Nifft the Lean (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Michael Shea
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Stories
- Type of Plot: Fantasy—heroic fantasy
- Time of Work: The distant future
- Setting: Earth, but no currently identifiable location
- Genres: Short fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: Folkloric or magical people, Magic or magicians, Future, Theft, Heroes or heroism, Earth, Treasure, Vampires, Pearls
- Locales: Earth
The Plot
Despite winning the World Fantasy Award for best novel of the year, Nifft the Lean is formally a sequence of four separate stories, connected by the central character, Nifft the Lean, and by a framework of commentary from the scribe supposed to be compiling these stories, one Shag Margold. Nifft himself is a character of relatively standard type within the subgenre of heroic fantasy. He is a thief, but one delighting in the daring and artistic quality of his thefts, and a hero, but one who takes an ironic attitude toward his own heroic role.
The four...
[The entire page is 950 words long]
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