Michael Shea wrote convincing pastiches of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth. This collection of Nifft the Lean stories blends Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser to produce heroic fantasies mixed with magic and action. Nifft and his partner, Barnar Hammer-Hand, use guile and sorcery to pull off their grand enterprises. With plenty of exotic locales, fabulous creatures, weird magic, and chatty demons these stories will captivate you. This edition is an omnibus edition of Nifft the Lean (1982) and The Mines of Behemoth (1997) which were published separately. Whether you read the individual volumes or this combined package, you’ll find wonders waiting for you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Nifft the Lean
Come Then, Mortal, We Will Seek Her Soul… 13
The Pearls of the Vampire Queen… 77
The Fishing of the Demon Sea… 125
The Goddess in Glass… 273
The Mines of Behemoth… 345
Another new author – as ever, thanks very much George 🙂
Sergio, Michael Shea channels Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber in these stories. Fun stuff!
George, I’m aware of Michael Shea’s work though I have not read any. I’ll have to look up some of his sf and fantasy books.
Prashant, Michael Shea’s work is worth the search. He was a remarkable writer.
I’m a big fan of Shea. A highly underappreciated writer.
Steve, I totally agree with “highly underappreciated writer.” Michael Shea wrote some wonderful books that more people should be reading.
Slight typo, George…you have it as THE INCOMPEAT at the moment (I bet your spell-checker’s still grousing about Nifft). To pastiche Vance is almost to pastiche Leiber, anyway (and you’re thus not too far from Joanna Russ and Janet Fox in their s&s work). and Shea has done it well…as well as doing some interesting and uncomfortable work in his own voice (perhaps most famously “The Autopsy”).
Todd, thanks for the heads up! I’ll make that correction. Michael Shea also wrote some entertaining Lovecraft pastiches, too.
“The Autopsy” is definitely in the Bloch/Leiber/et al. tradition of taking Lovecraftian elements and making them one’s own, too…
Todd, “The Autospy” is a first-rate Lovecraftean pastiche.
I enjoyed the Nifft books quite a bit. How Shea got started as a writer is an interesting story and has a lot to do with Vance.
Bill, I’ll have to look into that.
This is not my field. I’m still catching up with the Vance I missed but my interests lie elsewhere.
Jeff, when you get around to Michael Shea’s work, you’ll enjoy it.
Niffty.
Jerry, ha! Niffty indeed.
Shea, Vance and Leiber – great writers!
Leiber was one of my favourites in the 70s when I had the chance to buy lots of stuff in London. His type of humour, especially in those short stories was magnificent.
George, I’ve been looking through your site – but didn’t find an article about Fritz Leiber?
Did I miss it somehow?
Totally OT:
Lt Uhura aka Nichelle Nicols was hospitalised – she’s well remembered for the “US TV’s first interracial kiss and it had worried broadcaster NBC after southern US affiliates had originally refused to air the episode.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/05/nichelle_nicols_uhura_stroke/
Wolf, thanks for the link!
Wolf, you can find my Friz Leiber reivews at http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-63-the-selected-stories-of-fritz-leiber/, http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-193/, http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-43-the-silver-eggheads-by-fritz-leiber/, and http://georgekelley.org/forgotten-books-203/
I’m always leery when someone says a book or story is like “Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser” as you do here. I like those stories so much, I’m always disappointed in the sorta version.
Rick, you would be pleasantly surprised by Michael Shea’s stories. They are very very similar to the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales.
Thanks, george – i didn’t look back far enough, obviously!
Just a little excuse: It’s too hot right now here in Hungary, around 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) – even the Hungarians are complaining …
Wolf, we expect a Long Hot Summer in the U.S., too.