Before I buy a music CD of an artist of which I've never heard of or only having a fleeting familiarity, I make sure I have listened to at least three songs from the prospective album before reaching into my pockets. Thank goodness for record bars that allow you to sample music (alas, no more Tower or Music One for such).The same is true for a multi-volume series from an unknown author (at least, unread by yours truly). You would want a taste of how he or she writes before you splurge on that trilogy, pentad, or 12-volume epic or otherwise you'll be wasting several hundred pesos when you're the type like moi who otherwise buys his multi-volume series at least three books a time (a lesson I learned after completing David and Leigh Eddings' fantasy series in over three years or so).
So, the Legends 2 compilation of novellas by modern fantasy masters, edited by Robert Silverberg, comes as a sampler of sorts. The volume I have, Volume 2, collects short novels by Terry Goodkind, George RR Martin, and Anne McCaffrey -- three fantasy authors I've yet to read. The two other volumes compile short novellas by other writers like Stephen King, Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, Raymond Feist, Robert Jordan, Ursula Le Guin, Tad Williams, and Sir Terry Pratchett. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to score second-hand editions of the two other volumes from Book Sale.
But now more on Volume 2 ...
As someone who has yet to step into the popular fantasy worlds created by Goodkind, Martin, and McCaffrey, the novellas in Legends 2 act as a sampler of sorts. Even without buying the first volumes in their respective series', Legends 2 is already a good step into those worlds as these lengthened short stories are already able to give you a deeper-than-expected immersion to their respective worlds. They give you a bite, a listen, before you go on and buy the real thing.
After reading Goodkind's "Debt of Bones", set some years before Richard Cypher was born, I immediately wanted to rush to the bookstore to get my hands on "Wizards First Rule", the first in the Sword of Truth series. On the other hand, Martin's "The Hedge Knight", a scene set about a hundred years before the politically-motivated Song of Ice and Fire series intensified my belief that I should jump in the GRRM bandwagon (and also try to score a copy of the HBO TV series based on the epic). Thirdly, after some hesitation and a bit of a slow start, I found myself enjoying McCaffrey's Runner of Pern, a story about the Runners' caste in her sci-fi and fantasy mash-up set in the world of Pern. I'm sure to start looking around for other Pern books from now on.
The three novellas are all superbly written, no doubt showing the prowess of the writers and the richness and depth of the imaginative worlds they've created. While you're only shown a bit of the worlds explored in the volume, there leaves no doubt in your mind that there's a whole lot of world out there to explore for each of the three novellas in their respective series'. Instead of just being merely satisfied, you're left with a craving to know more, read more, and be immersed more. Just like the first time you traveled with Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and his merry band of dwarves to Smaug's mountain to retrieve the Arkenstone.
I can't really say much about the writing as I've yet to compare these stories with the authors' other works, having read none before. But reading these novellas gives you a glimpse of how the authors' respective series' will "sound" like. And from my personal "sounding" of the three novellas, I liked how they sound. The full series' promise to be a treat.
First time readers of these authors will surely delight in this book. And for a read in mint condition, bought at only Php 80, this is quite a steal! Brand new sells at over Php 300 at most bookstores.
Now, I will just need to shell out a few thousand or so to buy the full series of all three authors though. Now, that's a killer.
Final Rating: 5/5
