Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, two of the greatest and most beloved characters in fantasy literature, return in Swords Against The Shadowland, a novel-length adventure by Nebula Award nominated author Robin Wayne Bailey and authorized by series creator Fritz Leiber. Shadowland is a direct sequel to Leiber’s famous story, Ill-Met in Lankhmar

Lankhmar, an ancient and decadent city of magic, where witches and sorcerers scheme, where gods and ghosts walk the streets and shadow-haunted alleys, where violence and death dance together like lovers in the darkness. Lankhmar–a city of plague!

Years ago, two rogues bound together by friendship and a shared destiny neither understood met in Lankhmar. Living by their swords, their wits and their daring, they sought adventure and love. Adventure they found, but love – they lost. In despair, they left the city, vowing never to return.

Yet vows are made to be broken. Once again, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are drawn back to Lankhmar and quickly ensnared in its wizard-games as one jealous mage turns on his rivals and unleashes a black force not even he can control, a power that threatens the city itself.

Swords Against the Shadowland was named one of the six best fantasy novels of 1998 by Science Fiction Chronicle.

Lev Grossman, Time Magazine‘s book editor, has named Fritz Leiber’s “Lankhmar” series featuring the heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as among the The Six Greatest Fantasy Novels of All Time.

The list (not ordered or ranked) is:

– The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
– The Once and Future King by T.H. White
– Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories
– The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
– Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
– Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

E-Reads is proud to be the publisher of the seven volumes of the Lankhmar series plus some other great Leiber works as well.

Introducing Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

If you haven’t yet enjoyed the pleasures of Leiber’s world, start at the beginning.

Swords and Deviltry, the first book of Leiber’s landmark series, introduces us to a strange world where our two strangers find the familiar in themselves and discover the icy power of female magic. Three master-magician femme-fatales and a sprightly lad illuminate the bonds between father and son, the relationship between the bravado of the imagination, and the courage of fools. A hedge wizard explains the cold war between the sexes. Mouse and Fafhrd meet again and learn the truth of how Mouse became the Gray Mouser. Together they traverse the smoke and mirrors of Lankhmar learning more and more of the foggy world in which they live, mapping the sinister silent symptoms of the never-ending night-smog. They follow the night-smog’s relation to the region’s longing for larceny and the hazy opiate of vanity. Last but certainly not least, they experience the pleasures and pains of the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokers that will lead them to countless more adventures and misadventures.

About Fritz Leiber

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.

Richard Curtis