{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Legends and Legends II: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy Edited by Robert Silverberg Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Legends and Legends II: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy

Edited by Robert Silverberg

Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in these reviews. 

Last week, I reviewed the first installment of Legends. This week I'm reviewing Legends II. 

The two Legends short fantasy novel collections, edited by Robert Silverberg, have an intriguing concept. In the introduction, Silverberg says that these masters of the genre became famous through the series their particular stories are set in. Seemed like a great initiation into already popular series from the crème de la crème of fantasy writing. I'll say upfront that all 11 stories in each collection, even the ones I couldn't really get into, were well written and engaging. I have no trouble believing that those who are fans of the individual series represented here will love these bonus offerings. That said, having not read any of them previously, or recently, I found myself mainly feeling helplessly lost. 

Originally, both collections came out as massive volumes with eleven short novels each. 

Legends II (hardcover published in 2003; trade paperback in 2004 with 784 pages) contains:

1.   Robin Hobb: "Homecoming" (The Realm of the Elderlings)          

2. George R. R. Martin: "The Sworn Sword" (A Song of Ice and Fire)             

3. Orson Scott Card: "The Yazoo Queen" (The Tales of Alvin Maker)            

4.    Diana Gabaldon: "Lord John and the Succubus" (Outlander)        

5.    Robert Silverberg: "The Book of Changes" (Majipoor)      

6. Tad Williams: "The Happiest Dead Boy in the World" (Otherland)           

7.     Anne McCaffrey: "Beyond Between" (Dragonriders of Pern)        

8.     Raymond E. Feist: "The Messenger" (The Riftwar Saga)  

9.     Elizabeth Haydon: "Threshold" (Symphony of Ages)        

10.  Neil Gaiman: "The Monarch of the Glen" (American Gods)            

11.  Terry Brooks: "Indomitable" (Shannara)   

The order above is how the stories are featured in the full collection. 

In 2004, the stories were divided up across two volumes with new subtitles:

·       Volume 1: Shadows, Gods, and Demons with Gaiman, McCaffrey, Williams, Hobb, Silverberg, and Feist.

·       Volume 2: Dragon, Sword, and King with Brooks, Martin, Gabaldon, Card, and Haydon.

 

Let's get to the reviews. As I've said before in my Rogues Anthology review, rather than insult some perfectly good writers and stories I just didn't happen to connect with--though I'm certain others will, I'll mainly go in-depth with reviews of the particular stories I actually liked in the second collection. 

From Legends II: 

1)   1) The first story in this full collection, "Homecoming" by Robin Hobb is part of her Realm of the Elderlings Series. The short description of this tale is that a group of exiles are forced to learn survival in a ghost-inhabited hellscape--or perish. Within the story, the narrator effectively summed up the intrigue that ran all through the tale--that some of those involved had started out as lords and ladies, others pickpockets and whores; being stranded and unable to leave this place, they begin to recognize they're equals in their desperation and dependency on one another just to get by day by day. The introduction of an elaborate city built beneath the bog provides striking evidence of a culture long dead but nowhere near gone. I enjoyed this story so much, I was very sorry when it came to an end. I wanted to know more about the lost civilization buried beneath the "Rain Wilds" swamp as well as more about the main character and her family who begin to build a new life for themselves in this harsh landscape. While I'm not a hundred percent sure how this particular offering fits in the three related trilogies the author has written (maybe, hopefully, telling the story of the lost civilization?), I do know I want to dive into them as soon as I possibly can. "Homecoming" is brilliantly unique, to say the least. I will mention that several scenes that described the buried city reminded me of the setting in Susanna's Clarke's extraordinary Piranesi novel (published in 2020), a favorite of mine. 

2    2) The second story in the Legends II collection, "The Sworn Sword" by George R. R. Martin, is the second in his "Dunk and Egg" series, grounded within the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire about a hundred years before the events of that series. I started reading this within the anthology but my copy of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms containing all the currently available stories in the series came, so I jumped over to that trilogy collection, reading "The Sworn Sword" in almost no time and unable to keep myself from going on to the third story instead of returning to Legends II. I plan to fully review this trilogy in a separate blog post, but I will say I absolutely loved this story in which, a year or so after the events of "The Hedge Knight", Dunk and Egg find themselves sworn to the service of an aging, has-been lord with secrets the old man hasn't bothered to reveal to his "employees". When the water on the land of this lord is stolen with a dam built by a neighboring house, Dunk and Egg go to the thief who's been painted as black as night by their lord. But things aren't at all what they seem. This series is absolute must-read, as is the one it's set in is. 

