Swords Against Death
core collection 1970 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Record
| First published | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | collection |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.03 (7,688 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 272 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441791545 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Swords Against Death, a 1970 collection, opens with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser leaving the city of Lankhmar behind after personal losses they suffered there, seeking to put adventuring aside for a quieter existence. Restlessness proves stronger than grief, however, and the two soon find they cannot stay away from danger for long, drifting back into a life of treasure hunting and daring exploits. The collection follows their wanderings through hazardous encounters with a citywide assassins' guild, strange beasts, and supernatural realms that test both their combat skill and their wits, reaffirming the partnership forged in the earlier volume even as the pair try, and fail, to leave their old life fully behind.
Where it sits
- Universe: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
- Series: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser core; position 2 of 7 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Fritz Leiber
Notes
- From the series record (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser): 7 volumes assembled by Leiber himself from ~35-40 short stories/novellas written 1939-1988 (originally scattered across pulp magazines over five decades) into a fixed internal reading order; collection-publication order does not match this internal order (Swords and Deviltry, internally 1st, was published in 1970, after Swords in the Mist/Against Wizardry/The Swords of Lankhmar, all 1968). Classified Core Canon per the same collection-as-Core exception established for The Witcher's foundational short-story collections: for this universe, the collections ARE the primary/definitive reading unit, not supplementary material.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: position 5 of 7: previous Swords and Deviltry (1970) · next Swords and Ice Magic (1977)
- Internal chronology, within Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: position 2 of 7: previous Swords and Deviltry (1970) · next Swords in the Mist (1968)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_Against_Death
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Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.