 Science fiction and its poor relation “sword and sorcery” (the term was coined by science fiction writer Fritz Leiber, author of the sword-and-sorcery series, "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser") both have a history of “series” stories—sets of tales with continuing characters and/or continuing locations.In his “Introduction” to Joanna Russ's series, "The Adventures of Alyx", first written for the Gregg Press Science Fiction Library series publication of the single volume collection of Russ’s stories in 1977, Delany makes several statements that throw light on his own sword-and-sorcery series, which he began the following year.In that Introduction he wrote