3    3) "The Happiest Dead Boy in the World" by Tad Williams is the sixth story included in Legends II featuring characters from his Otherland series. This tale started out as a hoot with the protagonist Orlando kicking back in style in Tolkien's Rivendell while inside an artificial universe on the worldwide computer network Otherland. For those who haven't read that series, this place is kind of like The Matrix in reverse. In that series, the real world isn't the one we all know and sometimes love--that's just a construct of the actual, frighteningly barren world taken over by a superior species. In Otherland, there's a lot of vicarious fun with simulations of fictional fantasylands we'd all kill to visit. Unfortunately, Orlando is trapped in this place. His former, real world, disabled body is gone, though he can visit his parents virtually. In the novels in this series, Orlando and his friend Sam apparently saved Otherland from an evil "program", the Grail Brotherhood, within the system. This tale takes place after that and highlights the bizarre consequences of those events, in which some unexpected developments plague Otherland. While, as I said, this story started out as a lark, quite promising, it quickly turned dark and somber, maybe a little too much. I will say it was well-written, enjoyable, and the author obviously knows a lot of about computers, technology and literature. Unfortunately, I left the novella feeling like 1) I wasn't really sure I enjoyed it after it turned dark and 2) that I'd gotten as much out of the premise as I cared to. 

4     4) The eleventh and final story in the Legends II collection, "Indomitable" by Terry Brooks is, as I said, the story I bought the anthology for and it's the direct sequel to his novel The Wishsong of Shannara, Book 3 of his Shannara Series. Brooks was one of the first fantasy authors I came to love and Wishsong was a favorite of mine (and my son's) with Brin and Jair Ohmsford as the protagonists. Jair is just a kid, excited with the potential of his magical gift, in Wishsong. Together, the siblings have to destroy the Ildatch, a book of dark magic. Only Jair finds out later, in "Indomitable", that one page was missing and it has to be found and obliterated. Familiar characters Kimber Boh and her grandfather Cogline also play starring roles in the novella, which is the perfect bonus to the series, in which Jair is the hero, a young man who never anticipated having to use his power again. I highly recommend the Shannara series and its many off-shoots, as well as Brooks' wonderfully creative Magic Kingdom of Landover series. 

Concerning the arrangement of the stories in Legends II, I would have had these stories interspersed in this way with the other stories: 1st story: "Homecomings"; 3rd: "Happiness"; 9th "Indomitable", and "Sworn" last so the two strongest are at the beginning and end and the two other strong ones are straddling the central areas of the beginning and end. I wish there'd been another I thought was an incredibly strong story positioned at #6. Given that I can't say I overwhelmingly loved "Happiness", I probably would have put "Indomitable" at #6. But certainly those who know and love the other series and authors would possess more of a connection with those stories I haven't reviewed here than I did. 

While I wanted to like all the other selections in the first Legends (after all, I usually like Stephen King's writing and several other stories mentioned possible dragon appearances--dragons!!!) and Legends II collections, I just couldn't get into them. One story I was really looking forward to in the first collection was the final story there, an off-shoot of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, which has been on my radar since I saw Amazon Prime was adapting it into a TV series. That looks seriously good. However, I initially found Jordan's writing style in "New Spring" plodding. Far too often he used words and phrases that meant nothing to me--obviously things that fit into his series, things I couldn't understand, having never read any of the novels, and things which he didn't bother trying to clarify here. Sigh. Despite this, the story was fairly compelling and definitely something fans would thoroughly enjoy. I spent too much of it lost to get there myself. 

I think sometimes there's no getting past the fact that few people can "unknow" or forget things, even authors. Once a writer has established something in a series, he or she can't write about a time before the events of those books as if they didn't happen yet. While writing, details are backfilled by the author without, barely, thinking about them and he or she neglects, either ignorantly or arrogantly (I don't need to explain--who hasn't read my series?), to explain them. Fans appreciate those "series lore" factors--I know I do. They need to be there because new readers to the series can quickly find themselves lost and unable to catch or keep up if the writers refuse to "backtrack" elucidations for the readers who need them. (I'll inject here that sometimes impatient and sparse publishers don't want to include them either, so it's not just authors at fault here.) If a reader has never read anything else in a series, they need to know what series specific details mean--concisely. Part of a writer's skill is in conveying those special elements in an intriguing way without overwhelming the reader with too much that may not be needed in this particular story. Some of the short novels I read in both of these collections simply assumed I knew much more about the series they're associated with, and I didn't or, alternately, they assumed I knew nothing and engulfed me. Therefore, I was underwhelmed and those tales fell short of the mark for me. While I wouldn't say this has definitely ruled out the possibility of me trying to read the series the stories are associated with, these may not have been the best representations of their series to me, at least at this time.

