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Thieves' World: First Blood
Contains all of the stories of the first two Thieves' World anthologies ( Thieves' World and Tales of the Vulgar Unicorn ), with additional material. Return to the Olden Days of Sanctuary! Sanctuary, a seedy, backwater town governed by evil forces, powerful magic, and political intrigue See how Thieves' World all began! Classic stories Robert Lynn Asprin
Lynn Abbey
Poul Anderson
Marion Zimmer Bradley
John Brunner
David Drake
Philip Jose Farmer
Joe Haldeman
Janet Morris
Andrew J. Offutt
A. E.van Vogt
Lynn Abbey
Poul Anderson
Marion Zimmer Bradley
John Brunner
David Drake
Philip Jose Farmer
Joe Haldeman
Janet Morris
Andrew J. Offutt
A. E.van Vogt
460 pages, Paperback
Published December 1, 2003
20 people are currently reading
244 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Abbey
146 books192 followersLynn Abbey began publishing in 1979 with the novel Daughter of the Bright Moon and the short story "The Face of Chaos," part of a Thieves World shared world anthology. She received early encouragement from Gordon R. Dickson.
In the 1980s she married Robert Asprin and became his co-editor on the Thieves World books. She also contributed to other shared world series during the 1980s, including Heroes in Hell and Merovingen Nights.
Abbey and Asprin divorced in 1993 and Abbey moved to Oklahoma City. She continued to write novels during this period, including original works as well as tie-ins to Role Playing Games for TSR. In 2002, she returned to Thieves World with the novel Sanctuary and also began editing new anthologies, beginning with Turning Points.
In the 1980s she married Robert Asprin and became his co-editor on the Thieves World books. She also contributed to other shared world series during the 1980s, including Heroes in Hell and Merovingen Nights.
Abbey and Asprin divorced in 1993 and Abbey moved to Oklahoma City. She continued to write novels during this period, including original works as well as tie-ins to Role Playing Games for TSR. In 2002, she returned to Thieves World with the novel Sanctuary and also began editing new anthologies, beginning with Turning Points.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 11, 2008
Several years ago, some friends of mine from the Young Writers Workshop (http://www.people.virginia.edu/~eds-yww/) and I came up with the idea of writing a series of short science fiction stories that were all set in the same universe. Each story would tell a small part of a larger story, based in large part on our collective experience playing a game of lazer tag at an YWW reunion. The project never got that far, which is unfortunate, because if First Blood is any indication, we probably could have made it work.
Thieves’ World: First Blood is a collection of the first two Thieves’ World anthologies, making it a sort of super-anthology. The premise behind the collections was simple – to get a number of prominent fantasy authors to work together in creating a shared fantasy setting. Each author could use the same set pieces, characters, and even events would overlap between the various stories. This would not only give the authors a great deal of flexibility, but also help them to create a living, breathing world, were different signature characters could interact, or at least pass in the street.
The result of these collaborations is Sanctuary, a backwater city in the Rankan Empire. As Old Ben Kenobi would have it, “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than you will within these walls.” Sanctuary is a bad place, full of thieves, murderers, slavers, prostitutes, grifters, and thousands of other ne’er-do-wells. In point of fact, being a criminal seems to be a requirement for residency in the city. As the first anthology opens, control of the city has recently been given to a young Rankan prince who, with the help of his loyal guardsmen (the Hell Hounds), seeks to restore some kind of order to the city.
It’s a fairly interesting premise – the results, however, are a bit mixed. The tone of the stories varies wildly, particularly between the first and second halves of the book (which originally were two separate books). The earlier stories give the reader the impression of a very Conan-like world – magic is rare, mysterious, and not to be trifled with, gods, if they exist, are aloof and beyond mortal ken. Life is hard, grim, and one cannot rely on much besides one’s own strength for aid.
As the stories go on, this tone starts to change, and the world of Sanctuary starts to develop into more of a high fantasy tone. By the end, we have gods directly meddling in mortal affairs, powerful mages who have conversations in bars, god-blessed/cursed warriors, parallel dimensions, and other assorted fantasy weirdness.
