egends II is a follow-up anthology to Legends, an extremely successful volume of original short novels by best-selling fantasy authors published in 1998. Robert Silverberg, the editor of both books, says in his introduction that he had intended the first to be "the definitive anthology of modern fantasy," but clearly there was room for a second volume. "Fantasy is inexhaustible," as he points out, and Legends II provides return engagements by six of the writers presented in Legends as well as appearances by fantasists who have made names for themselves since the publication of that earlier book.
The short novels included here cover a wide range of imaginative territories. Neil Gaiman returns to the world of his best-selling novel American Gods with "The Monarch of the Glen," a tale of the resurrected and not entirely human Shadow set in Scotland, where Shadow encounters a waitress who is actually a Norse spirit, along with various other displaced supernatural entities. In George R.R. Martin's "The Sworn Sword," the squire Dunc and his odd young companion, the Egg, travel through some of the grittier precincts that form the background of this author's popular Ice and Fire fantasy series.
Terry Brooks writes of Jair Ohmsford, a central character in his novel The Wishsong of Shannara, and his search for a fragment of the Ildatch, a powerful book of dark magic, that has somehow escaped destruction. Anne McCaffrey appears with a new tale of Pern, in which the dragonrider Moreta, on an emergency mission to deliver vaccines, is trapped "between" with a dragon not her own; Raymond E. Feist contributes a story set in the middle years of his Riftwar series that focuses on one of the battles in this epic conflict; and Elizabeth Haydon, in "Threshold," presents a mythic tale of the domed and doomed island of Serendair. Each novella is preceded by headnotes listing earlier books in the author's fantasy series and including a brief summary of the setting and background in which the story is set.
An embarrassment of riches for fantasy fans
Legends II should appeal both to readers already familiar with most of the fantastic universes depicted here, and to those who are visiting these worlds for the first time. All of the authors succeed in writing novellas that can stand alone and that won't disappoint their many fans, and that should also serve to entice new readers to sample more of their work.
Robin Hobb, in "Homecoming," narrates the story of Lady Carillion Carrock in an elegant and alienated tone, as the exiled noblewoman gradually comes to accept her inner and outer transformation after her banishment to the swamplands known as the Cursed Shores. Diana Gabaldon enriches "Lord John and the Succubus," her tale of an 18th-century rationalist trying to dispel the fears of superstitious people while investigating a couple of mysterious murders, with convincing historical detail. Robert Silverberg manages a tour de force in "The Book of Changes," in which Aithin Furvain, a wastrel prince captured by the bandit chief Kasinibon and held for ransom, is inspired during his captivity to attempt an epic poem that draws on the history of Majipoor; this story could serve either as an introduction to Silverberg's giant world or as a postscript to his Majipoor series.
Tad Williams draws on the simulated worlds and computer technology of his Otherland series for a surprising and often amusing story of "virtual" reproduction in "The Happiest Dead Boy in the World." In "The Yazoo Queen," Orson Scott Card offers a story set in the alternate America of his Alvin Maker series and told in the manner of a tall tale, in which Alvin and companion Arthur Stuart encounter Jim Bowie and Abraham Lincoln, among other historical personages, during a trip down the Hio and Mizzippy Rivers. In this series, as this novella demonstrates, Card has created an appealing and authentic homegrown American fantasy. The sheer variety of stories and the distinctive voices of each author amply support Silverberg's assertion that fantasy is inexhaustible and that "there are always new stories to tell."
Legends II presents almost an embarrassment of riches, in that readers may be tempted to gulp down too much of this book at once. This is an anthology best read at intervals, one short novel at a time, the better to savor some of the different flavors of humankind's oldest branch of imaginative fiction.