There's a lot for fans of the genre and of the excellent writers and their popular series to love with the 22 stories included in the two Legends collections. You may even find something new, as I have, to further broaden your fantasy reading horizons. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Legends and Legends II: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy Edited by Robert Silverberg, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Legends and Legends II: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy

Edited by Robert Silverberg,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in these reviews. 

The two Legends short fantasy novel collections, edited by Robert Silverberg, first came to my attention when I was reading Terry Brooks' Shannara Chronicles to my elementary-school-aged son. I'd read that an epilogue to The Wishsong of Shannara (a particular favorite of ours) called "Indomitable" had been included in Legends II, and if there was a second installment, there also must be first, in this case, logically called Legends. Naturally, I bought the book and became interested in both volumes of these all-star collections. The concept is intriguing. In the introduction, Silverberg says that these masters of the genre became famous through the series their particular stories are set in. In my mind, that made for a great initiation into already popular series from the crème de la crème of fantasy writing. 

Unfortunately, I failed to take into account that most of these series are well established with multiple entries. Stepping into them, even with a prologue or offshoot--in other words, an installment that presumably comes before the beginning of the official series, or merely runs parallel with it but doesn't necessarily share the same storyline--proved to be intimidating, to say the least. 

I'll say upfront that all 11 stories in each collection, even the ones I couldn't really get into, were well written and engaging. I have no trouble believing that those who are fans of the individual series represented here will love these bonus offerings. However, having little or no previous reading experience with the majority of the writers and their series from both collections, I didn't have the same impression as readers familiar with their worlds. I can't say for sure whether the contributing authors were the types who deliberately refused to explain previous events (some writers are like that--I'll discuss that assessment more next week) or if they made every effort to adequately establish their worlds and characters and it simply didn't work in my case--in part because it's easy to become overwhelmed if there are already several works available in a particular sequence that haven't been read previously (or at least read recently). 

These two collections require a bit of explanation because they've been republished and repackaged (by more than one publisher) so many times. The list of stories and series contained within the first collection are as follows: 

Legends (hardcover published in 1998; trade paperback in 1999 with 715 pages)

1.     Stephen King: "The Little Sisters of Eluria" (The Dark Tower)

2.     Terry Pratchett: "The Sea and Little Fishes" (Discworld)

3.     Terry Goodkind: "Debt of Bones" (The Sword of Truth)

4.     Orson Scott Card: "Grinning Man" (The Tales of Alvin Maker)

5.     Robert Silverberg: "The Seventh Shrine" (Majipoor)

6.     Ursula K. Le Guin: "Dragonfly" (Earthsea)

7.     Tad Williams: "The Burning Man" (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn)

8.     George R. R. Martin: "The Hedge Knight" (A Song of Ice and Fire)

9.     Raymond E. Feist: "The Wood Boy" (The Riftwar Cycle)

10.  Anne McCaffrey: "Runner of Pern" (Dragonriders of Pern)

11.  Robert Jordan: "New Spring" (The Wheel of Time)

Note (because I'll bring this up again later): This is the order in which the stories are featured in the full collection. 

In 1999 and 2000, Legends was split between two volumes:

·       Volume One contained the stories by Pratchett, McCaffrey, Martin, Williams, and Jordan.

·       Volume Two contained the stories by King, Goodkind, Card, Silverberg, Le Guin, and Feist.

 

 

Additionally, a three volume set was published, the first two released in 1999 and the final in 2000, separating the stories this way:

·       Volume 1 with King, Silverberg, Card, and Feist.

·       Volume 2 with Goodkind, Martin, and McCaffrey.

·       Volume 3 with Jordan, Le Guin, Williams, and Pratchett.

If you can believe it, there was another four volume set published after that, as reported by isfdb.org, but the page for it on that website is confusing, at best, about which stories were included in which volumes. 

Tracking down any of these, whether sold in one volume or over several, was a bit of a nightmare for me. Eventually, I frustratingly ended up with both Legends and Legends II as single volumes as well as all the individual ones--in some cases, more than one (because listings were confusing when I was purchasing them). Regardless, the stories I enjoyed in them did at least make the effort worthwhile and, hey, the gently used duplicates will make good gifts. 

All right, let's get to the reviews. As I said before in my Rogues Anthology review,  rather than insult some perfectly good writers and stories I just didn't happen to connect with--though I'm certain others will, I'll mainly go in-depth with reviews of the particular stories I actually liked in the first collection. 

