A collection of stories brings forth sorcerers and wizards, ghosts, aliens, and mythical kingdoms

After their legendary adventures in the northern wastes and beyond, Fafhrd, the giant barbarian warrior, and the Gray Mouser, master thief, novice wizard and expert swordsman, are back home in Lankhmar again, and looking for an easy time. But Lankhmar is under attack from a strange horde of invaders, including a two-headed dragon and an army of miniature wanderers ... Once those threats are seen off, a quest to the farthest reaches of Nehwon is in prospect. And then, in the last book of their adventures, Fafhrd goes sailing through the clouds, and the Mouser takes to the seas, before we finally bid a fond, if sad, farewell to Lankhmar. THE SECOND BOOK OF LANKHMAR includes the last three volumes of the hugely enjoyable series.

The hitmakers behind Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock” recount their rise to songwriting stardom while authoring the classic American R&B sound of countless chart-topping singles. In 1950 a couple of rhythm and blues–loving teenagers named Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met for the first time. They discovered their mutual affection for R&B and, as Jerry and Mike put it in this fascinating autobiography, began an argument that has been going on for over fifty years with no resolution in sight. Leiber and Stoller were still in their teens when they started working with some of the pioneers of rock and roll, writing such hits as "Hound Dog," which eventually became a #1 record for Elvis Presley. Jerry and Mike became the King’s favorite songwriters, giving him "Jailhouse Rock" and other #1 songs. Their string of hits with the Coasters, including "Yakety Yak," "Poison Ivy," and "Charlie Brown," is a part of rock ’n’ roll history. They founded their own music label and introduced novel instrumentation into their hits for the Drifters and Ben E. King, including "On Broadway" and "Stand by Me." They worked with everyone from Phil Spector to Burt Bacharach and Peggy Lee. Their smash musical Smokey Joe’s Café became the longest-running musical revue in Broadway history. Lively, colorful, and irreverent, Hound Dog describes how two youngsters with an insatiable love of good old American R&B created the soundtrack for a generation.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser take to the sea in the third installment of this seminal sword and sorcery series that “has lost none of its luminous magic” (San Francisco Chronicle). Swords in the Mist, book three in the Lankhmar series, thrusts our indentured, sword-swinging servants into the question of hate, its power, and its purpose. Times are lean in Lankhmar, illuminating the link between money and love. Luckily, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser don’t always believe in love. When Lankhmar gets too gritty, our travelers take to their other, less harsh mistress, the sea. But the sea can play tricks on men, and so can the sea king. He can break a man, or worse yet, curse him. But when he is away, it’s all play for the formidable swordsmen and the Triple Goddess . . . and two luscious sea queens. But luck may not always be there, as they discover on the way to see Ningauble, their wizard employer. After a long journey in defense of their control over their own fates, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser find themselves pawns in a life-and-death chess game, all of Lankhmar being the pieces. How many pawns will be left on the board before someone wins? Before The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Leiber’s fantastic but thoroughly flawed antiheroes, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, adventured deep within the caves of Inner Earth, 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. Drawing on themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre and actually coined the term Sword and Sorcery that describes the subgenre he helped create.

The Caldecott Award-winning artist presents this adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning story by a legendary grand master master of fantasy fiction--a classic fable in the tradition of "The Devil and Daniel Webster." Full color.

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.

The intense psychological portrait of a hitman—the anti-Jason Bourne—as he stalks his prey from Boston to LA. He wants you to know him, maybe even admire him, but only for his excellence in his craft. Perhaps he was even born for it. "A natural killer," his mentor—a middleman named Vespucci—said he was. He proved it with his first professional hit: a Fifth Circuit Court judge in Boston, executed with a sheet of Saran Wrap in the stairwell of her own courthouse. He's proved his merit often, usually with a Glock semiautomatic, but he's improvised too, with his bare hands, the heel of a shoe, knives, even a sewing machine. He is the consummate assassin, at the top of his form, immune to the psychological strains of his chosen profession. He is what the Russians call a Silver Bear. He calls himself Columbus. It's the name Vespucci gave him, ten years ago, when he discovered a dark, new world of fences, clients, marks, jobs, jack. Not that his real name meant much to him anyway. He never knew his father or his mother, a prostitute who became dangerously involved back in the seventies with an earnest young congressman named Abe Mann, then a rising star in the Democratic Party. The magnetic Abe Mann has since become the Speaker of the House. He is currently running for the Democratic nomination in an exhausting presidential campaign, weaving his way across the country. Columbus is not far behind. But as he pieces together his past and prepares the seamless assassination of his mark, the criminal underworld he has always ruled begins unraveling violently around him.

The award-winning sword and sorcery classic that introduced Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, from a Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy. First in the influential fan-favorite series, Swords and Deviltry collects four fantastical adventure stories from Fritz Leiber, the author who coined the phrase “sword and sorcery” and helped birth an entire genre. In “Induction,” in the realm of Nehwon, fate brings young prince Fafhrd and apprentice magician the Gray Mouser together to mark the beginning of a loyal and lifelong friendship. Consumed by his wicked mother’s enchantments, Fafhrd finds freedom by pursuing the love of a beautiful actress in the Nebula and Hugo Award–nominated “The Snow Women.” Studying sorcery under a great wizard in a land where it is forbidden, Mouse crosses the thin line between white and black magic to avenge a great wrong in “The Unholy Grail.” And in the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning novella “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser disguise themselves as beggars to infiltrate the Thieves’ Guild—only to pay a horrible price for their greed when they come face-to-face with a monstrous evil.

After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring. An army is gathering: giants, ogres and other creatures joining forces from across the Desolate Lands, united for the first time in history under one black banner. By the spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the great city of Avendoom. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them. Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows professional thief Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the kingdom of Siala. Accompanied by an elfin princess, ten Wild Hearts - the most experienced and dangerous royal fighters - and the King's court jester (who may be more than he seems ... or less), Harold must outwit angry demons, escape the clutches of a band of hired murderers, survive ten bloody skirmishes ... and reach the burial grounds before dark. Can he escape a fate worse than death?