| Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber |
| Essay by Ted Gioia |
Seven is a lucky number for fans of adventure stories. The
seven Harry Potter novels have sold more than 400 million
copies and built a $24 billion brand. The seven Narnia
novels by C.S. Lewis, have sold some 100 million copies,
and are more popular now than at any time in their author’s
life. But many connoisseurs of fantasy literature retain a
special fondness for a less commercially grandiose series,
yet one that can match any other for sheer vivacity and
inventiveness: namely, the seven
Fafhrd and Gray Mouse books by
author Fritz Leiber.
These works are not stand-alone
novels, but rather compilations
of Leiber stories and novellas,
written over a fifty year period.
The first published Fafhrd and
Gray Mouser story, “Two Sought
Adventure”—now included in
Swords Against Death, the
second volume in the series,
as “The Jewels in the Forest”
—appeared in Unknown in
1939. Some 49 years later,
Leiber bowed out with “"Slack
Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring
Hisvet"—later incorporated into
the novella “The Mouse Goes Below” featured in the final
book in the series The Knight and Knave of Swords. Along
the way, Leiber showcased his daring duo in 37 separate
tales.
Leiber took no credit for the invention of the two characters,
who were described in a September 1934 letter from Harry
Otto Fischer to the author—Fafhrd, the barbarian swordsman
from the frozen northlands was based on Leiber himself,
while the sly wizard’s apprentice, the Gray Mouser,
represented Fischer. Although Fischer, an enthusiastic
science fiction fan, wrote part of "The Lords of Quarmall,"
Leiber had sole responsibility for the rest of the series,
which came out in piecemeal form in more than a half-dozen
different magazines, but gaining a fervent cult following along
the way.
Related Stories
Fritz Leiber at 100
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
Swords and Deviltry, the first volume in the series actually
consists of later material written as a prequel for the epic
saga of the two adventurers. In “The Snow Women,” Leiber
describes the youth of Fafhrd in the Cold Waste, and the
incidents leading up to the swordsman’s departure for the
warmer climes of the South and his eventual meeting with
Gray Mouser. In “The Unholy Grail,” Gray Mouser is intro-
duced as an apprentice to the wizard Glavas Rho, both
master and disciple running afoul of the local Duke Janarrl,
who has vowed to eradicate sorcerers from his realm. In the
final story in the book, “Ill Met in Lankhmar”—winner of both
the Hugo and Nebula as best novella of the year—the two
heroes encounter each other for the first time, as both,
unbeknownst to the other, plot to rob the same gems from a
gang of thieves, and thus incur the vengeance of a dark
wizard.
In these stories, readers will encounter many of the trade-
mark qualities of Leiber’s oeuvre. Many later authors have
attempted to combine elements of myth and magic with
everyday realism—in time a whole genre, known as magical
realism, would emerge from this provocative combination—
but no writer of Leiber’s generation handled the recipe with
more aplomb. Although he constructed Fafhrd and Gray
Mouser during an era of virtuously vanilla superheroes,
Leiber made his protagonists more vulnerable and down-to-
earth than the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordons of his day.
And bawdier too! Those who come to the Leiber tales after
reading The Lord of the Rings and Narnia series will be
struck by the boozing and lascivious behavior—indeed, by
a general tone of naughty playfulness and irreverence not
found in those other works.
But these are adventure stories, first and foremost, and
Leiber a masterful storyteller in the tradition of H. Rider
Haggard, Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Like Robert Heinlein, Leiber could draw on his first-hand
experience as a fencer in writing his sword fighting scenes
—which play a central role in so many Fafhrd and Gray
Mouser tales. But his heroes also rely on bow and arrows,
slingshot, and various other primitive weapons, including
fists, elbows and feet. If the fight sequence is the action
writer's equivalent of ballet, 20th century literature boasted
no better prose choreographer of conflict and confrontation.
Leiber's heroes didn't need a Rambo-like arsenal to extract
themselves from a tight spot, and what they lacked in fire-
power they made up for in ingenuity and sheer
gamesmanship.
Sometimes Leiber is held back by the baroque overflow of
his sentences. He greatly admired the horror writer H.P.
Lovecraft—an overwrought author whose motto was never
settle for one adjective when three or four might be squeezed
into the word count. But this was perhaps an irresistible
temptation for impecunious authors working for pulp
magazines that paid by the word. Here is the opening
sentence of Leiber’s “Ill Met in Lankhmar”: “Silent as spec-
ters, the tall and the fat thief edged past the dead, noose-
strangled watch-leopard, out the thick, lock-picked door of
Jengao the Gem Merchant, and strolled east on Cash Street
through the thin black night-smog of Lankhmar, City of
Sevenscore Thousand Smokes.” A bit much, no? But when
I remember that Leiber came of age writing for youngsters
who had no television, no video games, no 3D films packed
with special effects, I forgive him for his extravagance. It’s
hard for us to imagine now, but only a few decades back, the
written word could paint pictures that could not be matched,
let alone surpassed, by the studios in Hollywood. In Leiber’s
day, the most stupendous spectacles were reserved for the
blazing inner eye of the imagination, and our author aimed to
provide heady literary CGI effects to fuel those fires.
