In my quest (no pun intended) to read more fantasy novels, I recently picked up Fritz Lieber's "The Swords Of Lankhmar". This centres around two of Lieber's long-standing characters, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, as they battle a magician who can control rats. Heady stuff, i'm sure you'll agree.
As a 'bridge' between the heroic fantasy which I am used to reading and the questing fantasy to which I aspire, it was pretty good. The heroes were heroic, the villains dastardly and the plot quite thin. Scenes of wenching and quaffing abounded, and fans of the salacious won't be dissapointed either.
Lieber's magic seems selfconscious, and trying to get along well with science. When the Grey Mouser is attacked by sorcerous lightning he merely uses a long fire to earth his sword. When the Grey Mouser drinks the potion to shrink to rat size he becomes surrounded by a pool consisting of the bits of himself (described as 'various atoms') that had to vacate his body in order for it to shrink. This smacks of scientific toadyism to me, but I shouldn't complain as i've been a most vocal opponent of physics-defying magical feats in the past.
There is, however, one large hole in the book. Whenever a character sees the moon he always refers to it as 'gibbous' regardless of the time of month. At first I thought that this must be some in-joke that I didn't get, however later in the book Lieber uses the word 'decimate' where he means 'annihilate'. This is a pet peeve of mine, and leads me to believe that Fritz Lieber simply does not know what 'gibbous' means.
That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment