u/The_Beat_Cluster

"The Circle Curse" is a companion piece to "Ill Met in Lankhmar".  It was written in 1970, the year of possibly my favourite Leiber short story, the brilliantly dark warning piece "America the Beautiful", as well as the aforementioned "Ill Met" story. 

"The Circle Curse" reads more like an interlude than a true short story.  

That being said, it is certainly an interlude of good quality. It features one of my favourite Leiber similes of recent times:

"Ahead the sky was bright pink, like the bubbling rim of a great crystal goblet brimmed with effervescent red wine for the delight of gods, while the paler pink glow rising therefrom drove the last stars west".

It is also the "first" appearance of Ninguable of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face.  First as in first appearance in the Swords series of books.  Their moody and mysterious appearances, well more of a "taster", leaves the reader wanting more. 

Unfortunately the remainder of the story cannot quite keep up with the brilliant first few paragraphs.  On the whole it's good, but again, more of an interlude - a connector to take readers from Swords and Deviltry into Swords Against Death.

As previously noted, I still chuckle thinking about the young people buying a book called "Swords Against Death" and being presented with phrases like "then a voice, sugary and unctuous, senescent though keen - a voice like a quavering flute - spoke amidst those dimmest glows".

Basically the title. My wife arrived home with the new baby yesterday. At 1 am our two year old woke up upon hearing the baby cry, saying "oh noooo"!

He then wouldn't go back to sleep until 9:30 am! Despite my best attempts. He was simply too wide eyed with excitement.

I'm happy because we made sure Mum (who had a caesarean six days ago) got a good night's sleep, but I am looking for advice on how to get the toddler used to the "new normal".

I suspect he's just overexcited - he's never been away from mum for so long, so he's basically on a high now she's back. And he keeps saying "Mum" and "baby (name)" on repeat!

Advice or encouraging words appreciated :) is there anything we can do now, or do we just wait it out? Had anyone here had a similar experience??

Originally published in Unknown Worlds, February 1943.

Set in decadent and shadowy Lankhmar. I must get around to compiling an exhaustive list of stories in that setting! There is also a welcome interlude in the Silver Eel. Many fabulous descriptions abound, for example:

"Again next night the fog crept into Lankhmar. Sounds were muffled and torches ringed with smoky halos".

A simple looking quote, but it actually uses both personification and religious imagery, in addition to flawlessly setting the mood...

This story involves traps - trapdoors, suspended knives, descending stones that crush unwary fingers, and the like. All written with suspense and surprise.

The dark tone reminded me of Leiber's earlier, incredibly dark (and damned entertaining) "The Hill and the Hole". The clever traps also had me reminiscing on the woefully under-anthologised "Black Corridor", which itself reminds me of the old cult horror movie "Cube"

The Mouser really took this story. You'll see what I mean when you read it. It's actually a good exemplar of his mischievous and clever personality. Which is also exemplified in the much later tale "The Mer She".

The prose is excellent and a large cut above what was typical in the pulps. The action scenes were, unsurprisingly, a highlight. I wouldn't say the characters were necessarily one dimensional - lankhmarians are, as we know, not exactly scrupulous. Fafhrd and the Mouser are also thieves!

My main gripe with this story is that it ended too quickly. The pay off was great, and quite scary (it reminded me of the cinematics the original Diablo, which is a game I suspect Leiber would have loved), but it was over in a flash, thus keeping this story from the lofty heights reached by "Ill Met in Lankhmar".

As I reread these books, I am coming around to the school of thought that Lankhmar represents Leiber's best. They certainly all seem to be a product of passion, unlike, say, some of his science fiction which (to quote the SF Encyclopedia) occasionally features a "straining for effect". That being said, no novel he wrote ever surpassed "The Wanderer".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords\_Against\_Death

This is the very first published Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story. Originally called "Two Sought Adventure", and first appearing in Unknown, August 1939.

This was actually much, much better than I remembered it. There are action scenes a plenty and, unlike much recent "fantasy", they are no insult to your the intelligence.

If anything, I'm sure the language was too challenging for younger readers... Heaven forbid they understand what an "augery" is.

It only gets slightly long winded when the ambuscade (yet another new word...) makes its second appearance.

Perhaps the scene I enjoyed the most was the night the heroes spent with the peasant family, with Fafhrd telling tall tales and his companion performing magic tricks. Splendid. Reminds me of the elegiac and lyrical "Piper at the Gates if Dawn" by Richard Cowper.

The ending is a classic twist, and still works. The implications are very scary, if you think about it.

The old fashioned linguistic aesthetic is brilliantly realised and is consistent throughout the whole piece (and the entire Fafhrd and Gray Mouser collection).

I think Leiber could have (and probably wanted to) make this one even darker, but of course the editors of Unknown wouldn't have allowed too much splatter.