But if Leiber is sometimes working from the same gothic
playbook as Lovecraft and Poe, at other times he is
surprisingly forward-looking in his storytelling. Leiber was
fascinated by Carl Jung and modern psychology (he earned
a degree in the subject in 1932, at a time when few colleges
offered one), and he pays close attention to inner conflicts,
compromised motivations and peculiar interpersonal
dynamics in his stories. In “The Snow Women,” Fafhrd not
only needs to battle bad guys with his sword, but faces an
even bigger challenge in getting out from under the thumb of
his domineering (and perhaps death-inflicting) mother—not
to mention his pregnant girlfriend and her angry brothers.
No, Gandalf never had those kinds of problems. Gray
Mouser offers an even more complicated psyche for our
inspection, one in which wounded pride and a sadistic
undercurrent counter an appealing if naïve innocence and
sense of fair play—this complexity plays out in the story of
his youth from Swords and Deviltry, “The Unholy Grail,”
where we learn that even our hero’s name is the result of his
paradoxical nature, in which the elements of black and white
cancel each other out, leaving behind an enigmatic gray,
which the Mouser lives up to both in attire and behavior.
Despite the prevalence of so many imitators, direct and
indirect, the Leiber stories themselves find too few readers
nowadays, and any curious soul who wants to gauge the
range of this author’s talents will need to hunt out used
copies of his typically out-of-print works. Yet the Fafhrd and
Gray Mouser stories seem long over-due for rediscovery—
if not by the book world, than by some Hollywood director,
theme park designer or video game programmer. If Narnia
and The Lord of the Rings can become key cultural memes
in the new millennium, this bawdier, more comic and ir-
reverent take on the adventure genre would seem to present
an even better match with the flippant tastes of our times. In
the meantime, the stories are out there, rewarding those who
hunt them down with some of the finest flights of fancy to be
found on the written page.
seven Harry Potter novels have sold more than 400 million
copies and built a $24 billion brand. The seven Narnia
novels by C.S. Lewis, have sold some 100 million copies,
and are more popular now than at any time in their author’s
life. But many connoisseurs of fantasy literature retain a
special fondness for a less commercially grandiose series,
yet one that can match any other for sheer vivacity and
inventiveness: namely, the seven
Fafhrd and Gray Mouse books by
author Fritz Leiber.
These works are not stand-alone
novels, but rather compilations
of Leiber stories and novellas,
written over a fifty year period.
The first published Fafhrd and
Gray Mouser story, “Two Sought
Adventure”—now included in
Swords Against Death, the
second volume in the series,
as “The Jewels in the Forest”
—appeared in Unknown in
1939. Some 49 years later,
Leiber bowed out with “"Slack
Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring
Hisvet"—later incorporated into
the novella “The Mouse Goes Below” featured in the final
book in the series The Knight and Knave of Swords. Along
the way, Leiber showcased his daring duo in 37 separate
tales.
Leiber took no credit for the invention of the two characters,
who were described in a September 1934 letter from Harry
Otto Fischer to the author—Fafhrd, the barbarian swordsman
from the frozen northlands was based on Leiber himself,
while the sly wizard’s apprentice, the Gray Mouser,
represented Fischer. Although Fischer, an enthusiastic
science fiction fan, wrote part of "The Lords of Quarmall,"
Leiber had sole responsibility for the rest of the series,
which came out in piecemeal form in more than a half-dozen
different magazines, but gaining a fervent cult following along
the way.
Related Stories
Fritz Leiber at 100
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
Swords and Deviltry, the first volume in the series actually
consists of later material written as a prequel for the epic
saga of the two adventurers. In “The Snow Women,” Leiber
describes the youth of Fafhrd in the Cold Waste, and the
incidents leading up to the swordsman’s departure for the
warmer climes of the South and his eventual meeting with
Gray Mouser. In “The Unholy Grail,” Gray Mouser is intro-
duced as an apprentice to the wizard Glavas Rho, both
master and disciple running afoul of the local Duke Janarrl,
who has vowed to eradicate sorcerers from his realm. In the
final story in the book, “Ill Met in Lankhmar”—winner of both
the Hugo and Nebula as best novella of the year—the two
heroes encounter each other for the first time, as both,
unbeknownst to the other, plot to rob the same gems from a
gang of thieves, and thus incur the vengeance of a dark
wizard.
