Rating: 
Summary: Mixed effort--some excellent, others, well...
Review: I'll be honest--I bought this book on the strengths of Jordan, Williams, and King, so it is not surprising that these are what I consider the cream of the crop in this collection. King's 'Little Sisters' was well written if somewhat predictable. I think he could have done more with this idea, though the ending was masterful. Williams' "Burning Man' adds flavor to the sweeping MS&T saga... and Jordan, who releases this short story about Lan and Moiraine rather timely, with fantasy fans salvating over the soon-to be released "Path of Daggers.." Espicially good in this, 'New Spring,' is the charicterization of a youger, less matured Moiraine Several other stories were simularly enthralling: Martin's 'Hedge Knight,' LeGuin's 'Dragonfly' (is she sure the last book of Earthsea has been written?) and Silverberg's 'Seventh Shrine.' I have never written Card, and while 'Grinning Man' was somewhat unimpressive, the ideas of Alvin Maker's world are intriguing... Goodkind's 'Debt of Bones' is worlds better than 'Wizard's First Rule', though still suffering simular faults in overlong verbose descriptions of pointless tangents and one-dementional charicters... I have never read Ann McCaffery, and for her story 'Runner of Pern'...suffice to say it was the only one I didn't bother finishing. Prachet's 'Little Fishes' was amusing, though I usually don't go for fantasy humor. Finally is Fiest's 'Wood Boy', well deserving to be at the bottem of the list. Having enjoyed the RiftWar saga I expected much more; this story was not only pointless but also poorly written. Very disappointing. Some of 'Legends' is good, some excellent, and some crap. Worth the price.
Rating: 
Summary: A great collection, with stories by many favourite authors.
Review: LEGENDS: SHORT NOVELS BY THE MASTERS OF MODERN FANTASY, edited and introduced by Robert Silverberg, presents "eleven rich, robust new stories by the best-known and most accomplished modern creators of fantasy fiction, each one set in the special universe of the imagination that made that writer famous throughout the word." Thus we have, for instance, a Wheel of Time story by Robert Jordan, an Earthsea story by Ursula K. Le Guin and, of course, a Discworld story by Terry Pratchett.THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA is Stephen King's contribution, set in the world(s) of The Dark Tower. It describes how the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, encounters first a band of mutant humans and then the not-so-benevolent sisterhood of the title. THE SEA AND LITTLE FISHES features Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, set at the time of an annual competition to see who's the best at witching. Granny's inevitable victory shakes up the whole kingdom as she shows how she's bad at being nice but good at being right. DEBT OF BONES is a story by Terry Goodkind, set prior to the events of his Sword of Truth books. Abigail come to plead with the First Wizard to save her family from an early invasion of the D'Harans, but her mission does not go quite as she intends... GRINNING MAN presents Davy Crockett as he never was, in Orson Scott Card's alternate America of the Tales of Alvin Maker. Crockett causes trouble for Alvin who, thanks to the young Arthur Stuart, learns an important lesson in distinguishing truly good acts from the disguises taken by evil acts like revenge. THE SEVENTH SHRINE describes an event on Silverberg's own Majipoor, late in the reign of Valentine as Pontifex, the senior ruler of the giant planet. A strangely ritualistic murder during an archeological dig of an ancient alien city prompts Valentine to investigate. DRAGONFLY revisits the wizards (and witches) of Earthsea in Le Guin's contribution. A local witch has detected some unidentified power in the girl Dragonfly but refuses to teach her any magic. Years later, the grown woman concocts a scheme with a visiting wizard to pass herself off as a man and study on Roke. THE BURNING MAN is a story from Tad Williams' lands of Osten Ard, the setting of his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books. It is told by Breda, orphaned by one king and then adopted by another, and concerns first love, an occult rite and a difficult choice, all of which will burn in her mind forever. THE HEDGE KNIGHT is an entertaining tale from the Seven Kingdoms of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Squire Dunk finds himself with a knighthood when his master dies, and decides to enter a local tourney to prove himself a champion. THE RUNNER OF PERN is set, of course, on Anne McCaffrey's world. Tenna is the daughter