This isn’t BAD necessarily, but it is jarring. Despite the stories nominal interconnectedness, there comes a point where it really feels like we’ve moved into another setting all together. Personally, I preferred the darker, grimmer tones, but other people may enjoy the high fantasy stuff too. (Note – I do enjoy high fantasy, but I felt that dark and grim better suited the “Thieves’ World” concept.)
As you might expect, the quality of the stories varies greatly. The blessing and curse of any anthology is that you’re likely to find some things you really like, and some you just don’t. I particularly liked “The Face of Chaos” (Lynn Abbey), “The Price of Doing Business” (Robert Asprin), “Myrtis” (Christine Dewees), “Spiders of the Purple Mage” (Philip Jose Farmer) and “The Fruit of Enlibar” (Lynn Abbey, again. Yes, I really like Lynn Abbey’s writing.). Andrew Offutt’s stories I could give a pass on, as I could just about any story featuring Tempus, a warrior blessed/cursed by the god of war, rape, and slaughter. He feels a little too much like a character created by a thirteen-year old D&D player.
Overall, it’s a good collection, and worth the read. Skip authors that you don’t like, but beware – because these stores are interconnected, skipping a story may cause you to miss you on certain pieces of information. I personally found the first half of the book more enjoyable, but both halves have some gems in them.
Thieves’ World: First Blood is a collection of the first two Thieves’ World anthologies, making it a sort of super-anthology. The premise behind the collections was simple – to get a number of prominent fantasy authors to work together in creating a shared fantasy setting. Each author could use the same set pieces, characters, and even events would overlap between the various stories. This would not only give the authors a great deal of flexibility, but also help them to create a living, breathing world, were different signature characters could interact, or at least pass in the street.
The result of these collaborations is Sanctuary, a backwater city in the Rankan Empire. As Old Ben Kenobi would have it, “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than you will within these walls.” Sanctuary is a bad place, full of thieves, murderers, slavers, prostitutes, grifters, and thousands of other ne’er-do-wells. In point of fact, being a criminal seems to be a requirement for residency in the city. As the first anthology opens, control of the city has recently been given to a young Rankan prince who, with the help of his loyal guardsmen (the Hell Hounds), seeks to restore some kind of order to the city.
It’s a fairly interesting premise – the results, however, are a bit mixed. The tone of the stories varies wildly, particularly between the first and second halves of the book (which originally were two separate books). The earlier stories give the reader the impression of a very Conan-like world – magic is rare, mysterious, and not to be trifled with, gods, if they exist, are aloof and beyond mortal ken. Life is hard, grim, and one cannot rely on much besides one’s own strength for aid.
As the stories go on, this tone starts to change, and the world of Sanctuary starts to develop into more of a high fantasy tone. By the end, we have gods directly meddling in mortal affairs, powerful mages who have conversations in bars, god-blessed/cursed warriors, parallel dimensions, and other assorted fantasy weirdness.
This isn’t BAD necessarily, but it is jarring. Despite the stories nominal interconnectedness, there comes a point where it really feels like we’ve moved into another setting all together. Personally, I preferred the darker, grimmer tones, but other people may enjoy the high fantasy stuff too. (Note – I do enjoy high fantasy, but I felt that dark and grim better suited the “Thieves’ World” concept.)
As you might expect, the quality of the stories varies greatly. The blessing and curse of any anthology is that you’re likely to find some things you really like, and some you just don’t. I particularly liked “The Face of Chaos” (Lynn Abbey), “The Price of Doing Business” (Robert Asprin), “Myrtis” (Christine Dewees), “Spiders of the Purple Mage” (Philip Jose Farmer) and “The Fruit of Enlibar” (Lynn Abbey, again. Yes, I really like Lynn Abbey’s writing.). Andrew Offutt’s stories I could give a pass on, as I could just about any story featuring Tempus, a warrior blessed/cursed by the god of war, rape, and slaughter. He feels a little too much like a character created by a thirteen-year old D&D player.
Overall, it’s a good collection, and worth the read. Skip authors that you don’t like, but beware – because these stores are interconnected, skipping a story may cause you to miss you on certain pieces of information. I personally found the first half of the book more enjoyable, but both halves have some gems in them.