From Legends: 

1)    1) The third story featured in this collection, "Debt of Bones" by Terry Goodkind, tells the origin of the Border between the realms in his fantasy world from The Sword of Truth. At the time of this publication, there were four novels available in this series. According to the introduction to the series included before the story, this tale takes place years before the first book, Wizard's First Rule. In "Debt of Bones", a woman comes to see the wizard Zorander (or Zedd) in "Debt of Bones" to beg him to save her young daughter from invaders to the land she hails from who have kidnapped her child. Her only means of persuasion is a debt owed (or so Abby believes) to her mother by the sorcerer. She goes into this endeavor certain it's the only way to save her daughter. But is it? I've never read anything else by this author, nor do I fully understand how this particular story fits in with the series it's associated with (I think Zedd may be the First Wizard, a mentor and friend to the two protagonists in the novels but, without reading them, I can't be sure). I can't say exactly why "Debt of Bones" gripped me the way it did when the previous two stories in the collection failed to impact me. For a good two dozen pages or so, I believed the main character Abby was a little girl. Then I found out she was actually the mother of the little kidnapped girl. I guess I had compassion for her desperate plight regardless of her age. The wizard Zedd and his ability to hold countless conversations simultaneously intrigued me, as did the impossible decisions he was forced to make--invariably either saving the many or the few, never all. I loved the final words in the story: "Enemies," the wizard said, "are the price of honor." In the future, I may see what The Sword of Truth series has to offer, on the basis of this compelling story.

2    2) The seventh story in this collection, "The Burning Man", by Tad Williams includes a haunted castle and events in the age before his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Series. Oddly enough, I found that I own all four books in this series and I'd read them maybe a decade or more ago. The only real memory I have of this is that I wanted to and felt that I should have liked this series more than I ultimately did. But, because this author's name was familiar, I gave "The Burning Man" more of a chance to make an impression on me than I usually would an unknown (to me) writer. It took a while for the story to grow on me, and there was some confusion in the first several pages before the plot began to coalesce and work itself into something intriguing. I believe the hindrance before that point was due to the style the story was written in, namely the one Arthur Conan Doyle and H. P. Lovecraft seemed to prefer. Both were enamored of telling stories by starting at the end of the story, when the main character is past the actual events. The protagonist in "The Burning Man" has come through the ordeal and decided to divulge all, and proceeds to retell that story from the start. In my mind, this removes any chance at all of the story being suspenseful since the reader is told upfront the main character has survived and, one way or another, things have worked out after a fashion. In general, I despise this manner of writing, but I will point out that it rarely stops me from reading a story I think I'll like. I'm particularly glad I gave this one a chance since I enjoyed it very much. In particular, the aspect that the heroine's stepfather is searching for something--the answer to what's beyond death, if anything, in order to give his life meaning. The path to finding what he seeks to the exclusion of all saps his happiness while his stepdaughter physically follows behind him in a blind sort of manner, always keeping to the dark so she isn't caught. What happens as a result teaches her that "love does not do sums, but instead makes choices, and then gives its all". Despite what I considered a limited way of presenting the story, the characters were well drawn, their quests intriguing and convincing. "The Burning Man" has made me consider re-reading the original series again, to evaluate whether I'll have a better reaction to it now. 

3    3) The eighth story in the Legends collection, "The Hedge Knight" is associated with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, though it isn't actually part of that particular series per se, nor would I call it a prequel. Spinoff series is the best description for this. The three currently available stories in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdom series (which is what it was called in the trilogy compilation of it as well as will be called for the forthcoming HBO series) are set ninety years before A Song of Ice and Fire events, while the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and it does include characters from that series--Aegon Targaryen (known here as Egg, the future King Aegon V) and Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard). Hoping to gain employment as a knight for hire by participating in a tourney, Dunk instead finds himself fighting for his life when he crosses the wrong Targaryen in order to save a young, pretty puppeteer artist. I first read this story after getting the Legends II: Dragon, Sword, and King volume in order to read Terry Brooks' "Indomitable". At that time, I'd just started getting into the "Game of Thrones" world. I had no idea how these characters fit in. The Dunk and Egg (as in, "dunk an egg") aspect seemed silly to me. So I can't say I appreciated the story the first time I read it. However, when I reread it recently in association with Legends, it was with a much clearer comprehension of the primary series. I really liked and rooted for Dunk and Egg. As soon as I finished this story, I ordered the trilogy of novellas, published together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, complete with illustrations by the fabulous Gary Gianni. I intend to review that series in a separate article soon. 

Incidentally, if anyone's interested, in my article "Of Proper Short Story Collection Assemblage" (you can find it here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2024/06/of-proper-short-story-collection.html), I talked about how stories should be arranged in an anthology, with the strongest as the first, last and middle, with other good ones sprinkled throughout the middle portions of the collection evenly, so as to maximize reader enjoyment and prevent walking away before finishing the entire volume. Based on my reasoning in that article, I ended up liking the third, seventh, and eighth stories most in Legends. I believe it would have been much more effective to have Martin's story first, "Debt of Bones" last, and "The Burning Man" smack-dab in the middle as the sixth story in the collection. 

