I Read Books: The Knight And Knave Of Swords

The Knight and Knave of Swords

The last, and late volume in Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. The lads have settled down on Rime Isle, Fafhrd getting used to his missing hand, the Mouser becoming a merchant captain. Their enemies won’t leave them alone however, and neither will the women they’ve loved and left behind. Firstly the mer-folk of Simorgya try to take the gold Ikons back, variously trying to seduce the boys. Then assassins are sent from the slayers guild, while the gods that Fafhrd and the Mouser lackadasically worship curse them to try and make them take up adventuring again. These interact in entertaining ways.

In the course of this Loki, confounded by the Mouser, is released from his watery prison and demands revenge; he goes to Death and insists that the Mouser must be buried as far underground as he was underwater. Death agrees, though in accordance with his own whim he strengthens the Mouser for the ordeal by taking weight and mass from Fafhrd, so much that the barbarian might float away. Meanwhile Death’s sister Pain, who he finds embarrassing as she refuses to wear clothes, becomes part of the punishment.

It gets more sexually explicit than their previous adventures, and swiftly turns into sadism and masochism, as one might expect when Pain is involved. There’s also a mind controlled assassin and an escaped sex slave. The already poor taste of the sexual activities are not improved by making them more explicit, nor by the pair of rogues being on the receiving end of situations of dubious consent.

This and Swords and Ice Magic keep bringing back old enemies, and though there are new threats and new situations and the boys are attempting to grow up and take some actual responsibility, this is not as successful as might be hoped. Nor does the increasing sexual content help, perhaps because only the odder and kinkier scenes  are detailed; we have no contrast with their usual amorous activities with their current (final) partners Cif and Afryet.

Read This: This is still some good old-fashioned swords and sorcery
Don’t Read This: If you’ve already been put off by the attitude to sex in the previous volumes.
Index To My Reviews Of The Swords Series:
Swords and Deviltry
Swords Against Death
Swords In The Mist
Swords Against Wizardry
The Swords Of Lankhmar
Swords and Ice Magic