In these stories, readers will encounter many of the trade-
mark qualities of Leiber’s oeuvre. Many later authors have
attempted to combine elements of myth and magic with
everyday realism—in time a whole genre, known as magical
realism, would emerge from this provocative combination—
but no writer of Leiber’s generation handled the recipe with
more aplomb. Although he constructed Fafhrd and Gray
Mouser during an era of virtuously vanilla superheroes,
Leiber made his protagonists more vulnerable and down-to-
earth than the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordons of his day.
And bawdier too! Those who come to the Leiber tales after
reading The Lord of the Rings and Narnia series will be
struck by the boozing and lascivious behavior—indeed, by
a general tone of naughty playfulness and irreverence not
found in those other works.
But these are adventure stories, first and foremost, and
Leiber a masterful storyteller in the tradition of H. Rider
Haggard, Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Like Robert Heinlein, Leiber could draw on his first-hand
experience as a fencer in writing his sword fighting scenes
—which play a central role in so many Fafhrd and Gray
Mouser tales. But his heroes also rely on bow and arrows,
slingshot, and various other primitive weapons, including
fists, elbows and feet. If the fight sequence is the action
writer's equivalent of ballet, 20th century literature boasted
no better prose choreographer of conflict and confrontation.
Leiber's heroes didn't need a Rambo-like arsenal to extract
themselves from a tight spot, and what they lacked in fire-
power they made up for in ingenuity and sheer
gamesmanship.
Sometimes Leiber is held back by the baroque overflow of
his sentences. He greatly admired the horror writer H.P.
Lovecraft—an overwrought author whose motto was never
settle for one adjective when three or four might be squeezed
into the word count. But this was perhaps an irresistible
temptation for impecunious authors working for pulp
magazines that paid by the word. Here is the opening
sentence of Leiber’s “Ill Met in Lankhmar”: “Silent as spec-
ters, the tall and the fat thief edged past the dead, noose-
strangled watch-leopard, out the thick, lock-picked door of
Jengao the Gem Merchant, and strolled east on Cash Street
through the thin black night-smog of Lankhmar, City of
Sevenscore Thousand Smokes.” A bit much, no? But when
I remember that Leiber came of age writing for youngsters
who had no television, no video games, no 3D films packed
with special effects, I forgive him for his extravagance. It’s
hard for us to imagine now, but only a few decades back, the
written word could paint pictures that could not be matched,
let alone surpassed, by the studios in Hollywood. In Leiber’s
day, the most stupendous spectacles were reserved for the
blazing inner eye of the imagination, and our author aimed to
provide heady literary CGI effects to fuel those fires.
But if Leiber is sometimes working from the same gothic
playbook as Lovecraft and Poe, at other times he is
surprisingly forward-looking in his storytelling. Leiber was
fascinated by Carl Jung and modern psychology (he earned
a degree in the subject in 1932, at a time when few colleges
offered one), and he pays close attention to inner conflicts,
compromised motivations and peculiar interpersonal
dynamics in his stories. In “The Snow Women,” Fafhrd not
only needs to battle bad guys with his sword, but faces an
even bigger challenge in getting out from under the thumb of
his domineering (and perhaps death-inflicting) mother—not
to mention his pregnant girlfriend and her angry brothers.
No, Gandalf never had those kinds of problems. Gray
Mouser offers an even more complicated psyche for our
inspection, one in which wounded pride and a sadistic
undercurrent counter an appealing if naïve innocence and
sense of fair play—this complexity plays out in the story of
his youth from Swords and Deviltry, “The Unholy Grail,”
where we learn that even our hero’s name is the result of his
paradoxical nature, in which the elements of black and white
cancel each other out, leaving behind an enigmatic gray,
which the Mouser lives up to both in attire and behavior.
Despite the prevalence of so many imitators, direct and
indirect, the Leiber stories themselves find too few readers
nowadays, and any curious soul who wants to gauge the
range of this author’s talents will need to hunt out used
copies of his typically out-of-print works. Yet the Fafhrd and
Gray Mouser stories seem long over-due for rediscovery—
if not by the book world, than by some Hollywood director,
theme park designer or video game programmer. If Narnia
and The Lord of the Rings can become key cultural memes
in the new millennium, this bawdier, more comic and ir-
reverent take on the adventure genre would seem to present
an even better match with the flippant tastes of our times. In
the meantime, the stories are out there, rewarding those who
hunt them down with some of the finest flights of fancy to be
found on the written page.
Check out our sister sites:
The New Canon
Great literary works published
since 1985
Great Books Guide
Reviews of current books
Postmodern Mystery
Experimental works of mystery
& suspense
Fractious Fiction
Radical and unconventional
works of fiction
The New Canon
Great literary works published
since 1985
Great Books Guide
Reviews of current books
Postmodern Mystery
Experimental works of mystery
& suspense
Fractious Fiction
Radical and unconventional
works of fiction
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.