's a usual bias of mine Leiber didn't completely overcome. So my issue was more structural than stylistic. The only thing that might fall under style was that I had a feeling the novel was too "racy" for innocent juvenile fun, but was too "tame" for what it seemed to really want to be. Artifact of the times, perhaps.

 

[Ebonsword]

I find Leiber at his best to be the absolute best fantasy fiction ever written. And I mean that with all seriousness.

Unfortunately, he wrote quite a few Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales which definitely do not count as his best (almost all of the stories from the 1970's onward).

As for The Swords of Lankhmar, I'd rate it as pretty high-grade Leiber, even if it's definitely not one of his very best stories. If you don't like it, you may not like any of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories.

That being said, you owe to yourself to at least read "Thieves' House" (I think my personal favorite of all of his stories and hugely influential on the portrayal of thieves in modern fantasy literature), "Claws From the Night" (just a darn good tale), and "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (which combines social satire and swords & sorcery in a rather delicious mixture). If you don't like any of those, than, sadly, Leiber is probably not for you (and you have my pity).

 

[Fried Egg]

I probably will pick up some of his early Fafhrd & Mouser stories just to see what they are like. Mind you, I don't tend to see them around all too often.

 

[BigBadBob141]

He wrote good SF ("The Wanderer"), good Fantasy (Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories) & good Horror ("Nights Black Agents" & the story about the automatic pistol (can't think of title)).
A brilliant all round writer, well worth the effort!

 

[nomadman]

Leiber has one of those idiosyncratic styles that takes a bit of getting used to. I didn't really gel with a lot of his work earlier on, though I recognised it for its originality, skill and general verve. I'm still not wholly a devotee of his, but I find I can get a lot more out of his work in the way of enjoyment and insight, and I occasionally come across a story that I find absolutely wonderful (Four Ghosts in Hamlet and A Spectre is Haunting Texas for example), and I think that's mainly due to more of a familiarity with his prose style and the manner in which he comes at a story. His early horror I've always enjoyed.

 

[neopeius]

I used to really like Fritz Leiber. Pail of Air and The Big Time were both quite good. But this last year (1958), the stuff he turned out was just terrible. Overwritten crap.

The Silver Eggheads was the first thing of his I actually couldn't finish. Maybe it's just a phase. I also understand he's pretty anglo-centric, and his chauvinism definitely comes through.

My review of Silver Eggheads is here.

 

[J-Sun]

I used to really like Fritz Leiber. Pail of Air and The Big Time were both quite good. But this last year (1958), the stuff he turned out was just terrible. Overwritten crap.

The Silver Eggheads was the first thing of his I actually couldn't finish. Maybe it's just a phase. I also understand he's pretty anglo-centric, and his chauvinism definitely comes through.

I haven't read A Specter Is Haunting Texas (in The Pile) but I've read all of Leiber's other novels and The Silver Eggheads was the only one I didn't care for. It was readable for me, but uninvolving. The problem is that it's supposed to be a kind of slapstick comedic satire rather than a serious future vision or an outright fantasy/horror piece and it's pretty leaden. (Not that he couldn't do a variety of comedy but it sure didn't work here.) But he wrote The Wanderer, the unread Specter, and Our Lady of Darkness after that, as well as much great Lankhmar stuff and many great independent stories. A lot of writers do seem to conk out after 10-20 years or so but Leiber's one of the few who was good pretty much to the end and who I don't really cut up into "good/bad" or "early/late" eras though the 60s could be seen as a relative lull, I guess.

 

[j d worthington]

I recall that his son Justin (who used, at least, to teach philosophy at the University of Houston), among others, have remarked that Fritz had a problem with alcoholism which seriously effected his life in various ways. It may be that some of these works were produced when he was struggling with this problem, hence are below par. But yes, there is no solid period where he was "bad", as he would follow something which was negligible with something which was quite stunning....

 

[Randy M.]

I've only read a few Fahfrd and Gray Mouser stories. I found myself not thinking of them terms of Conan and Robert E. Howard, or Clark Ashton Smith or C. L. Moore, but in terms of Shakespeare, and particularly of the theatre. There was a sense for me in at least a couple of the stories that these are actors on a large stage, making appropriately large gestures and flexing wit for an audience.

I found them great fun and should get to more of them.


Randy M.

 

[J-Sun]

I recall that his son Justin (who used, at least, to teach philosophy at the University of Houston), among others, have remarked that Fritz had a problem with alcoholism which seriously effected his life in various ways. It may be that some of these works were produced when he was struggling with this problem, hence are below par. But yes, there is no solid period where he was "bad", as he would follow something which was negligible with something which was quite stunning....

My understanding from Moskowitz is that he lost '53-'57 to an epic bender but the works on either immediate side of that are excellent. Whether he stayed on the wagon after that or had a lesser bout that might have impaired things, I don't know.

 

[j d worthington]

My understanding from Moskowitz is that he lost '53-'57 to an epic bender but the works on either immediate side of that are excellent. Whether he stayed on the wagon after that or had a lesser bout that might have impaired things, I don't know.

It has been a very long time since I spoke to Justin, but if memory serves, he spoke of his father having a recurrent problem with this. As I say, I don't know if there is a causal relation here, but it is a distinct possibility....