Stepping Into the Shared World of Robert Asprin’s Thieves’ World by Bill Ward “There are philosophers who argue that there is no such thing as evil qua evil; that, discounting spells (which of course relieve an individual of responsibility), when a man commits an evil deed he is a victim himself, the slave of his progeniture and nurturing. Such philosophers might profit by studying Sanctuary.” -from Joe Haldeman’s “Blood Brothers” Robert Asprin’s Thieves’ World is the granddaddy of the shared-world anthology; its success can be seen by its numerous sequels (the original series ran to twelve anthologies in ten years, plus a few spin-off novels, and was then revived for a brief run in the early 2000s) as well as related matter such as an extensive line of RPG supplements. This is all in addition to, of course, the many similarly themed anthologies that came out in homage or imitation to the original. In his afterward to the first book, “The Making of Thieves’ World,” Asprin (perhaps best known for his humorous fantasy Myth Adventures series) describes the shared world idea as a way for many authors to write fantasy without first having to each come up with their own worlds. Imagine, Asprin says, if Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser inhabited the same world as Conan, or if Elric and Kane opposed one another at the head of rival armies. It’s a great, fun idea, and it works well, and it certainly attracted a wide panoply of science fiction and fantasy writers over the decade in which it ran. Thieves’ World is the first book in the series, from which the whole derives its name. It centers on the town of Sanctuary, a rats’ nest of rogues and  hotbed of skulduggery, a conquered city on the edge of empire rife with competing factions and conflicting religions. It’s a fairly standard fantasy backdrop, at least in this first installment, but it’s also a consistent and well-realized one replete with just enough world-building style details to make the place come alive without the danger of the setting taking over from the plot. Or, more importantly in this case, overshadowing the cast of unique characters—and this last is where Thieves’ World really shines. Each author in the anthology has created his own character, and the book contains a larger-than-life cast of scoundrels,...