Next week I'll review Legends II. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: If It Bleeds Collection by Stephen King by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: If It Bleeds Collection

by Stephen King

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

I grew up reading a Stephen King book every few days, sometimes within a single day if I got the enviable time to actually read that much. He was unquestionably my favorite writer when I was a teenager. He was without peer in my mind at conjuring supernatural creatures that I loved to be terrorized by, in large part because they weren't real. He also introduced me to a lot of things I was young and hungry to know, naughty, nasty things, and things that, in truth, I almost wish I'd never found out. As I got older, I got less and less able to handle realistic horror stories--the ones King wasn't intending to tell me. He wrote almost casually about horrible things like secret child molestation, deviations (sometimes sexual) that harmed a person as well as others, and the true crimes of this world, namely, the real ones where people are ritualistically cruel and judgmental, prejudice, and life was so routinely unfair to the underdogs. There's so much suffering that goes on inside battered souls that want nothing more than to hide and escape the attention of the world. He detailed vividly the kind of torment that no one else sees until it comes out and manifests itself almost like a demon out of control. 

I guess the books I was reading as I moved into adulthood made me want to escape, not to have bad situations finitely dissected and served up as a kind of punishment. I found it easier to throw the baby out with the bathwater. More aptly, I threw out the author that forced me to live such painful scenarios. That's undoubtedly a good testimony of King's skill as a writer, but I still find it hard to watch what can only be described sometimes as gruesome train wrecks. 

When I've ventured back into King territory here and there in the long years since then at the urging of a lifelong fan, I found his writing decidedly more mature, at least slightly more sensitive to realistic injustices, and less about supernatural horrors running amok. I miss the dark fantasy aspects, but I appreciate that I'm less traumatized reading his work these days. 

 If It Bleeds is a collection of four previously unpublished novellas by Stephen King published in 2020. I actually watched a wonderful adaptation of "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" on Netflix without having a clue it was based on the Stephen King story of the same name. I looked it up mid-watch and learned of the fact. Not more than a week later, I was at a book sale and saw a hardcover copy of the collection. I bought it and started reading. 

In "Mr. Harrigan's Phone", Craig is initially a refreshingly sweet nine-year-old boy who gets a job reading books to a retired, rich gentleman who lives in a choice spot in a town that's not so nice as to invite flurries of visitors at any given time. Rumor has it that in his younger years Harrigan was "tenacious" in exacting fitting judgment on those who wronged him or those close to him. But that's a side young Craig never actually saw in his kindly mentor of sorts--well, he never saw that side of Harrigan in life, at least. In death, now that's a whole different matter. 

With the movie version of this story, I was pretty surprised to find it dubbed a horror. From start to finish, it didn't frighten me one bit. I imagine it wouldn't have scared even a skittish four-year-old. It's just not what I consider horror. I wondered if they just called it that because of King's crown--he's known as the King of Horror after all. Later, as I thought about the story it told, I realized that the underlying horror of this piece was in adult Craig letting himself believe for even one second that justice can be rectified or gained through injustice and revenge. I loved this story and enjoyed watching Craig grow up. I was moved as he discovered for himself the limits of wrong and right. (The actors in the movie version were fantastic.) "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" was far and away my favorite in this collection. I heartily recommend both the story and the movie version of it. 

The second story in the collection, "The Life of Chuck" details the end of the world and what that looks like for various people but mainly for someone named Chuck. This tale is told backwards, with the end revealed first, working backwards. The three acts didn't make any sense in the order they were presented. Would they have been clearer if they'd been placed in linear order? I'll never know. I enjoyed the first (which was actually the last) of the three disjointed parts. From that point on, I was lost and never found my way back. Afterward, I read about the story online, trying to figure out the point. Not much explained it either. That they made a movie of this story is utterly unfathomable to me. King actually cited a billboard that he'd seen that read, "39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck" as his inspiration and decided to try to figure out what that meant by writing about it. My opinion is that the outcome feels unfinished and fragmented the way it's presented.

"If It Bleeds" is a Holly Gibney story. Originally she appeared as an important secondary character in King's Bill Hodges trilogy (including Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch published from 2014-2016), which I've never read. Suffering from OCD and a form of autism, Holly took the role of main character in the novel The Outsider, released in 2018, as a private investigator. I read this book long ago, also watched the 10-part miniseries version in 2020, intrigued by the idea of a man supposedly committing a murder when he was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time, though the DNA found there and eyewitness accounts on both sides claim he was in each area simultaneously. His alibi is absolutely solid, as is his guilt in murdering and raping a young boy. So which is right? Or has something much more sinister taken place? 

