Book description
Drawing themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and H. P Lovecraft,
master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy
genre, actually coining the term "Sword and Sorcery" that
describes the sub-genre he helped create. Before THE LORD OF THE RINGS
took the world by storm, Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed
anti-heroes, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, adventured and stumbled deep within
the caves of Inner Earth as well, albeit a different one. They wondered
and wandered to the edges of the Outer Sea, across the Land of Nehwon
and throughout every nook and cranny of gothic Lankhmar, Nehwon's
grandest and most mystically corrupt city. Lankhmar is Leiber's fully
realized vivid incarnation of urban decay and civilization's corroding
effect on the human psyche. Fafhrd and Mouse are not innocents; their
world is no land of honor and righteousness. It is a world of human
complexities and violent action, of discovery and mystery, of swords and
sorcery. THE SWORDS OF LANKHMAR finds the city characteristically
plagued by rats. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are in the employ of
Glipkerio, the overlord, to guard a grain ship on its journey. Along the
way the rats on board stage a rebellion and threaten to take the ship
until a two-headed sea monster saves the day. If only there were
two-headed sea monsters everywhere, Lankhmar would be safe, too. Alas,
upon returning to the city, the two discover that Lankhmar is controlled
by rats. It is a city known for its thieves and swine, but even the
city's muddiest bottom feeders had never seen pillaging and plundering
like this. And only the sorcerers Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and
Ningauble of the Seven Eyes can scare this scourge. Mouser must shrink
into the rat's world and Fafhrd must unleash the feared feline War Cats.
Then the fun really begins. Fritz Leiber is considered one of science
fiction's legends. Author of a prodigious number of stories and novels,
many of which were made into films, he is best known as creator of the
classic Lankhmar fantasy series. Fritz Leiber has won awards too
numerous to count including the coveted Hugo and Nebula, and was honored
as a lifetime Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He
died in 1992.
