| Title | : | Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 274 |
| Publication | : | First published October 31, 2013 |
Steel yourself, throw caution to the wind, and dare to enter the realm of Legends:
Contents:
1. Introduction – Stan Nicholls
2. Or So Legend has It – James Barclay
3. A Blade to the Heart – Gaie Sebold
4. Return to Arden Falls – Ian Whates
5. The Drake Lords of Kyla – Storm Constantine
6. A Tower of Arkrondurl – Tanith Lee
7. Who Walks With Death – Jonathan Green
8. Skipping Town – Joe Abercrombie
9. The Land of the Eagle – Juliet E. McKenna
10. All Hail to the Oak – Anne Nicholls
11. Swords and Circle – Adrian Tchaikovsky
12. Fairyland – Jan Siegel
13. Mountain Tea – Sandra Unerman
14. The League of Resolve – Stan Nicholls
15. About the Authors
Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell Reviews
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Status:
The current read of this anthology is just to read the 'Skipping Town' short story by Joe Abercrombie. Shall get to the other short stories later. Started and finished on 12th May 2022.
'Skipping Town' (The Tales of Javre and Shev #2; First Law World #0.5) by Joe Abercrombie.
Shev held her empty palms up. ‘Well, I’ve offered no succour, that I promise you. I like a succouring just as much as the next girl, if not a good deal more, but Javre? No offence to her, I daresay she’ll make several men a wonderful husband some day, but she’s not my type at all.’ Shev raised her brows at Weylen who, it had to be said, was much closer to her type, those eyes of hers really were something. ‘And, you know, not wanting to blow my own horn, but once I offer succour? I generally get all the succouring one woman can—’
‘She means help,’ said Javre.
‘Eh?’
‘Succour. It is not a sexual thing.’
‘Oh.’
Rating: 3.5/5.
Review:
The tricky thing about short stories is that they can be an easy hit or miss. This particular story leans more towards the latter.
Taking place in the same year (but just before) as the events of 'The Blade Itself', this short story recounts the aftermath of a mission that Shev and Javre have recently completed. Although the story is not heavy on plot, there's a great amount of worldbuilding here. It made me curious about the Knights Templar of the Golden Order and its High Priestess. Despite some of my qualms about this short story, it was still a worthwhile read. Seeing Javre and Shev together in another short story was a happy surprise. I hope the series of short stories focusing on these two characters continue further and we get to know more about the Knights Templar of the Golden Order. -
I want to state upfront that this is a review of my personal experience, and for this kind of anthology everyone will have a different experience, so I encourage folks reading this review (and any anthology review) to factor that in.
One thing I discovered while reading this book was that I don't really enjoy anthologies. They are a great way to experience a sample of a new authors writing style, or to supplement an established series you have already read. However, I went into it also thinking of the stories as introductions to new worlds and series, and that is not really the case. While many of the stories are connected to established series, many more were also one-offs, so if you want to dive in to the world or characters more then you are out of luck. For me, Ian Whates story appealed to me a lot but when I went searching for more of his fantasy writing I could only find vague references to his other short stories, and he doesn't appear to have published full fantasy novels, so I was left a bit disappointed.
While this book was put together to honor the memory of David Gemmell, not all the stories seem to fit with that theme and his style. The stories themselves were of mixed quality and mixed interest for me. Some of them I loved, many were okay, and a couple I didn't care for at all, but your mileage may vary.
In summary, it's not a bad collection of short stories and there are some great gems here, but I wouldn't recommend rushing out to get this unless your "to read" pile is running low. -
Read Skipping town. Someday I will go back and finish the rest of this anthology.
Or So Legend has It – James Barclay - ⭐
A Blade to the Heart – Gaie Sebold - ⭐
Return to Arden Falls – Ian Whates - ⭐
The Drake Lords of Kyla – Storm Constantine - ⭐
A Tower of Arkrondurl – Tanith Lee - ⭐
Who Walks With Death – Jonathan Green - ⭐
Skipping Town [The Near Country, Summer 575] (First Law) - 5⭐
Also in
Sharp Ends. The dynamic duo Shev and Javre, have been journeying together, their skills complementing each other, but now Javre wants to skip town, much to Shev's annoyance. This delves into her mysterious background. I love her back story and want to read more about her in other stories / series. She is fascinating. This funny, action packed story would be a wonderful live action short film.
The Land of the Eagle – Juliet E McKenna - ⭐
All Hail to the Oak – Anne Nicholls - ⭐
Swords and Circle – Adrian Tchaikovsky - ⭐
Fairyland – Jan Siegel - ⭐
Mountain Tea – Sandra Unerman - ⭐
The League of Resolve – Stan Nicholls - ⭐ -
I only got this anthology for Gaie Sebold's story, A Blade to the Heart, and that's all this review is about.
So far i've really enjoyed reading Gaie's books but, sadly, i just feel this short fell a little short.
While i do think the redemption thing can be good fodder to build a story around, i just think in this case it's all got a bit too rushed. Probably would have been much better as a novella, at least.
But, ho hum, every favourite writer has to write at least one thing that just doesn't work for the fangirl/fanboy reader: does anyone remember
The Girl in Red? -
Always like short story books... something different every few pages. Will read the 2nd one soon
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First anthology of fantasy shorts I've read and unlikely to be the last. All for a good cause too.