of a long line of runners, message carriers for those who cannot use dragons to send their letters, and her story provides insights into yet another way of life on Pern. THE WOOD BOY is a short tale from Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga and concerns Dirk, two dead bodies and a Lord's gold. Dirk's life is changed forever when his Lord's estate is occupied by the invading Tsurani, and changed again by treason, murder and revenge. NEW SPRING describes how Lan met Moiraine as a prelude to Jordan's books of The Wheel of Time, answering the question of how he came to throw her into the freezing waters of a lake, and then become her Warder and join her twenty year quest to find the Dragon Reborn. Before reading the collection, I had read books set in five of the eleven worlds presented, and I'm looking forward to further exploration of the other six. While writing good short fiction is difficult, writing good short fiction in a setting that's previously been described in the course of a number of novels must be even more difficult. Such a short story can't be treated merely as a chapter extracted from a novel, where storylines can be set up in earlier chapters and then concluded in later chapters, but I think that all of the authors met the challenge very well. Of course, many of them make their task a little easier by moving to a time before the events of any of their books, or to a setting that has not already been used, but the stories are still entertaining nonetheless. Possibly the only author to fall into the trap of providing too much background was Silverberg himself, though I'm still looking forward to reading the Majipoor books. Even those authors noted for writing huge individual works --- such as Robert Jordan, whose seven Wheel of Time books total over 4500 pages, constituting a single, continuous story --- managed complete pieces in eighty pages or less. Coming at this from the point of view of a Pratchett fan, I can also recommend AFTER THE KING: STORIES IN HONOR OF J. R. R. TOLKIEN (Tor) and THE WIZARDS OF ODD (Ace).
Rating: 
Summary: Amazon misled me
Review: I, like another, thought I was purchasing a book with 11 short stories with some of my favorite authors. I was disappointed to find ONLY 4 of the stories in this version. I went awry with the description in the Editorial Review, Amazon.com by Craig Engler, printed in conjunction with this text. Please include more accurate information!
Rating:
Summary: Useful introduction to fanstasy authors; uneven quality
Review: Legends is a collection of short stories written by established authors of modern fantasy writing in their own "worlds." This book is an excellent introduction to the writing style and talent of each of these writers. "The Little Sisters of Eluria" by Stephen King fleshes out who and what the "Little Sisters" from King's Dark Tower series are; if you are not a Dark Tower fan, neither this story nor its characters will mean much to you. "Runner of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey is certainly the weakest link in this book--unless the reader is looking for a light (very light) romance in a fantasy setting. Characterization is weak and plot is nearly non-existent. Although die-hard fans of the Pern series may not care. Also uninspired is Robert Jordan's entry "New Spring," which is a prequal to his Wheel of Time series. Like the Wheel books, the writing is tired and the plot plodding. The strongest entry is The Hedge Knight by George R. R. Martin. It is a stand-alone story set in the world of Song of Ice and Fire. Following the death of his mentor, Dunk, 17 finds himself knighted (a "Hedge Knight"--a knight unattached to a lord who sleeps among the hedges) and alone. He travels to the city to join a contest for Hedge Knights and make a name for himself. He is joined by 9-year-old Egg, a boy who insists on squiring for him. Dunk soon finds himself involved over his head with royalty, and about to lose his life. The writing is sharp and witty and the characters are compelling. A close second is "The Burning Man" by Tad Williams, the story of certain pivotal events in a young woman's life--her first love and her stepfather's obsessive quest for the answer to a question that haunts him and nearly drives him to madness. Other entries are by Terry Pratchett, Terry Goodkind, Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Ursula LeGuin, Tad Williams, and Raymond E. Feist. With few exceptions, the stories are will written and entertaining, representing the wide variety of voices, styles, and themes in modern fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant! Just what an Anthology should be!
