The Knight and Knave of Swords
The Knight and Knave of Swords closes out one of the great sequences in fantasy, Fritz Leiber's tales of the giant northerner Fafhrd and the small, cunning Gray Mouser. The four novellas gathered here find the pair settled on the cold island of Rime Isle with the women they have come to love, older, scarred, and less eager for pointless danger. Leiber uses that maturity to explore desire, aging, and consequence while still delivering the swordplay, sorcery, and Nehwon strangeness readers come for. It contains Sea Magic, The Mer She, The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars, and the celebrated novella The Mouser Goes Below. The book is both an ending and a summation of the sword and sorcery tradition Leiber helped invent.
What you might want to know about The Knight and Knave of Swords
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The final Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser collection, in which Fritz Leiber's legendary duo confront middle age, love, and a last set of dangerous adventures.
Yes. Gaiman has long championed Fritz Leiber as one of the essential fantasy writers and specifically pointed readers to the late Fafhrd and Gray Mouser volumes, including The Knight and Knave of Swords.
You can start here, but you will get more from it after Swords and Deviltry and the earlier collections, since these stories build on decades of the duo's adventures.
The Knight and Knave of Swords was written by Fritz Leiber, published in 1988 by William Morrow.
The Knight and Knave of Swords is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Knight and Knave of Swords takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
The Knight and Knave of Swords is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
