Or anti-heroes anyway.

Anyone else here a fan of the late Fritz Leiber? Ever read any of his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories? The Mouser was an expert slinger, as I recall. (Fafhrd was a bowman.) I even vaguely remember the Mouser telling someone who asked him about it (his sling) in one of the latter stories of the series that "It's just as good as a bow, and a lot less trouble to carry." Then he demonstrated by swiftly loading a lead shot into his sling and slinging it accurately at the cross-piece of a wooden gallows some distance away, where it struck with a resounding "thunk."

Oz

I've read a lot of Fritz Lieber short stories, but only one was about the Mouser and co.  I'll have to check the out.

Fritz Leiber describes the Mouser as using lead glandes, but when he slings the projectiles make buzzing sounds. Maybe they had flat spots cast into them...  ???

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Gosh, I don't even know myself how many of those there are. Leiber wrote those over a long stretch of time, roughly from the late Thirties to the late Eighties, I think. The Gray (Grey?) Mouser's prowess with a sling comes up in many of the tales, some of which are very short, some of which are novellas, and at least two are of novel length. (They have never been filmed, and I for one hope they will not be, as I doubt they are filmable without gross Hollywood distortion.)

In what I believe was the first one published, "Jewels In the Forest," a.k.a. "Two Sought Adventure" (circa 1939), he knocks out but does not kill a pursuing foe by denting in his helmet with a slung shot of some kind. (It was not always spelled out what type of projectiles he was using. On long treks he may have run out of molded lead shot and been forced to resort to stones, which are free for the picking up.)

Sometimes the diminutive Mouser and his hulking pal Fafhrd's enemies use slings too. In "Ill Met In Lankhmar" the Twain (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) are pursued across the nightime rooftops of smog-enshrouded, mummy-guarded Lankhmar by the vengeful members of the Thieves' Guild, who sling lumps or pellets of soft clay, "designed to stun, not kill" -- as in, they wanted to capture them alive, the better to be tortured -- at them, but miss, barely.

I kind of think that it was in the novella "Rime Isle" that a great deal of stress was laid on the Mouser's slinging prowess, but don't hold me to that.

Of course, both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were primarily *swordsmen*; Fahrd's bow and the Mouser's sling were just how they dealt with relatively distant threats. Wait, though: I recall a couple of occasions when the Mouser swung his loaded sling and bashed someone on the head, the way you might smite someone with a billiard ball in a sock, at close quarters.

If you can still find those, I hope you enjoy them as much as I once did. 

Oz

Sorry, my mistake -- I went looking for that website (couldn't find it, sorry) and I guess Cuchulain in Conchobar's nephew, not his son.

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Well, not to be contrary, but the tone varies somewhat. Sometimes it is actually a little melancholy. This is particularly the case with some of the latter stories. In fact, you could probably break the stories down into distinct *periods* or phases -- into an early, middle, and late period anyway.

The earliest stories tend to be the most action packed (though there are exceptions), the middle period stories tend to be the most whimsical and humorous, and the late-period stories tend to be a little sad (though there is an element of dark humor that runs throughout almost all of them).

I'm tempted to try to pick out favorites, but there are so many good ones that I can't really do it fairly. I will say that I tend to like the stories set in and about the great city of Lankhmar the best. "Thieves' House" (an early period story, circa 1940 -- though there was no slinging in it that I recall; most of the fights were close fights, indoors) and "Ill Met In Lankhmar" (a late-middle period, (circa 1969-'70) tale, but action-packed in the manner of an early period one, which it should be because it is a sort of "prequel," that tells how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser originally teamed up) stand out among these. I also like the pre-team-up Fafhrd origin story "The Snow Women." (No slinging in that one either, though.)

Oz