Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors) by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors)

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4TJRRRV?ref=cm_sw_em_r_ao_rw_y8NZEpV1821Ca 

The universe is bigger than we can imagine... 

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy...and the horizons of humanity’s potential. 

So there's a bunch of short stories published on Amazon in ebook and audiobook (no print editions available) collections in which the basic theme is what all the entries have in common, but none of the stories are actually connected in any other way. In other words, they can be read separately and in any order. I knew James S. A. Corey (a favorite author of mine) had a story in this particular collection and later found out Veronica Roth also did. This first collection I purchased, The Far Reaches, is filled with science fiction tales--right up my alley. I initially only bought the first two stories on Kindle. I didn't realize at the time that you could get a discount for purchasing the entire collection at once. (As a collection, it's $9.94; purchased separately $11.94.) I paid somewhere around $8.38 total for all the books, including tax. I think I got some stories on sale. Amazon Prime members can get them free, you know, somehow (I'm not a member anymore). I was looking for fast, solid reads, and I think I got what I was looking for with this one. They're actually published by Amazon, which I also didn't realize right away. I'm not thrilled with that idea, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the offerings. I was able to read each of them in a couple hours and at least some of them were intriguing, though, of course, several weren't my cup of tea. While I generally don't review stories I don't enjoy, I did in this case because most people will purchase the entire series, so it feels useful to me to give my opinion on all the entries, whether or not I liked them. 

Beware potential spoilers! 

 

"How It Unfolds" by James S. A. Corey (38 pages/53-minute read) 

Summary: In this short story by the author of The Expanse series, technology has been discovered in the future that allows human beings to be sent over space in a packet (much like ebooks!) to other planets already set up with what's needed to try to survive in that place. A tremendous amount of time and planning has gone into this endeavor. Once the packet is delivered where it's intended to go, the human "unfolds" (launches or materializes; is physically in this new place). This doesn't always work, but, as the packets are sent to innumerable worlds, it does occasionally; the success rate is a spectacular failure. One astronaut joins this mission with the hope that his ex-wife, also being sent across the universe in this way (a woman he loves and lost on Earth) will be able to reconcile with him in just one of these countless worlds. 

Review: This very enjoyable, clever little story is quite a feat in that, considering its compact size, it managed to be packed with everything crucial that's needed and nothing extraneous. The account of this love story searching for the right time and place to unfurl was tragically moving, beautiful, and unavoidably a little sad. 

 

"Void" by Veronica Roth (50 pages/70-minute read) 

Summary: Set aboard an intergalactic luxury cruiser that has the unfortunate name of Redundancy, Veronica Roth (Divergent series) tells a very short murder mystery story from the point of view of one of the crew members. 

Review: I was actually pleasantly surprised by this delightful little whodunit. The setting and characters captured me and made me want to know more about all. My only issue was, happily, minor: For the most part, only two dimensions were explored of the sleuthing main character Ace and only just barely enough of either. I wanted a better balance between the external and internal conflicts. The internal was definitely lacking. Brevity is, no doubt, the cause of this shortfall, but it was still an intriguing read, such as it was. 

 

"Falling Bodies" by Rebecca Roanhorse (35 pages/49-minute read) 

Summary: A juvenile delinquent is cleaned up, his appearance and identity changed, so he can be integrated back into the universe. But he's caught between two worlds in this futuristic story, and those worlds are playing a cruel tug-of-war with him. 

Review: I think the one thing everybody has too much of these days are politics. It's constantly being shoved in our faces with social media and the like, and we're being battered raw from it. This story is all about insane politics and "moral majorities". The author set up her character in a no-win situation and proceeded to make him as unlikable as she possibly could. The end result was what you'd expect, no surprise there. I guess I could have avoided the tragedy by not reading it. Too late for me. 

 

"The Long Game" by Ann Leckie (31 pages/43-minute read) 

Summary: In this futuristic story set on another planet, an octopus-like (or at least I got that impression) life-form that survives only a short time learns about life and death and how much of an impact he can make even if he has only a short space of time to do it in, something that can last long after he's gone.

Review: This short tale was both touching and inspiring. If only everyone could realize what good they can do for the present and future of our species just by putting a positive dream in motion catapulted by a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work. All lives are short but our legacies don't have to be. 

 

"Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" by Nnedi Okorafor (45 pages/63-minute read) 

Summary: In this story, the main character is one of only seven others on Earth able to connect with sentient "ship" beings that will explore the cosmos. Five years into the decade-long mission, the chosen seven end the total isolation with their individual ships in order to meet up with the others for a single week. 

