Legends: Stories By The Masters of Modern Fantasy

While I love fantasy, I wasn't really a big fan of high fantasy and sword & sorcery when I picked up this book. I found it on sale, and thought to get to go with Legends II, which I got for Gaiman's short novel. I'm so happy I did! I enjoyed the stories in the book, and happily discovered that

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these sub-genres of fantasy are fun to read and that the worlds these authors have created are fascinating after all!

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I picked up this book specifically for Martin's "The Hedge Knight" and Williams' "The Burning Man", which I found quite good.

The rest of the stories were little peaks into the worlds created by authors that I have yet to read. In some cases there was a type of literary culture shock stemming from

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decidedly foreign worlds being presented in such short pieces. While such stories were a little harder to get immersed in, they served that introductory purpose well enough and I may give those authors another chance in a longer format.

One note of caution to others who may use this book in a similar sampling-platter fashion: skip the introductory essays before each story. They often contain spoilers related to each story's native series.

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I got this book at a convention in Madison, back in 1998. Really enjoyed "The Hedge Knight" (and got into "The Song of Fire and Ice" because of it), "Little Sisters of Iluria" (my introduction to the Dark Tower series), "The Sea and Little Fishes" (Granny Weatherwax rocks!), "The Burning Man" and

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"New Spring." Could not really get into the others. I guess Card, Feist, Silverberg, and Goodkind are just not my style. I used to love Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, but have somewhat outgrown them. Cannot remember much about Le Guin's story, to be honest, so it must not have made a big impression.

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This is really an excellent short story collection. Any collection featuring Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Tad Williams, George R. R. Martin and several other leading contemporary fantasy writers is a big deal, and most of the writers deliver in this anthology with quality work. The Hedge Knight,

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in particular, has gone on to spawn its own path in Martin's works.

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Anthology of short stories by fantasy's top writers. Excellent jumping board to fantasy authors you might not be familiar with. Notable stories; 'The Sea and Little Fishes' by Terry Pratchett, 'The Hedge Knight' by George R R Martin, 'The New Spring' by Robert Jordan

A very enjoyable collection of stories, I have always been a fan of the short story, which is something we never get to see a lot of anymore. I remember when there were several books with collections in a range of genre's but in recent years it seems to have lost its popularity. The Legend books

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are a great read for people not used to these authors, and is a format well worth buying.

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This is really a brilliant idea for a collection, and the execution is fantastic. If you follow long-form fantasy at all, you'll probably at least recognize all of these authors, and each story is a pretty good capsule of the author's style and world. I've found that my reaction to the story maps

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pretty closely to my reaction to the series as a whole, and so this was a great way to encounter authors I hadn't yet read (Terry Pratchett, most notably - the Granny Weatherwax story is perfect and a perfect introduction to the milieu.)

(Note - I read this when it came out, lo these many years ago (and quite a few times since,) so this is a review based on a reread.)

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I love anthologies, and this is one of the defining reasons why. This is a great book, with a series of well-developed novellas by well-known authors in Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The best thing about Legends, to my mind, was that each of the authors chosen has a successful book or series out already, and

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the novella for this book was based in whatever world that author had already conceived. It was a great way of introducing me not only to previously un-read authors, but also introducing me to intriguing characters and storylines that I can now explore in more depth.

I fully recommend this book to any fan of fantasy or sci-fi.

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Some of the stories were great others wern't really to my taste.

For the most part I really enjoyed these stories. It was a nice way to visit these famous authors all at once. Some of the stories were great and some I skipped over. My favorite (and this can't be a real surprise to anyone) is the story by the late great Terry Pratchett called Discworld: The Sea

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and Little Fishes. It features the delightful character, Granny Weatherwax. Always considered to be very touchy and grumpy, she is challenged to be nice for a change. Unfortunately, everyone thinks she is up to something since she can't possibly be nice.

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I read this for The Dunk and Egg Tales by George R. R. Martin, which is what I'll be reviewing from it while I'm playing GRRM catch-up this week for the last four years of being lax, due to the new series and previous to the new book release.


This tale really didn't interest me at all. Which has to

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say something about it ending up at three. Because even though I could really take or leave Dunk all together, Mr. Martin still made me tear up with a single line about "being a knight remembering his vows." And really one can not forget Egg in all of this or his brothers.

I'm so intrigued about more things in his house. And presently reading it's sequel, to a more hopeful note at present.

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