I have to confess, I remember little of Holly Gibney in the book or the miniseries. What I recall most is that both the novel and the serial were long, so very, very long. Way too long and boring to hold my attention. Hundreds of pages and many hours filmed could easily have been cut to get to the gist of the story--the beginning and the ends were the two parts worth saving. The middle stuff was far too much to carry my interest, though I tried with both the book and the movie. By the time I got to the end of each, where it was actually exciting again, I didn't care. I just wanted it to be over. 

 

I had a similar experience with "If It Bleeds", which continues with a similar theme as The Outsider. I'm sorry to admit I found Holly excruciatingly dull, and I had a lot of trouble making it to the finish line with this story, though the overall idea was of interest to me, as was The Outsider. If anyone else is interested, Holly is also in a 2023 released, self-titled novel. 

The final story in If It Bleeds is "Rat". A writer with only short story success has never been able to finish a full-length novel. Inspired with an idea that has him excited, he rushes to his isolated cabin to write it. Bad weather and sickness set in while he's there. Unsure he'll finish his novel and feverish, he makes a shocking bargain with a sinister rat, but the author is just so desperate to make his career aspirations come true. Gee, what could go wrong? How could this man have not seen the end coming from the off? I can't say I loved this story, though it started out well enough. I couldn't get past the "what kind of a creep would agree to this pact?" aspect. Sigh. Incidentally, Ben Stiller optioned "Rat", intending to produce, star in, and direct the film adaptation at one point, but it's unclear whether that'll ever happen. 

While it's true I only found one offering in this collection really worth reading, I do think that single story is strong enough to warrant putting time and money into procuring it. Whether or not you're a fan of Stephen King, "Mr. Harrigan's Phone"--the novella and the movie--are the very best of the author. I expect you may see more reviews of Stephen King's work here in my Friday column in the future, as I ease back into the works of a favorite writer from my youth. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights Edited by Chris Bain, Patrick Weekes, Matthew Goldman, and Christopher Morgan by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights

Edited by Chris Bain, Patrick Weekes, Matthew Goldman, and Christopher Morgan

by Karen S. Wiesner

  

Warning Spoilers! 

Prior to Dragon Age: The Veilguard's release (which I reviewed last week and you'll probably want to refer back to in reading the reviews of these strongly connected individual tales), a new anthology of short stories was released in March 2020 called Tevinter Nights. As the name implies, all the stories are set in Dragon Age's Thedas, many directly in the Tevinter Imperium, where magic-wielding magisters rule and blood magic isn't forbidden. I bought the book (complete with a gorgeous, foldout, color map) at the time of its publication and read it, but since The Veilguard was still in development at that time (and wasn't even named that until later), I felt like I didn't understand where all the stories were coming from. Following the release of The Veilguard, I got it out again and started rereading it. With a much better understanding of all the things going on around the events of the new game, I enjoyed the stories immensely. In fact, it may be the only anthology collection that I enjoyed every single one of the stories included. The tagline of this collection really says it all: "Ancient horrors. Marauding invaders. Powerful mages. And a world that refuses to stay fixed… Welcome to Thedas." Dragon Age is everything I look for in the fantasy genre and then some. 

In this collection, readers are getting a real treat with stories written by nine BioWare staff writers who really know the world contained in the Dragon Age franchise that includes but isn't limited to videogames, electronic games, books, comics, film and television, tabletop roleplaying games, and music. As I said last week, you might be interested in my previous review of all things Dragon Age, which is here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/11/karen-wiesner-fiction-series-so-big.html. 

Below you'll find reviews of every story in the collection. Be aware that a major plot angle in Dragon Age: The Veilguard videogame centers around ancient Tevinter artifacts being stolen or unearthed in order to aid the evil that wants to take over the world. So several of these short tales have that as a major theme. Below, I've listed each story in the order they appear in the original publication.

                                                                   

1.     "Three Trees to Midnight" by Patrick Weekes: At the time The Veilguard is set, there's a qunari invasion going on in Thedas that's changing the world. This first story focuses on their capture of a Dalish elf Veil Jumper named Strife (who's featured in the videogame along with Irelin, a team-mate also in this story) and a mage named Myrion. Qunari deeply distrust and put down mages, so Myrion has to hide his powers once he's captured. He's chained to the elf Strife. Tevinter magisters treat elves as nothing more than slaves. So there was a lot of "Enemy Mine" racial prejudice in this this story as the two are forced to work together in order to escape their relentless captors.