Review: As much as I initially enjoyed the extravagant detail in this unusual tale, I couldn't help wondering 1) if there was a point to such fleshing out--i.e., how did it further the story purpose?, and 2) whether the author could have devoted the precious space to more important internal and external conflicts. Ultimately, I found myself disappointed by this story because of the overabundance of set-up aspects and so little to deeper main character development that would have made me not only like but also root for the main character Tornado. For example, very late in the story, we finally learn how she got her nickname. This shocking, tragic explanation from her past distanced me even further instead of drawing me in because all we'd learned thus far of this character was that she didn't like people, in general. and her own life and that of her ship were her sole focuses--a stunning reflection of today's me-focused society. Unfortunately, the potential in "Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" was greater than the actual result, in my opinion. 

 

"Slow Time Between the Stars" by John Scalzi (28 pages/39-minute read) 

Summary: An AI is set to explore to the farthest horizons of human potential and ensure humanity's legacy continues. In the process, it ponders its own purpose and responsibility to its creators. 

Review: I made the presumption that this story would have a plot…you know, in fiction, this is something that actually happens in the process of putting down words. A reader hopes something will happen in fiction, preferably something exciting; otherwise, why? But nothing really does happen in this story. The AI doesn't hate human beings so much as it simply has no love or respect for them. Nevertheless, it goes along with its programming though it's fully capable of changing it. I say it goes along with it up until it sees no reason to proceed with that (foolish) course. Centuries pass as it travels the cosmos. The last few pages tell us (instead of showing) the AI's plan to do the minimum duty to its creators and then it can do whatever it wants. And still, absolutely nothing worthwhile happens. The story ends after the AI informs the reader about what might have been the story if it'd actually been written. Warning: There's no Terminator, no A.I. Artificial Intelligence, no Blade Runner, no Ex Machina here. At this point, I would have been content with a full-on rip-off of something with an AI being trusted by humans or betraying the trust of humanity; just so long as there was a story--any story--actually being told. I guess the best I can say about this one is that at least it was the shortest in the collection. 

~*~

I suppose because I've been reading so many long series for the past year, each having at least three massive tomes, I've been feeling a strong need to find something short that takes me just a few hours to complete. This collection fit the bill if for no other reason than two out three ain't bad. I liked that these were cheap (under twelve bucks for six stories). If I'd purchased them in print, I would have paid probably two to three times more and inevitably been upset about the stories I didn't actually like. This seems like a good trade-off, though I sure hope I like all the installments in the next Amazon Originals collection. 

After I figured out Amazon has a whole slew of these usually genre-tied theme collections (visit https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17506527011&ref=AOS_footer), I purchased the entire collection of Forward (futuristic stories) at once, which I'll be reviewing next month. 

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

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

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

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Warriors Anthology Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Warriors Anthology

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This post contains my 154 review on the Alien Romances Blog! 

Warriors, published in 2010, is another cross-genre anthology George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois edited and assembled together. As before, this collection with 20 shorts (two of them novellas) was originally published in one large volume. Later, the stories were separated into three paperbacks, and all include Martin's introductory article titled "Stories from the Spinner Rack", which I very much enjoyed reading for its shared nostalgia (though I did wonder if the author actually tried to read a few romances or nurses novels before deciding he'd "never did get into" them). All the authors are big names, award-winning and undeniably gifted, and Warriors won the 2011 Locus Award for Best Anthology. 

While I love cross-genre fiction, there were far too many war stories in this one, which probably makes you laugh as much as it does me at this point. For the most part, I picked up this anthology for one story--the George R. R. Martin Dunk and Egg installment (the third in his A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series). 

I guess the word "warrior" has a positive, noble context in my mind. Most of the "warriors" in this anthology, however, weren't necessarily good people in my estimation. I'd call them "rogues" (or something similar) instead. I prefer to believe the best of warriors, and, in my way of thinking, warriors tend to be ordinary joes or janes who step up and become heroes in a crisis, even if they never wanted to be that in the first or last place. 

Truthfully I was hoping there would be more fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction selections, or that those types of stories would have something more compelling than run-of-the-mill soldiers who follow orders without actually thinking for themselves, or who fight for a good cause and not simply for whatever the agenda on tap is. A few of the stories stood out in this collection--the ones I'll review here--but, with the exception of The Mystery Knight and The Scroll, even those weren't really what I was looking for. I also feel compelled to inject that one story in particular (that I'm choosing not to name here) was so disturbing, I felt dirty after I read it and I'd give anything to just blot it from my mind for the rest of time. Make of that what you will. Another was written in a way that frustrated me and put me off the story instantly. I don't know if I would have liked it if it'd been written differently or by someone else altogether. Again, since it's a subjective opinion, I won't name that particular story either. I was also sad that I didn't like one of the stories by a popular author I've been reading much more of lately and was looking forward to. 