A stonking great standalone tale. I love these self contained quests where the author has no need to reveal his cards too early, and is happy to leave hints of a richly realised backdrop to spark the reader's imagination.

Absolutely read this one. In fact, just get the Swords Against Death collection.

Despite the title, which is a reference to Poe's "MS: Found in a Bottle", this in fact seems to be a reasonaby effective homage to that other Poe story, "The Cask of Amontillado".

The (unreliable) narrator, a paranoid schizophrenic, slowly tortures a classmate who has allegedly wronged him, although the nature of the wrong that warrants such calculated vengeance is left ambiguous.

The twist ending, reminiscent of "Fight Club", is neat. But on the whole, this one pales in comparison to "Answering Service" and "Do you know Dave Wenzel?". Perhaps it would have benefited from a longer run time, so as to properly flesh out the paranoid delusions?

However, I can guarantee that this would have been the best story by far in "Short Stories for Men" where it was originally published!

First published in Fellowship of the Stars (Terry Carr ed. 1974).

Deceptively simple, very effective, split personality story. Clearly written by a very experienced "old master".

Written in a simpler than usual Leiber style, but this is by no means a quick pulp written under orders.

If I were to guess, I suspect Leiber wrote this (or at least had the idea for it) earlier than 1974, but then revived it and tidied it up for the 74 publication.

I come back to it regularly.

Ramsay Campbell said it was "surely seminal in showing an everyday marriage psychotically invaded from within". I agree.

Funny similarities to Mad Men abound - a protagonist called Don with a shady past, a neighbour named Carleton... Who knows if this is coincidence or if Matt Weiner was a Leiber fan...

In 74 Leiber also published the outstanding story, Waif, which has a throwback to Conjure Wife, and the best Gummitch story, Cat's Cradle, which has a throwback to the Wanderer. What a year!

I bet you didn't know Leiber has written whodunnit mysteries?

The first of these stories, Scream Wolf, was written for Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine (Feb 1961). 1961 was a lucrative year for Leiber, featuring (among other works) Scylla's Daughter, later expanded into The Swords of Lankhmar. The book version of The Big Time also saw release in 1961.

The second, and better story, The Glove, saw release in 1975, in the June edition of Whispers. The 1970s feature what Ramsey Campbell terms Leiber's discursive yet relaxed later mode. Leiber was on a hot streak in 1975, having written the award winning Belsen Express and Catch that Zeppelin!

I read both versions in the excellent recent collection Horrible Imaginings.

In Scream Wolf, detectives investigate why an older woman fell out of an apartment window. The victim was an eccentric, prone to screaming at random, with an apathetic husband to boot. It's an easy read, worth your time, but clearly written for the magazines as a "quickie". Strays away from the challenging denser Leiber vocabulary that features in, say, The Big Time.

The Glove, which is also set in an apartment complex, is just generally better in all respects, although still not close to Leiber's best work of the seventies. That would go to America the Beautiful, The Button Molder, or perhaps The Moon Porthole - the latter two of which were also set in apartment blocks! (Leiber spent many of his later years in a small apartment in San Francisco's meat packing district).

In The Glove, a woman is sexually assaulted, and the intruder leaves behind a grey glove. The narrator, one of her neighbours, is given the glove to look after while the police enter the scene. Needless to say, there are supernatural forces at work here, similar to the much, much earlier Leiber work "The Automatic Pistol". The twist ending was simple, effective, and satisfying.

Winner of the 1971 Hugo and 1970 Nebula awards for best novella.

This was my second read through, this time reading it as part of The First Book of Lankhmar.

I didn't remember too much of this story from my initial read. Now that I've re-read it, I can safely say that it's fucking awesome. Little wonder it scooped the Hugo and Nebula...

Its basically divided into three acts - Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser's first meeting, then retiring to the Mouser's decorated attic lodging, and then onto the action-packed infiltration of the Thieves Guild.

The first meeting involves the duo attacking and robbing some thieves. It is written with powerful atmosphere. In fact, the story in general paints a very vivid picture of the black smogs and incessant debauchery that characterize Lankhmar. Even the "nice" taverns are rat infested...

This was written in 1970. For my part, 1970 was one, of not the, best Leiber year for short fiction (he wrote what I think is his best short story, America the Beautiful).

I'd forgetten how outright grotesque some of the wizardry in this story is. Particularly near the end, when the boys come face to face with hundreds of "furnace-red eyes". The fate of Vlana and Ivrian is definitely not for the feint of heart...

I'd also forgotten one of the themes was emasculation, which is the whole reason the duo storm the Thieves Guild in the first place.

Overall, this story is a triumph, and a great way to end the (highly underrated) Swords and Deviltry collection.

My one criticism is that Fafhrd and the Mouser's personalities are not fully explored. But to do so would require a novel, and sacrificing some of the action.

As is standard for Leiber, there is some fairly advanced vocabulary, including words like "sobriquet" (all used correctly, of course).