 

2.     "Down Among the Dead Men" by Sylvia Feketekuty: The Mourn Watch are the elite guardians of the Grand Necropolis, reverently caring for the dead. They're also a faction of a larger organization, the Mortalitasi. In Inquisition, I was led to believe the Moralitasi are all evil, but in The Veilguard, I learned that's not always the case. We met one of their order, Emmrich, in Veilguard, along with his beloved skeletal companion Manfred, and I was pleased to see them play a role in this particular story in which a guardsman investigates a death in the Necropolis. Very intriguing setting in both the game and this wonderful story with a twist ending.

 

3.     "The Horror of Hormak" by John Epler: My favorite part of Dragon Age has always been the Grey Wardens, those who give so sacrificially in order to maintain a constant vigilance over the return of darkspawn and potential Blights. This story has two Wardens investigating the disappearance of a scouting party. This story is horror in its purest, most intriguing form, and it was an instant favorite of mine.

 

4.     "Callback" by Lukas Kristjanson: Dragon Age: Inquisition had an unmarked quest about "Sutherland and Company" that was mainly followed through War Table operations. If you didn't screw these up and prematurely end the venture, they culminated in an actual crusade for the Inquisitor to save Sutherland and his band of misfits. In this story, the Inquisition has disbanded but their headquarters Skyhold is still maintained by caretakers that haven't been heard from in a while. Sutherland and Company are sent by the Inquisitor to investigate. I loved revisiting Skyhold and these uber-loyal, unlikely heroes.

 

5.     "Luck in the Gardens" by Sylvia Feketekuty: Another beloved Inquisition character, Dorian, makes an appearance in this fun story in which a member of the Lords of Fortune (from The Veilguard) investigates a series of monster killings in Minrathous.

 

6.     "Hunger" by Brianne Battye: In The Veilguard, we're introduced to two married Grey Wardens, Evka and Antoine. This story takes place while these new recruits are traveling to report for duty at Weisshaupt Fortress. They're sidetracked in a town cursed by mysterious and monstrous deaths. This was a neat background to the roles these two end up playing in the videogame, and a precursor to their romance.

 

7.     "Murder by Death Mages" by Caitlin Sullivan Kelly: Mortalitasi is the umbrella organization of "death mages" in the Grand Necropolis that advise Nevarran nobility. The Pentaghast family (re: Cassandra from Inquisition) were some of the founders. Though the group is well-respected in Nevarra, outside they're feared as a cult. The current ruler of Nevarra is aged and weak, his sanity uncertain, and most believe the Mortalitasi are ruling through him. Cassandra Pentaghast, one of the Inquisition's inner circle, assigns a volunteer in the Inquisition to investigate the death of a death mage. This Inquisition mage volunteer was raised by and eventually abandoned this particular death mage, vowing never to return to Nevarra. A Mortalitasi member is suspected of causing political unrest in order to assassinate Nevarra's ruler. Both Cassandra and this investigator have a lot at stake in seeing this situation resolved. While the point-of-view character wasn't exactly lovable, with baggage that's made her bitter and withdrawn, the story had an intriguing whodunit with a lot of complications to keep it suspenseful.

 

8.     "The Streets of Minrathous" by Brianne Battye: Neve Gallus is one of the main companions in The Veilguard, a member of the Shadow Dragons, and a supernatural detective. In the videogame, her loyalty quests all involve a Venatori agent, Aelia, who's trying to subjugate Minrathous (isn't it ironic how often a tyrant calls it "freeing" a population?). This story is the background to all of that--and it's also here we find out what happened to the Templar Brom, something only referenced in the videogame. I enjoyed this setup to a pivotal character in the game.

 

9.     "The Wigmaker Job" by Courtney Woods: Another inner circle Veilguard member, Lucanis Dellamorte, is an Antivan Crow assassin. We learn much more of his background in this story detailing a heist with his cousin Illario (also featured in the videogame), which doesn't get into how Lucanis came to have a demon inhabiting his body, which is a focus of the game.

 

10.  "Genitivi Dies in the End" by Lukas Kristjanson: The Veilguard Lords of Fortune are included in this crazy, off-beat story that I really don't even know how to describe beyond that a weird group containing a bard, a brother in the Chantry, a qunari mage, and a writer take on qunari Antaam (military) in order to steal some ancient elven artifacts. It seems they did this for the sole purpose of their art--in other words, so they'd have something exciting to write about for their ravenous fans to devour. Writers will appreciate this literary escapade, highlighting the extreme lengths authors will go to get a great story.

11.  "Herold Had the Plan" by Ryan Cormier: Two Lords of Fortune (one who recently lost his adventuring partner Herold of four decades) stealthily steal an ancient Tevinter relic that heals even the deadliest of wounds during a Grand Tourney. Unfathomably, every knight in the arena is instantly on their tails. Before long, they realize that their third partner-in-crime has stolen the tourney's grand prize right off the grandstand--the legendary Celebrant greatsword. This was a fun, thrilling story that had unexpected depth and heart at its core.

