The Incompleat Nifft

Reading "Nifft the Lean," is a must for those who enjoy great adult fantasy. Other hard to find, but worth it, novels include "In Yana, The Touch of Undying," "A Quest for Simbilis," (which is a sequel to Jack Vance's "The Eyes of the Overworld," released about a decade before Jack Vance wrote his own sequel) and "The Color Out of Time," (a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space.") Both sequels are well up to the standards set by the writers of the original stories. "In Yana..." is a stand alone masterpiece of existential horror and also a lot of fun. Expect dry and mordant humor from Mr. Shea.

This is an excellent, excellent book. The Nift stories are sort of a darker version of Jack Vance, with a similar level of creativity and gripping imagery.The only thing to be careful about is if you are buying this book because you loved the other two Nift Books (Raiders of the Infernal Domain and Mines of Behemoth), because there is no new material in this book.

Michael Shea opens up new doors for readers of Horror andFantasy Literature with the "The Incomplete Nifft". In thisvolume the lucky reader is treated to a reprint of the now out of print and hard to find Nifft the Lean, plus the latest Nifft novel. It's two for the price of one. Both feature the irrepressible Nifft the Lean and his trusty sidekick Barnar the Chilite. Yes, in some ways this is the age old buddy theme, but the resemblance to, say, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser is superficial. Nifft is the real hero. But why should you read Shea when you can pick up the latest flabby offering from the fantasy trilogy factory? Unlike most fantasy writers nowadays Michael Shea deals in the fantastic. Nifft's adventures to Hell or his sojourn in the belly of the Behemoth resonate deep within the reader's imagination. These stories are literally the stuff of legend and myth. What's more, Shea tells his tales in a voice you aren't likely to come across in most contemporary fantasy. Intelligent, shrewd, and literate, Shea writes for the thinker, but his images are more suitable for the sensualist who relishes the frisson of the grotesque and the fantastic. It is a tribute to Shea's skill as a writer that his fervid pen always serves his intelligence. The horrors and grotesqueries found in his pages appear there in order to make a very clear point, usually an old fashioned moral point, about the power of the human spirit to withstand, and in some small but important way to triumph over, the terrors to which life (and Michael Shea) subjects us. For Shea is above all a Stoic. Probably an agnostic Stoic, but a disciple of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus all the same.So go ahead and give The Incomplete Nifft the Lean a try. You may be shocked, but you won't be disappointed.

Few people have had the ability to enjoy the dark pleasures offered by Michael Shea. The original Nifft the Lean was a DAW book back in the days when that meant a quick oblivion. Nevertheless, it won a World Fantasy Award. Imagine Jack Vance with a twist of Heironymous Bosch and you have Michael Shea. No reader of quality fantasy should ever, EVER pass up a chance to have this book rest on their shelves.

This book in a combination of two previous books, Nifft the Lean, and The Mines of Behemoth. When I first read Nifft the Lean, I was bowled over by the astonishingly vivid and incredible descriptions, and the adventure plots are riveting. The level of imagination in the various stories is also exceptional. As I recall, the book won a world fantasy award, and it was well deserved. I've re-read it a few times since, and it continues to hold up quite well. The book falls into a odd category of horror/adventure.The sequel, The Mines of Behemth, is a short novel (as opposed to half a dozen or so short stories for the first book), and I would rate it a little weaker (only 4 stars out of five). Still, any book that takes Nifft back on an expedition into the Underworld (i.e., Hell) is good news indeed (for the reader, anyway).This edition also has a foreword from a friend of Nifft's, commenting on each of the adventures and generally adding some amusing grace notes.