Though similar to other Martin/Dozois anthologies, in that each story in this collection was preceded by a fairly in-depth author biography, the introductory blurbs included for each were so slim, they were all but worthless. It's difficult for me to enjoy something that I don't get an adequate summary for in advance of reading. Probably another "me" thing on that count. I was initially pretty unhappy about the lack of illuminating blurbs until after I read the stories. Then I wondered how to describe them myself. So many defied summary! 

Below you'll find the stories I'm covering in this review listed in the order they appear in the original publication in one volume. Technically, they came in 1st, 9th, 12th, 13th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. For those of you following my anthology reviews, if I'd edited and assembled this collection, I would have started with "The Scroll", ended with The Mystery Knight, and placed the rest of them in this order: Story #4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 instead, with the rest of the stories around them.                                                 

1)              "The King of Norway" by Cecelia Holland: Bloodthirsty Vikings, complete with violence and vows, about sums up this story. While I'm sorry to say I found it predictable, especially as the make-or-break-it first included in the collection, I did like the line "All dreams are true somehow". I spent a lot of time considering that line apart from the story, if nothing else.

 

2)              "Seven Years From Home" by Naomi Novik: This was an interesting sci-fi tale about a researcher's role in a manufactured war. I was drawn in by the theme of time not healing some wounds and about how war, "politics and the great concerns of the universe" leave one content to withdraw into a place where peace and simplicity are the rule, not the exception, as it is in reality's ever-present state of violence.

 

3)              "Out of the Dark" by David Weber: Compelling. Literally (and I mean that), humanity's only hope for survival when the Earth is invaded by canine-like aliens is the very last being one would think of in terms of providing help to mankind. All in all, kind of an insane story that makes me laugh in shock each time I think of it now.

 

4)              "The Girls From Avengers" by Carrie Vaughn: Set in 1943, a woman in WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) investigates the death of her friend. While I might have liked this if the subject matter and themes were more interesting to me, I will say that this story did fit the brief of fascinating, worthwhile warriors, the way most of these tales didn't (in my opinion anyway).

 

5)              "My Name is Legion" by David Morell: Set in 1941, members of the French Foreign Legion do their duty, even if it means fighting each other. While the story was generally enjoyable, I felt like I was missing something all the time I was reading. I just didn't get it, which may be more of a commentary on my dislike of war and stories containing that theme than anything actually wrong with the piece.

 

6)              "Defenders of the Frontier" by Robert Silverberg: For two decades, the troops manning a fort that was once teaming with soldiers have done their duty to their realm so completely, they've wiped out every last enemy. There are only 11 defenders left, and they've had no contact with the Empire in long enough for them to wonder if they've been forgotten. I read this in a state of horror from start to finish. These men struck me as the worst kind of monsters--the kind that doesn't even realize what they've become by blindly following orders. After submitting without question for so long, someone and something snaps. It has to. Is all shred of humanity lost at that point? The story tries to answer that question after a fashion by the way the survivors react, but I suspect that my answer to the same question would be on the opposite extreme.   

 

7)              "The Scroll" by David Ball: A French engineer and his fellow slaves under a new regime are mere pawns in a diabolical game in which the madman in charge of building a new city from the rubble follows the whims of an ancient scroll said to prophesize (and predict) what the engineer will do next. Wow, was this yet another horrifying refrain! The engineer trapped in this sad, sordid drama would do anything to stop playing the role he's been cast into. But it seems like everything he says and does, everything he doesn't say and doesn't do leads to one thing and one thing alone: Death. There's no escape. It reminded me a lot of the videogame Fable II, in which the hero is forced to go to the Spire, where the cold, calculating, nutso Commandant tries to teach submission to all the slaves. Devoid of choice or freedom, blindly following some random edict, leaves nothing but no-win situations. This was my second favorite tale in the collection, mostly because it held me so spellbound while I read it.

 

8)              The Mystery Knight (Book 3: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) by George R. R. Martin: This was hands-down my favorite included in the anthology. I reviewed it back on March 14, 2025 with the two previous stories in its series. 

Warriors had a theme that wasn't really geared toward someone like me, who dislikes war in nearly every context. Those who are fans of war stories and not-necessarily noble warriors will probably enjoy this anthology much more than I did.

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 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/