Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser search for treasure in book four of the genre-defining Sword and Sorcery series from the Grand Master of Science Fiction. 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. With Swords Against Wizardry, ,the story unfolds behind the curtain in the Witch’s Tent. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are there to consult a sorceress who holds the secret to their escape, but when would they ever need to escape? Would they need this knowledge when they journey to Stardock? Where is there to escape up there? No doubt the icy seduction of “the cruel one,” with her greed for both gore and graciousness, could offer them several ways out. Their luck has been good so far; one way out should work. Their luck continues as thieves. They are the best thieves in Lankhmar until better positions arise: the Lords of Quarmall. Gray Mouser and Fafhrd steal a kingdom within a hill and declare themselves lords. 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.

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. With SWORDS AGAINST WIZARDRY, the fourth installment of the Lankhmar series, the story unveils behind the curtain in the Witch's Tent. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are there to consult a sorceress who holds the secret to their escape but when would they ever need to escape? Would they need this knowledge when they journey to Stardock? Where is there to escape up there? No doubt the icy seduction of "the cruel one", with her greed for both gore and graciousness, could offer them several ways out. Their luck has been good so far; one way out should work. Their luck continues as thieves. They are the best thieves in Lankhmar until better positions arise: The Lords of Quarmall. Gray Mouser and Fafhrd steal a kingdom within a hill and declare themselves Lords.

The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning series of sword and sorcery—featuring two unorthodox heroes—from a Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Long before George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones became a worldwide phenomenon, Fritz Leiber ruled the literary universe of sword and sorcery. This novel and two short story collections chronicle the adventures of Leiber’s endearing and groundbreaking antiheroes: the barbarian Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, a former wizard’s apprentice—in the series hailed as “one of the great works of fantasy in this century” (Publishers Weekly). This is a must-read collection of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser short stories, featuring the Hugo Award–nominated novellas “Scylla’s Daughter” and “Stardock.” Swords Against Wizardry: Bold Fafhrd and the sly Gray Mouser find adventure wherever they tread quick and lightly, whether it be in consulting a witch for advice, climbing Nehwon’s highest peak in search of riches, discovering that they may not actually be the greatest thieves in Lankhmar, or working both sides of a royal battle for the throne of Quarmall. The Swords of Lankhmar: With a plague of rats teeming in Lankhmar, Fafhrd and the Mouser are hired by the city to guard a shipment of grain overseas. But when the duo returns, they discover the sentient vermin have taken over Lankhmar for themselves! And now it’s up to the barbarian and the thief to build a better rat trap. Swords and Ice Magic: Fafhrd and Gray Mouser make their way by sword and stealth as they face death in many forms, earn the ire of gods whose names they rarely even speak in vain anymore, lazily drift on the Great Equatorial Current, and venture far into the icy wastes of the Rime Isle to confront a pair of deities and a pillaging fleet in this World Fantasy Award nominee.

The troupers of the Big Time lack no art to sway a crowd--or to change all history!

FANTASTIC Editorial, January 1964: Old friends of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser may be surprised to see a byline on their story in this issue that reads-"By Fritz Leiber and Harry Fischer." "Who," you are saying, "is Harry Fischer? Some Johnny-come-lately trying to horn in on Leiber's master-characters?" Well, hardly. According to Fritz himself, Harry Fischer is the inventor of Fafhrd and the Mouser. And this is indeed a tale in itself, and one with which we shall acquaint you here and now, in the words of Leiber himself: "Harry and I met in 1930 at the University of Chicago, became fast friends, and have been friends ever since. We had in common enthusiasms for fencing, chess, bridge, drama, and fantasy literature. In our correspondence we often extemporized fragments of fantasy. One day I got a letter from Harry inventing two characters. He wrote: 'All do fear the one known as the Gray Mouser. He walks with swag-ger 'mongst the bravos, though he's but the stature of a child. His costume is all of grey. His weapons [are called] Cat's Claw and Scalpel . . . Fafhrd was full seven feet of height. His wrist . . . was thick as a hero's ankle . . . . His mouth smiled as he fingered the ponderous hilt of a huge longsword.' " From this beginnning, Fischer and Leiber utilized Fafhrd and the Mouser in their dreams and fantasy fragments. In 1937 Fischer wrote about 10,000 words of a novel to be called The Lords of Quarmall, a subterranean kingdom Leiber had invented as part of the land of Nehwon. But the fragment languished for 25 years. During this time Leiber wrote other sagas of Lankhmar, and Fischer put aside the fantasy world to become a successful businessman. A year ago, however, Leiber visited Fischer and suggested that he (Leiber) finish Quarmall. So Fritz took the original 10,000 words, plotted and wrote over twice as many more, and-lo! the result begins on page [1].