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A wonderful read
An engaging and interesting read a great selection of varied stories. Definitely going to read the other collections in this series -
There were a decent amount of good stories in here but there were quite a few that were pretty bad. Overall it was decent though. Two more to go
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I went into this not having read ANY David Gemmel. I could still tell it was an homage. Undeniably has a particular flavor. I enjoyed this anthology but I have not run out to read any Gemmell in the years since. First read 2013, another in 2022.
The highlights for me were:
Or So Legend Has It- James Barclay, Not sure exactly what was going on here but have some thoughts.
Return to Arden Falls- Ian Whates, “May I buy you a drink?” There are many questions I might say no to. This isn’t one of them.- As first lines go, not bad. Add in the evocative title and I’m hooked.
A Tower of Arkrondurl-Tanith Lee, “Alas, poor ghost!” ‘He had been dead so long, the Sorcerer, here. Yet the tower, tall and iron-grim, was still deeply feared and scrupulously avoided.beautiful prose that feels like a tribute to the subject but also to Shakespeare. Hard to go wrong.
Skipping Town- Joe Abercrombie, I’m sure this is why I purchased this compilation and even though it is available elsewhere, worth it. Javre and Shev are always worth it.
All Hail to the Oak- Anne Nicholls, So I can’t find much more than nothing about Anne but noticed the last name so am now, low-key dying to find out if they’re linked by blood or marriage. In any case the anchor story League of Resolve by Stan is a good choice to finish off.
Swords and Circle-Adrian Tchaikovsky is in between the two. I really must get around to reading his longer form stuff.
All in all, worth a read.
Full list:
1. Introduction – Stan Nicholls
2. Or So Legend has It – James Barclay
3. A Blade to the Heart – Gaie Sebold
4. Return to Arden Falls – Ian Whates
5. The Drake Lords of Kyla – Storm Constantine
6. A Tower of Arkrondurl – Tanith Lee
7. Who Walks With Death – Jonathan Green
8. Skipping Town – Joe Abercrombie
9. The Land of the Eagle – Juliet E. McKenna
10. All Hail to the Oak – Anne Nicholls
11. Swords and Circle – Adrian Tchaikovsky
12. Fairyland – Jan Siegel
13. Mountain Tea – Sandra Unerman
14. The League of Resolve – Stan Nicholls -
Talk about phoning it in. This collection of short stories by various fantasy authors was put together to honor David Gemmell and raise operating funds for the David Gemmell Legend awards; yearly awards for fantasy fiction. I purchased it to support those awards and thought, "Hey, bonus, a bunch of good stories."
Bonus denied. It really deserves another half star, not all were bad. I'm not going to list whose I liked and whose I didn't; what works for me may not do it for you and vice versa. A couple were just too darned short and didn't allow for any connection time with the characters, and all felt rushed; either because of limited space, or because some of the authors just "phoned it in".
It's fairly inexpensive for the Kindle version and the proceeds go to the Legend Awards, so it was still worth the "cover" price; but I'm a little disappointed at the quality of most of this content. Not much of an honoring of a fantasy great. I'm sure Gemmell would appreciate the sentiment, but would be shaking his head at some of these. -
Really enjoyed the contributions from Joe Abercrombie and Sandra Unerman - 5 stars for them. Abercrombie and Unerman were short but so complete. Very satisfying. Of the other authors contributions I liked about half of them, one I couldn't get into at all.
Not really a fan or anthologies - but sometimes buy them to sample works by a couple of authors I'd heard something about. Many short stories seem to leave me hanging - having weak endings and I'm thinking " all that for that?" I did feel that way about a number of the tales in this compilation Based on that, I wanted to give this 3 stars but changed it to 4 considering I liked about half of the stories, which is pretty good for me and an anthology.
But that's the way of collections - you like and dislike and it's personal taste. -
There was the good and the not so good. Some well told tales by Tchaikovsky, Sebold and Barclay, that were entertaining. Of course Abercrombie's contribution was excellent but sadly a tad short for my liking. Anne Nicholls wrote a gripping tale and it was the first I've read of her work and would definitely read more in the future.
The story that took the crown by a mile though was 'Return to Arden Falls' by Ian Whates. It was a great short story and kept you turning the pages. Where some of the others seemed incomplete or more like extracts, this tale was tied up nicely and presented with an intriguing plot together with gripping characters.
I had no qualms in buying this book that was created in honour of the great Gemmell and although I was slightly disappointed with some of the content, there were some great stories that made it worthwhile. -
A mixed bag with the usual suspects delivering their usual fare.
Abercrombie's story was a pleasure to read as you would expect.
Not having read Tchaikovsky before I was pleased to find I quite enjoyed his short tale, will give his stuff a go now.
Not sure that many of the stories really brought to life a feeling of Gemmell but who cares as this book raised funds for the awards which I would like to see continue mainly due to the fact it is one of the few awards of this kind that a plebeian reader such as myself (I don't get any ARCs or the like) can have a say on the end winner of the awards. -
Some cracking short stories in here in pretty much any style you can think of. Probably only one that I didn't like; 'All Hail to the Oak' by Anne Nicholls, but only because it felt it was written as a full novel and then hacked to bits by someone to fit into a "short story". Just didn't flow for me.
But a lot on here I'll be looking out for in future. Certainly opened my eyes to some new authors, which is always a plus :) -
A great collection with some great stories.
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First time i read a book and liked all the stories!Some more but all of them were very good. Thank you for honouring David Gemmell.
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An average selection I'm afraid
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As with most story collections, some good, some eh, but as a whole definitely captures the spirit of Gemmell's heroic fantasy.
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There were only 3 good novel... And I think in the stories there weren't much from Gemmell... :(
