The Knight and Knave of Swords

By Fritz Leiber

Book Overview

The final book in the seminal sword and sorcery series featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser from the Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

After their adventures in Swords and Ice Magic, Fafhrd the barbarian and Gray Mouser the thief remain on Rime Isle with their loves, seeking lives of respectability and peace. Fafhrd works to regain his archery skills after losing his left hand to Odin in battle. Meanwhile, the Gray Mouser embarks on a trading expedition aboard the ship Seahawk. But their respite will soon come to an end-for on the world of Nehwon, a brother and sister plot to regain the treasures stolen from them by the pirates of Rime Isle.

Soon Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, alone and together, are plagued by dreams and curses that will force them to confront the vengeful siblings, destructive temptations, sea demons, and ancient obsessions as "one of the great works of fantasy in this century" comes to its climactic end (Publishers Weekly).

The highly regarded British horror author Ramsey Campbell called Fritz Leiber "the greatest living writer of supernatural horror fiction." Drawing many of his own themes from the works of Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre, actually having coined the term sword and sorcery that would describe the subgenre he would more than help create.

While The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed antiheroes, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, adventured and stumbled deep within the caves of Inner Earth as well, albeit a different one than Tolkien's. 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1504068912
• ISBN13: 9781504068918
• Release Date: September 2021
• Publisher: Open Road Media Science & Fantasy
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Super Reader

For a Lankhmar book, The Knight and Knave of Swords is quite a weighty tome. Fahrd begins by learning to get along without a left hand, a problem yet again caused by those annoying god types. Hanging around leisurely should be peaceful, shouldn't it? Not when they have two women around, and others that would like a little payback coming. This is the weakest of the series. Knight and Knave of Swords : 01 Sea Magic - Fritz Leiber Knight and Knave of Swords : 02 The Mer She - Fritz Leiber Knight and Knave of Swords : 03 The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars - Fritz Leiber Knight and Knave of Swords : 04 The Mouser Goes Below - Fritz Leiber Arrows magical and mundane, with a nasty fish woman on the end of one. 3 out of 5 Stowaway sea demon. 3 out of 5 Archimages decided they need their hero helpers back home, despite a couple of personal Death obstacles. 3.5 out of 5 Godly disagreement, unexpected underneath adventures, a fair bit of girl-on-girl action, and in the case of Sister Pain, running-away-from-girl action. 3.5 out of 5

I just wish this wasn't the end of the series

It's been a long time since I read the first 6 volumes in the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series (about 20 years), and I still can picture the two clearly. The Mouser in particular has always been one of my favorite fictional characters. This book (a collection of three short stories and a novella) is an excellent addition to the series, and describes some of the Twain's adventures while in their more settled later life on Rime Isle. Leiber's writing style is beautiful, poetic and flows elegantly and smoothly. This is fantasy written for, and meant to be appreciated by adults, rather than for the teenage audience much of the more recent fantasy seems to be written for. The only reason this doesn't rate 5 stars is because, while it is far better than most fantasy, there are others that are better (e.g. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Steven Erikson's Malazan series.)

In which the heroes' adventures come to a fitting end.

A fitting, if somewhat unexpected end to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. This book lacks a bit of the majestic prose and black comedy that the previous six were known for, but it gives our beloved pair one last great adventure before retiring.If you've read the first six books of the 'Swords' cycle (for lack of a better series title) you will enjoy reading this. In it the two heroes retire to live a happy old age, but find much to their own surprise that their legend will live on . . . In addition the title so perfectly describes the two it is impossible to not have it sitting next to the others on the shelf. I just wish they had included it in the lovely three volume hardcover reprint of the first six books! David