August 7, 2021
This is a series I got into a few decades ago as a preteen, finding The Shattered Sphere (collecting vols. 7-9) at a "fill a bag for a buck" library book sale. I read the shit out of that book, in media res and with none of the rest of the series. Fantasy books were slim pickins at ol' Dalend Memorial (though that's also where I discovered Marion Zimmer Bradley's feminist reimaginings of Arthurian legend and the Iliad). After college with Amazon suddenly a thing, I sought out used copies of all the rest after buying First Blood, which collects volumes 1&2. Never found #3 until I recently thought to look again and now I have them all, as far as I know. These are anthology, sharing a setting and characters, each story by another of a group of authors that passed them between each other, including such writers as Diane Duane, CJ Cherryh, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Poul Anderson, &&&
So here's the breakdown by story:
"Sentences of Death": a young scribe with a traumatic past gets some payback with the help of a magic scroll and Enas Yorl, a magician cursed to constantly shift form. Some clever machinations. 4/5*
"The Face of Chaos": A fortuneteller who's already having a bad day has to save a woman from being sacrificed to consecrate a temple to the gods of the conquerors. I remember in my young New-Agey days being a fan of Illyra. 4/5* mostly because Lynn Abbey's writing is so good.
"The Gate of the Flying Knives": a womanizing bard and his barbarian friend have to go into a magic scroll into a parallel dimension to rescue the bard's lady love, whom he dumps when she starts to get serious about him. 🙄 3/4*
"Shadowspawn": The titular thief gets involved in a plot to embarrass the prince governor, double-crosses the double-crossers, and Prince Kittycat reveals himself to be more sly than everyone assumes. Hanse/Shadowspawn is always a good time. 4/5
"The Price of Doing Business": a crime lord gets ambushed by vengeful street children and then debates morality with the guard who saves him. BTW, I never figured out how to pronounce "krrf." Kerf? Kriff? 4/5*
"Blood Brothers": A drug dealer with a double life gets caught up in a power struggle between wizards and triggers his own curse. 4/5*
"Myrtis": a madame uses all the resources at her disposal to convince the prince's guard to scuttle the plan to clean up the red light district. 5/5*
"Secret of the Blue Star": I forgot Lythande is secretly a woman! (Spoilers?) Leave it to Marion Zimmer Bradley. 5/5*
"Spiders of the Purple Mage": A poor midwife goes on an adventure with a priest to infiltrate a sinister mage's compound of elaborate traps. Fun times. 4/5*
"Goddess": a man infiltrates a temple to Dyareela hidden beneath a temple to the goddess Heqt to wreak revenge upon whoever convinced his sister to kill her unborn child and herself. 3/5*
"The Fruit of Enlibar": The half-brother of the fortune-teller from "The Face of Chaos" rolls in to town to ask her to scry the origin of a shard of pottery that holds the secret to the lost formula for a super powerful steel. Got more backstory on Illyra and Walegrin. 4/5*
"The Dream of the Sorceress": A healer gets caught up in the affairs (literally) of the gods, then gets cock-blocked. But he did get to screw a goddess first so don't feel too sorry for him. 3/5 *
"Vashanka's Minion": Meet Tempus Thales - cursed, ageless, immortal, heals really fast, can't get it up unless the woman's really not into it, and henpecked by his war god who then opens a weapons shop with really, really bad bargains. 3/5*
"To Guard the Guardians": Nasty ol' Tempus Thales gets his just deserts for being a nasty piece of work. Too bad I know it's temporary. 4/5*
"Lady of the Winds": Cappen Varra has to use all his wits and wiles to convince a local wind goddess to spare the caravan he's traveling with and the village they've stopped at. He's such a charming, tricksy fellow. 4/5*
"The Lighter Side of Sanctuary": A tourist brochure for Sanctuary, oof. 5/5*
And that's it! I didn't do the math but I think it shakes out to 4/5* for the collection. I'll move on to volume 3, Shadows of Sanctuary, once I burn through my Hoopla limit (which I forgot about!)
So here's the breakdown by story:
"Sentences of Death": a young scribe with a traumatic past gets some payback with the help of a magic scroll and Enas Yorl, a magician cursed to constantly shift form. Some clever machinations. 4/5*
"The Face of Chaos": A fortuneteller who's already having a bad day has to save a woman from being sacrificed to consecrate a temple to the gods of the conquerors. I remember in my young New-Agey days being a fan of Illyra. 4/5* mostly because Lynn Abbey's writing is so good.