 

12.  "An Old Crow's Old Tricks" by Arone Le Bray: Lessef of the Antivan Crows fulfills the contract to exact vengeance on those who murdered the Dalish elf clan Oranava. This was a clever story that took a bit to coalesce and make sense, as it's told mainly from the points-of-view of those about to be assassinated who foolishly think they're invincible.

 

13.  "Eight Little Talons" by Courtney Woods: This was probably my favorite in the collection. Here, the author has done an Agatha Christie, following the style of And Then There Were None. The eight major players that head the Antivan Crows are called "Talons" and the hierarchy is from Talon 8 being the lowest of them, to Talon 1 being the highest ranking. Along with their fellow Talons, #5 Talon Viago and #7 Teia (who are featured in The Veilguard) are called to a summit at the First Talon's island home to discuss the qunari and the security of their nation, Treviso. One by one, the Talons are picked off at this secluded meeting, each death re-enacting infamous Crow assassins of the past. This is an obvious statement that no other Crows are safe. In this location, the killer is either hiding somewhere on the island or it's one of their own. (Intriguing--Crows hunting Crows.) Viago and Teia investigate. I loved both of these well-drawn characters, and their obvious attraction to each other sets the stage for their compelling banter in the videogame.

 

14.  "Half Up Front" by John Epler: Another Tevinter artifact--Dumat's Folly (a puzzle that needed to be solved in the Dragon Age II DLC Legacy)--has been stolen. A thief is hired to find out who stole it from the Chantry and why--and to steal it back. The events in this tale directly play into the videogame, which really adds more dimension to that story, since this artifact is one that's integral to Solas/Fen-Harel's ultimate plan. I will also note that the story reminded me a lot of the events in the manga TV miniseries, Dragon Age: Absolution, which aired on Netflix in December 2022 and takes place around the time of The Veilguard. In Absolution, the Inquisition employs two members of the Absolution team, one of them its agent Fairbanks, who was a freedom fighter that asked the Inquisition to reclaim his home, the Emerald Graves. None of the other characters in the miniseries are recognizable, to me anyway. (The voices are very familiar for those who play videogames though.) While I really can't stand anime and manga and therefore I had a lot of trouble getting through even three of the six episodes available in the first season, there were some fun moments in the early episodes and the overall story had a really good twist I didn't see coming (I read a summary of the final episodes rather than forcing myself to watch them). Fans of the series that enjoy anime or manga would probably get much more out of Absolution than I did. Suffice it to say that the story in Absolution paralleled a lot of what was in "Half Up Front", almost too closely. At first, I even though they were the same characters from one to the other, though they weren't. In the end, I felt like one of these was redundant, as they're so similar as to be the same story. I believe "Half Up Front" is probably the most valuable, as it points directly to events in The Veilguard.

 

15.  "The Dread Wolf Take You" by Patrick Weekes: "May the Dread Wolf take you" is an old Dalish curse that gives this story even more meaning. The main character, Charter, was one of Leliana's top spies from Dragon Age: Inquisition. In this story, she's called together a clandestine meeting of Thedas's top spies in order to share information about Solas and his plans to restore the ancient elven empire by tearing down the Veil. In this secret place are a Carta assassin, a Moralitasi, an "Executor" from across the sea, and an Orlesian bard. Each tells a piece of the tale, and it becomes clear that the target for each of their encounters with Solas was the red lyrium idol that was the cause of destruction in Kirkwall in DA II. Little does Charter realize that the cloak-and-dagger meeting has an unexpected guest! I read this story all but holding my breath. I couldn't identify any of the characters other than Charter, but it was very clear that this was the setup for events (and even some of the pivotal settings) about to unfold in The Veilguard.

For anyone following my reviews of short story collections and my philosophy about how short story collections should be arranged, I think the editors did a fantastic job of exactly placing every story in Tevinter Nights in the order needed for optimal reading. The slightly weaker stories are wonderfully anchored and buoyed by the stronger ones with the strongest ones as the first, last, and middle. 

In one sense, Tevinter Nights may not be a good introduction into the world explored in the Dragon Age series, since a lot of the material requires a bit of understanding in how the world of Thedas is run, the crucial events, etc. But, in another, these are just well-written, slice of life stories, a lot of which include magic, mages, mysteries, monsters, and intricate political machinations. Even if you're not familiar with DA lore, there's still lot to love here and, if you're ultimately lured in by these compelling tales, there's so much more to explore in this expansive realm. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog 

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/