Lankhmar Book 8: Swords Against the Shadowland [Paperback]

Robin Wayne Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lankhmar | Publication Date: May 5, 2009

Years ago, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser turned their backs on the city of Lankhmar and the painful memories it held. But now, a deadly plague, spawned from a sorcerer's curse, sweeps through the streets of Lankhmar, eating its victims from the inside and laying waste to the once-vibrant city. The two reluctant heroes are called forth once again to face Lankhmar's winding alleys - and the old ghosts who lurk in them!

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595820779
• ISBN-13: 978-1595820778
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Abysmal, April 23, 2010

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An occasional guitarist - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lankhmar Book 8: Swords Against the Shadowland (Paperback)

Fritz Leiber has always been one of my favorite authors, whom I first encountered in the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series. Some Sword and Sorcery stories don't wear too well - for me, Conan is in that category, for example - but these have stood the test of time. So when I found out that Robin Wayne Bailey had written another title in this series, I was pretty excited.

Unfortunately, when I bought and actually read the book, I was appalled. RWB occasionally gets off a good sentence, but far more often he resorts to cheap movie-style dialogue - gone is the Elizabethan prose at which Leiber excelled. The plot, such as it is, takes forever to get going, and as another reviewer noted, is largely a rehash of several of Leiber's earlier stories.

And the incidents of the story are unrelentingly vulgar. 'Sophisticated, fetishist sex scenes' are one thing - and I think even Leiber wrote better under censorship, at times; consider the focused intensity of 'You're All Alone' vs. the rambling, R or X rated 'Sinful Ones' version of the same story - but RWB makes Fafhrd and the Mouser seem like drunken high school jocks. Bathroom humor - often, literally; the references to excrement of various sorts are countless - is the order of the day. The R rating is so much of a priority for the author, apparently, that he doesn't mind trashing established characters in pursuit of this goal. Can anyone really believe, for example, that the Mouser's first love - the timid, over-protected Ivrian - would have acted in the fashion - or said the things - that RWB describes, even behind closed doors? Vlana, okay, but Ivrian??

I kept the book just in case, and am now re-reading it to see if my original judgement was valid. Unfortunately, it was. I can't believe that some reviewers here think that RWB is a better writer than Leiber. This book is an insult to Leiber's memory, and I'm getting rid of it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice to return to Lankhmar for a time, August 14, 2010

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Zog - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lankhmar Book 8: Swords Against the Shadowland (Paperback)

As a Leiber fan and especially a Mouser/Fafhrd enthusiast I looked forward to this book, which I never knew existed. While I enjoyed reading about the two again, this book was on the whole disappointing. Bailey deserves great thanks for making the effort, and I'm mostly happy he did. Bailey's book is detailed and seems based in impressive knowledge of Leiber's writings about Lankhmar. All the familiar street names and neighborhoods are there and more. This is good and bad. Where Leiber hinted darkly, Bailey spells out at length and repetitively -- and not especially entertainingly after the first thrill of seeing our heroes' old haunts again. More problematic, the Mouser and Fafhrd resemble the amusing twain from Leiber's books, but don't act quite right. It's as if they are the real Mouser and Fafhrd having an off day (better than I could achieve, no doubt, but still problematic). The dialogue aims at playful wit but only sometimes comes off. As one reviewer said, they are constantly and annoyingly reminding themselves about their friendship. They don't seem especially skilled at fighting: they keep having to be rescued by each other or third parties. The Mouser, showing none of the cat-like grace he supposedly possesses, clumsily slips and falls in a cess pool for no apparent reason other than that the author wants him to be smelly in the next scene. So I give fair warning: true fans of the originals might find themselves disappointed, even as they get brief thrills from the return to Lankhmar, City of Thousand Smokes.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a worthy addition to the series, February 22, 2010

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culture lover (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lankhmar Book 8: Swords Against the Shadowland (Paperback)

Attempting to follow in another writer's footsteps in always a challenge; the more so since Fritz Leiber was a talented and intelligent individual with a unique point of view. Thus, I began this book with a great deal of trepidation.

To my surprise, Robin Wayne Bailey (whom I had never heard of before) did a creditable job in continuing the saga. While it is not equal to Leiber's best, I felt it was better than the earliest Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories. (The series was written over the span of nearly 50 years, so it's no wonder that the writing, while good, improves during that time.)

Chronologically, this falls between volumes one and two, a good choice as I always felt there was a stylistic gap between the Hugo Award-winning "Ill Met in Lankhmar", which ends volume one (AKA "Swords and Deviltry") and "The Circle Curse" which begins volume two ("Swords Against Death"). (There is also a book entitled "Ill Met in Lankhmar" which combines these two volumes.)

The problem was, Leiber wrote these stories as inspiration struck him and without an overarching structure. This wasn't really a problem until they began collecting the stories and were faced with the problem of getting the two heroes from Psychological Point A (dealing with the tragic events of "Ill Met") to Psychological Point B (that is, their normal state). I don't know whether Leiber didn't wish to deal with the issue at length or the publisher didn't want to pay for a novel dealing with the subject. In any event, "The Circle Curse" is a literary stopgap, a short story acknowledging the gap even if it doesn't deal with it satisfactorily.

Robin Wayne Bailey's work is the book-length account of two heroes' journey back from a psychological precipice and returning to the bon vivants we know and love.

Unless you are one of those "How DARE anyone else write such-and-such" who are unwilling to give another author a fair shake, if you enjoyed the originals, you will probably enjoy this one as well.