"The Gate of the Flying Knives": a womanizing bard and his barbarian friend have to go into a magic scroll into a parallel dimension to rescue the bard's lady love, whom he dumps when she starts to get serious about him. 🙄 3/4*
"Shadowspawn": The titular thief gets involved in a plot to embarrass the prince governor, double-crosses the double-crossers, and Prince Kittycat reveals himself to be more sly than everyone assumes. Hanse/Shadowspawn is always a good time. 4/5
"The Price of Doing Business": a crime lord gets ambushed by vengeful street children and then debates morality with the guard who saves him. BTW, I never figured out how to pronounce "krrf." Kerf? Kriff? 4/5*
"Blood Brothers": A drug dealer with a double life gets caught up in a power struggle between wizards and triggers his own curse. 4/5*
"Myrtis": a madame uses all the resources at her disposal to convince the prince's guard to scuttle the plan to clean up the red light district. 5/5*
"Secret of the Blue Star": I forgot Lythande is secretly a woman! (Spoilers?) Leave it to Marion Zimmer Bradley. 5/5*
"Spiders of the Purple Mage": A poor midwife goes on an adventure with a priest to infiltrate a sinister mage's compound of elaborate traps. Fun times. 4/5*
"Goddess": a man infiltrates a temple to Dyareela hidden beneath a temple to the goddess Heqt to wreak revenge upon whoever convinced his sister to kill her unborn child and herself. 3/5*
"The Fruit of Enlibar": The half-brother of the fortune-teller from "The Face of Chaos" rolls in to town to ask her to scry the origin of a shard of pottery that holds the secret to the lost formula for a super powerful steel. Got more backstory on Illyra and Walegrin. 4/5*
"The Dream of the Sorceress": A healer gets caught up in the affairs (literally) of the gods, then gets cock-blocked. But he did get to screw a goddess first so don't feel too sorry for him. 3/5 *
"Vashanka's Minion": Meet Tempus Thales - cursed, ageless, immortal, heals really fast, can't get it up unless the woman's really not into it, and henpecked by his war god who then opens a weapons shop with really, really bad bargains. 3/5*
"To Guard the Guardians": Nasty ol' Tempus Thales gets his just deserts for being a nasty piece of work. Too bad I know it's temporary. 4/5*
"Lady of the Winds": Cappen Varra has to use all his wits and wiles to convince a local wind goddess to spare the caravan he's traveling with and the village they've stopped at. He's such a charming, tricksy fellow. 4/5*
"The Lighter Side of Sanctuary": A tourist brochure for Sanctuary, oof. 5/5*
And that's it! I didn't do the math but I think it shakes out to 4/5* for the collection. I'll move on to volume 3, Shadows of Sanctuary, once I burn through my Hoopla limit (which I forgot about!)
October 23, 2012
The volume collects the first two Thieves' World anthologies, Thieves' World and Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn. While it was great finally having a chance to read these (previously long out of print) stories, I don't think many of them lived up to the great premise.
The Thieves' World I expected was quite similar to what was described in the Making of Thieves' World essay included in the book: a massive slum various sword & sorcery heroes call home, their adventures tangentially intersecting and their paths crossing. While there are some stories that deliver--those stories tend to be the highlights--there are surprisingly few actual thief protagonists, and far too much high fantasy mucking about with competing gods. Fritz Leiber is cited as an influence, but Thieves' World's city of Sanctuary is nowhere near as lush, decadent, and dangerous as Lankhmar, and few of the adventures found here have the same kind of personal stakes and gritty, street-level action of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales. The Making of Thieves describes a teeming hive of corruption that could play home to Conan, Elric, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane, etc., but then it has too many stories about humans acting directly as pawns for interventionist, physically manifested gods. This felt like a bait and switch to me. For something called "Thieves' World" there were surprisingly few heists; perhaps "Prophet's World" would have been a more appropriate title.
Perhaps it can be said that Thieves' World shows the fantasy genre in transition. It was released in 1979, when pure sword & sorcery was on the decline and Tolkien-inspired high fantasy (as embodied by Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara, released in 1977) was becoming increasingly commercially successful. I suspect that's the reason for the tension between the few gritty street-level tales and the more high flying epic stories. This is interesting from a genre history perspective, but not really what I was looking for. I don't think I'll go out of my way to seek out the sequel anthologies, as it appears that the competing pantheon aspect of the stories only grows more prevalent.