Review: An Anthology must do three things: have a clear focus; select the best representative authors in the genre and, most important of all, grip both veterans as well as newbies in the genre. Legends easily scores high on all three. The focus on fantasy and short novels is crisp. The choice of authors is inspired. Anne McCaffrey, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, Ursula LeGuin, George Martin and Silverberg himself are easily top draws in the fantasy business and the others are no slouches either. Silverberg has written short but invaluable background pieces that beautifully set the context of each individual story. So a new reader does not need to know the individual milieu of each story but can plunge in head-first. To Silverberg's and his authors' credit, many of the stories have been so set that they do not spoil the suspense or give away any secrets of the main books. Thus Jordan's story is set prior to The Eye of the World, Goodkind's prior to Wizard's First Rule and Martin's prior to Game of Thrones and they each set the stage for the respective series. No doubt, LeGuin's Earthsea story is in the middle, as are the King and Silverberg stories but they still do not reveal the twists to an unwary reader. I do not propose to review each individual story except to say that Martin, LeGuin, Silverberg and Goodkind are first class, Jordan and McCaffrey not far behind. The others, I am less happy with but that may be my bias. For any reader who loves fantasy, this is a "must-have" book. And for a reader wishing to learn what this "fantasy stuff" is all about, there can be no better starter volume. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Kinda of a Let Down
Review: I'm a huge fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, and had not read anything by Tad Williams and Terry Pratchett before. NEW SPRING by Jordan didn't add anything to the Wheel of Time series, and wouldn't have made me want to become a Jordan fan if I wasn't already. DRAGONFLY by Le Guin was better, but not anywhere near as good as the Earthsea novels, whose world it uses. THE BURNING MAN by Williams annoyed me by jumping about in sequence in events all over the place in short bursts of "minichapters". And the story itself wasn't appealing. Terry Pratchett's THE SEA AND THE LITTLE FISHES, telling a short tale of the witch Granny Weatherwax was the true gem of this collection. It was funny and satirical, and I will be looking into the rest of Pratchett's books about Granny. I don't think that Pratchett's gem can make up for the failings of the others, but if you're a huge fan of any of these authors it might still be worth the read. Hope this was useful.
Rating:
Summary: Make sure you get the full version paperback!
Review: There are 2 versions of this book in paperback. One has 4 stories (which unfortunately I bought by mistake) and the other has all 11 stories. I did enjoy 3 out of the 4 stories in the version I bought especially Stephen Kings and Raymond Feist.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: This is a good across the board serious start to short stories. These types of collections are good because they expose people to various authors that they would not have read normally. Thinking back on some of these stories still brings a smile to my face in some instances and a very loud goanb in some others, The strongest short stories in this colllection are "The Hedge Knight" by George RR Martian-Its a good story and its nice to read a story by this author where the point of view is not shifting every 5 secounds "GRINNING MAN" by Orson Scot Card-I probably wouldn't think it was so great if I didn't like "The Tales of Alvin Maker" so much. This tale is also fun too because it centers on Alvin and the antics of one David Crocket King of the Wild Frontier. These are the two front runers I'll give an honorable mention to the "Gunslinger" short story because it was a good in me keeping my sanity in the long years between "Wizard in Glass" and "Wolves of Challa" Terry Goodkind's "Debt of Bones" does its job but remember that with all of Goodkind's works it is very discriptive. Just speaking for myselgf wheneever i read one of his works I want to cheer and vomit at the same time. The only "bad" story in the bunch is Anne McCaffrey's "Runners of Pern" who can you have a Pern story and not even throw in a dragon to keep us interested Mrs. McCaffrey? Overall-solid and well rounded don't expect the unexpexcted where these authors are concerned.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: When i bought this book i thought it would be teriffic. I was not disssopointed. Being fairly new to fantsy books this gave me many new seris to read
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff.
Review: I have to admit I bought this book for "The Hedge Knight". I enjoyed the other stories too, but I can't get enough of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. The Hedge Knight gives us a little history of a few of the families from the other stories. I especially like how it makes the Targaryens more tangible. They seem almost like a family of crazy, yet mystical people in the other books, but here we see them as your typical royal family with troubles like every one else. I eagerly await the next installment of the Dunk and Egg novellas.
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