You can't know there's a war on--for the Snakes coil and Spiders weave to keep you from knowing it's being fought over your live and dead body!ExcerptMy name is Greta Forzane. Twenty-nine and a party girl would describe me. I was born in Chicago, of Scandinavian parents, but now I operate chiefly outside space and time--not in Heaven or Hell, if there are such places, but not in the cosmos or universe you know either.I am not as romantically entrancing as the immortal film star who also bears my first name, but I have a rough-and-ready charm of my own. I need it, for my job is to nurse back to health and kid back to sanity Soldiers badly roughed up in the biggest war going. This war is the Change War, a war of time travelers--in fact, our private name for being in this war is being on the Big Time. Our Soldiers fight by going back to change the past, or even ahead to change the future, in ways to help our side win the final victory a billion or more years from now. A long killing business, believe me.You don't know about the Change War, but it's influencing your lives all the time and maybe you've had hints of it without realizing.Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn't seem to be bringing you exactly the same picture of the past from one day to the next? Have you ever been afraid that your personality was changing because of forces beyond your knowledge or control? Have you ever felt sure that sudden death was about to jump you from nowhere? Have you ever been scared of Ghosts--not the story-book kind, but the billions of beings who were once so real and strong it's hard to believe they'll just sleep harmlessly forever? Have you ever wondered about those things you may call devils or Demons--spirits able to range through all time and space, through the hot hearts of stars and the cold skeleton of space between the galaxies? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, you've had hints of the Change War.How I got recruited into the Change War, how it's conducted, what the two sides are, why you don't consciously know about it, what I really think about it--you'll learn in due course.

He went where no Martian ever went before--but would he come out--or had he gone for good?ExcerptThe Professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from another planet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologist before contacting any other scientists (or governments, God forbid!), and in learning English from radio and TV before landing from his orbit-parked rocket, when the Martian stood up and said hesitantly, "Excuse me, please, but where is it?"That baffled the Professor and the Martian seemed to grow anxious--at least his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that it curling downward was his smile--and he repeated, "Please, where is it?"He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion was textured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying that the Professor's pin-striped gray suit, which he had eagerly consented to wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair--a sort of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather.The Professor's Wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying with equal rapidity, "Top of the stairs, end of the hall, last door."The Martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, "Thank you very much," and was off.Comprehension burst on the Professor. He caught up with his guest at the foot of the stairs."Here, I'll show you the way," he said."No, I can find it myself, thank you," the Martian assured him.

Jonathan told her not to touch the switches, but it was cold and lonely and isolated...ExcerptMariana had been living in the big villa and hating the tall pine trees around it for what seemed like an eternity when she found the secret panel in the master control panel of the house. The secret panel was simply a narrow blank of aluminum-she'd thought of it as room for more switches if they ever needed any, perish the thought! - between the air-conditioning controls and the gravity controls. Above the switches for the three dimensional TV but below those for the robot butler and maids. Jonathan had told her not to fool with the master control panel while he was in the city, because she would wreck anything electrical, so when the secret panel came loose under her aimlessly questing fingers and fell to the solid rock floor of the patio with a musical twing her first reaction was fear. Then she saw it was only a small blank oblong of sheet aluminum that had fallen and that in the space it had covered was a column of six little switches. Only the top one was identified. Tiny glowing letters beside it spelled trees and it was on. When Jonathan got home from the city that evening she gathered her courage and told him about it. He was neither particularly angry nor impressed. "Of course there's a switch for the trees," he informed her deflatingly, motioning the robot butler to cut his steak.

Even before A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin had already established himself as a giant in the field of fantasy literature. The first of two stunning collections, Dreamsongs: Volume I is a rare treat for readers, offering fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master. Gathered here in Dreamsongs: Volume I are the very best of George R. R. Martin’s early works, including his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker award–winning stories, cool fan pieces, and the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin’s New York Times bestselling children’s book of the same title originated. A dazzling array of subjects and styles that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans. “Fans, genre historians and aspiring writers alike will find this shelf-bending retrospective as impressive as it is intriguing.”—Publishers Weekly “Dreamsongs is the ideal way to discover . . . a master of science fiction, fantasy and horror. . . . Martin is a writer like no other.”—The Guardian (U.K.) PRAISE FOR GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Of those who work in the grand epic-fantasy tradition, Martin is by far the best. In fact . . . this is as good a time as any to proclaim him the American Tolkien.”—Time “Long live George Martin . . . a literary dervish, enthralled by complicated characters and vivid language, and bursting with the wild vision of the very best tale tellers.”—The New York Times “I always expect the best from George R. R. Martin, and he always delivers.”—Robert Jordan

"Bread Overhead" is a story Fritz Leiber could have written to send up today's bewildering bread aisle -- all those claims of low-cal and low-low-carb. In fact, the story probably reads better now than it did in 1958, back when the choice came down to white or whole wheat. Leiber slyly imagines a near-future when giant machines not only harvest the wheat field, but grind flour and bake bread on the spot -- the ultimate in big farming. In this toasted tomorrow, the highly-mechanized Puffy Products is bent on producing the supremely lightest loaf. The story is what happens if bread isn't just airy, but pumped full of lighter-than-air helium. Leiber (Ships to the Stars) didn't often bake up such a souffle of spoof, but he's a master in the kitchen. And "Bread Overhead" has just enough to say about human nature to be filling, besides.