As a final note, the Kindle edition of this book is probably the most poorly formatted commercial e-book I've seen to date. There are numerous cases of OCR errors (spelling errors are particularly obnoxious in jargon-prone fantasy), several instances of strangely hyphenated words, and even a few snippets of missing text. While I didn't factor this into my rating, I expect better from a major publisher like Macmillan/TOR.
The Thieves' World I expected was quite similar to what was described in the Making of Thieves' World essay included in the book: a massive slum various sword & sorcery heroes call home, their adventures tangentially intersecting and their paths crossing. While there are some stories that deliver--those stories tend to be the highlights--there are surprisingly few actual thief protagonists, and far too much high fantasy mucking about with competing gods. Fritz Leiber is cited as an influence, but Thieves' World's city of Sanctuary is nowhere near as lush, decadent, and dangerous as Lankhmar, and few of the adventures found here have the same kind of personal stakes and gritty, street-level action of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales. The Making of Thieves describes a teeming hive of corruption that could play home to Conan, Elric, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane, etc., but then it has too many stories about humans acting directly as pawns for interventionist, physically manifested gods. This felt like a bait and switch to me. For something called "Thieves' World" there were surprisingly few heists; perhaps "Prophet's World" would have been a more appropriate title.
Perhaps it can be said that Thieves' World shows the fantasy genre in transition. It was released in 1979, when pure sword & sorcery was on the decline and Tolkien-inspired high fantasy (as embodied by Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara, released in 1977) was becoming increasingly commercially successful. I suspect that's the reason for the tension between the few gritty street-level tales and the more high flying epic stories. This is interesting from a genre history perspective, but not really what I was looking for. I don't think I'll go out of my way to seek out the sequel anthologies, as it appears that the competing pantheon aspect of the stories only grows more prevalent.
As a final note, the Kindle edition of this book is probably the most poorly formatted commercial e-book I've seen to date. There are numerous cases of OCR errors (spelling errors are particularly obnoxious in jargon-prone fantasy), several instances of strangely hyphenated words, and even a few snippets of missing text. While I didn't factor this into my rating, I expect better from a major publisher like Macmillan/TOR.
December 31, 2012
This is the first two books of the Thieves' World series in one volume, short stories by a variety of fantasy authors about some of the same characters in the same fantasy city. I'd first read the series in the early 80's as a teenager and the first four of them were amongst my favorite fantasy books. But in the fifth book something happened and I didn't enjoy them quite as much so I never really got around to rereading any of them.
...Until I got this book...
It was fun to get back into Sanctuary, adventure with Shadowspawn, One-Thumb and Lysande again after so many years.
But it didn't transport me into the fantasy world quite the same way as it did when I was thirteen or fourteen. But was a good escape none-the-less...
If I can get the next volume with the next two books, I most certainly will book another ticket to Thieves' World.
...Until I got this book...
It was fun to get back into Sanctuary, adventure with Shadowspawn, One-Thumb and Lysande again after so many years.
But it didn't transport me into the fantasy world quite the same way as it did when I was thirteen or fourteen. But was a good escape none-the-less...
If I can get the next volume with the next two books, I most certainly will book another ticket to Thieves' World.
January 22, 2015
I really love Thieves' World, I have the paperback AND hardback editions of it.
This version - not so much. I think Lynn Abbey really let the side down with this compilation, though tragically the originals aren't available as ebooks.
Oh well. Still good books, just with lots of little mistakes all over the place now.
This version - not so much. I think Lynn Abbey really let the side down with this compilation, though tragically the originals aren't available as ebooks.
Oh well. Still good books, just with lots of little mistakes all over the place now.
November 20, 2013
Currently reading, I find some of the writing is overly complicated for the sake of sounding fantastic. Some authors' work in this is not as good, so the overall experience is jarring. Still reading through, however, so I might give this an overall higher rating, we'll see...
Want to read
February 18, 2009I'm thrilled to see Thieve's World hasn't been forgotten!
April 27, 2013
see book 1
Read
August 11, 2013False
May 22, 2021
Read quite a while ago, even though I am marking it today. It was fun, but I don't really remember specifics.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews