Swords and Deviltry
core collection 1970 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Record
| First published | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | collection |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.86 (13,824 ratings, collected 2026-09-13) |
| Page count | 208 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781497699922 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Swords and Deviltry gathers the chronologically earliest Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, tracing the separate origins of its two heroes before they ever meet. Fafhrd's tale follows his life among a barbarian clan in the Cold Waste, while the Gray Mouser's traces his path from an apprentice sorcerer's assistant to a small, cunning thief operating in the city of Lankhmar. The collection builds toward "Ill Met in Lankhmar," the pivotal story recounting the fateful night fate first brings the two men together, setting in motion the lifelong partnership and friendship that defines the rest of the saga, as personal loss binds them into allies from what begins as a chance encounter.
Where it sits
- Universe: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
- Series: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser core; position 1 of 7 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Fritz Leiber
Awards (verified)
- Nebula Award (Best Novella), 1970: won; For the constituent story 'Ill Met in Lankhmar' (SFWA labels this the 1970 award, presented 1971).
- Hugo Award (Best Novella), 1971: won; For the constituent story 'Ill Met in Lankhmar'.
- Hugo Award (Best Novella), 1971: nominated; For the constituent story 'The Snow Women', a different story in the same collection than the winner 'Ill Met in Lankhmar'; Leiber withdrew this nomination, having two stories on the same ballot.
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 4 of 7: previous The Swords of Lankhmar (1968) · next Swords Against Death (1970)
- Internal chronology, within Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: position 1 of 7: next Swords Against Death (1970)
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_and_Deviltry
- https://www.thehugoawards.org
- https://nebulas.sfwa.org
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