Mon 8 Feb 2021
Heroic Fantasy Stories I’m Reading: FRITZ LEIBER “The Sadness of the Executioner.â€
Posted by Steve under Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
FRITZ LEIBER “The Sadness of the Executioner.†Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. First published in Flashing Swords #1, edited by Lin Carter (Dell, paperback original, July 1973). Collected in Swords and Ice Magic (Ace, paperback, 1977).
Although this is nominally a Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser story, they don’t appear the ninth page of this 15 page tale, which is basically little more than long vignette. No, the main protagonist before then is Death, and in particular the death that services the World of Nehwon, and he has fallen behind on his duties. So far, as the story begins, he has to choose 200 of those now living to pass through to the other side.
To that end, 196 have done so. He has four remaining, and two of them are our duly fated heroes, neither of who are aware of their upcoming destiny. Nonetheless destiny, or fate, has a way of stepping in, and Death being a sportsman, in spite of his inevitable cheating, decides to let it have its way.
It was Leiber who is said to have coined the phrase “swords and sorcery†as a subgenre of the larger world of fantasy, and while a minor tale, “The Sadness of the Executioner†is a prime example.
And as Lin Carter so states in his introduction to the story, Leiber’s finely tuned fantasy resembles in no way that of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, among other similar and inimitably ruthless characters, and the other major author in the field. Which is why I still read Leiber’s work, while tales of Conan lie today with their pages unopened, at least by me.
February 8th, 2021 at 6:30 pm
Leiber is closer to Dunsany, Morris, or the 1001 Arabian Nights than Howard. Perhaps only de Camp, Pratt, Moore, Kuttner, and Brackett drew on the same kind of literary background for their sword and sorcery (or sword and ray gun in Brackett’s case), and it shows in stories that still have punch and appeal beyond the flashing swords, nubile naked women, and Lovecraftian horrors of the earky genre.
February 8th, 2021 at 7:08 pm
I don’t think you meant “earky” but I think it fits, so I won’t change it. The authors you mention certainly have one other thing in common. They are all authors I can still read today. de Camp sort of straddles both camps, though. I do not care now for his work doing Conan pastiches, but I commend him highly for bringing Howard back to the attention of a next generation of readers. Back in the 1970s I really enjoyed those Lancer books with the purple edges.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:53 pm
I loved the Howard stuff too, and still enjoy it, but I admit I prefer writers who approach the genre from a slightly different take, Leiber or Moorcock and the ones I mentioned.
I admit I was thinking less of de Camp’s Conan than his own creations where his hero is more likely to wield an epee than a broadsword. Though the Sorcery part is missing I always liked Mundy’s adventurer Tros who engaged his brain before his sword or his fist.
One of the limits of the genre for me has been the tendency of too many Howard followers to follow the path of brawling barbarian rather than intelligent adventurer. Easier to write the former, but not always more fun to read.
February 9th, 2021 at 3:40 am
Literate writing ala Dunsany, Mundy, P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer has vanished, one of the casualties of changes in education. I miss it, could always count on broadening my own very limited classical and poetic knowledge every time i read something by one of them.
Leiber’s moody, atmospheric writing and the bickering between Fafhrd and the Mouser are highlights of this series for me. The beginning of this tale is a great example
There was a sky that was always gray.
There was a place that was always far away.
There was a being who was always sad.
Sitting on his dark-cushioned, modest throne in his low, rambling castle in the heart of the Shadowland, Death shook his pale head and pommeled a little his opalescent temples and slightly pursed his lips, which were the color of violet grapes with the silvery bloom still on, above his slender figure armored in chain mail and his black belt, studded with silver skulls tarnished almost as black, from which hung his naked, irresistible sword.
And yet one reviewer says : there is nothing intelligent about the collection save the imagination Leiber invested in the setting and fantasy elements.. Leaves you to wonder if they actually read the stories.
http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2012/11/review-of-first-book-of-lankhmar-by.html
February 9th, 2021 at 10:27 am
Thank you for that long quote from the beginning of the story, Sai. If that opening passage doesn’t whet your appetite for the story yet to come, then none of the Fafhrd & Grey Mouser are meant for you either.