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This monumental collection is a must buy for lovers of high fantasy. You'll want this one in hardcover, autographed by as many of the contributors as possible. After devouring it, you will no doubt then choose to showcase it in an honoured position on your fantasy bookshelf.

For the first time anywhere, eleven of fantasy's bestselling (and/or award-winning) practitioners are gathered between the same set of covers, contributing an original novella in each of their most famous fantasy series.

Legendary horror master Stephen King, for example, pens "The Little Sisters of Eluria," set before the events in the first Dark Tower book (The Gunslinger 1982), when Roland has just begun his long search for Walter. Here, he comes across an eerily deserted town full of zombie-like mutants poisoned by radiation (reminiscent of George Romero's Living Dead), and a band of witches/vampires who have ensnared him and hapless others in their (literally) deceptive and deadly web. Full of traditional dark fantasy/horror tropes, King nevertheless makes it work and even throws in a romance to boot. Graphically violent and gruesome in parts, it also includes a short bit of hardcore witchlore of an adult nature.

Raymond E. Feist's "The Wood Boy" takes place in the early days of the Riftwar, "when the Tsurani were first establishing their foothold in the kingdom." It is the story of Dirk, a lowly servant lad who loves the master of his keep's high-strung daughter, and who displays courage and honour amidst the deception and death surrounding him on all fronts.

On the lighter side, Terry Pratchett offers a new tale of Granny Weatherwax (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, and Maskerade), his cantankerous, high-spirited witch. In this one, Granny's other witch friends decide it's high time she stepped down from the annual festival of the "Trials," where Granny always wins. How Granny reacts to this proposal, and how it all turns out, forms a delightful tale full of Pratchett's wit and saucy banter (and a nice commentary on why coming in second isn't the same as losing).

Each of the contributors knows how to entertain the erstwhile fantasy reader, each after their own fashion. There are thoughtful, coming-of-age pieces, (The Le Guin, whose "Dragonfly" I count as a major coup, this being the first Earthsea story since her 1990 Nebula winning novel Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea), more action-oriented pieces (several, including the engaging "Debt of Bones" by Terry Goodkind), and large-scale, colourful tales of intrigue, sorcery, and villainy of various interesting sorts (editor Silverberg's own Majipoor tale "The Seventh Shrine", and George R.R. Martin's "The Hedge Knight" from his new series A Song of Ice and Fire, to name but two). Tad Williams' sad tale of an old woman who recounts the flowering of her youth ("The Burning Man") and how she has come to find herself a lonely old woman, adds a poignant touch to the collection.

A thoughtful addition is the introductory material prefacing each story. All books in each of the eleven series are listed in order, and a fairly lengthy synopsis of each series is given, though in most cases no knowledge of any series is required.

There is something here for every fantasy lover: monsters and magics, sorceries and seductions, intrigue and insight into the human condition, wit and whimsy, all set in a myriad of vividly imagined worlds. But, above all, there are well-drawn characters with whom the reader can identify. Some of them are down to earth, others larger than life, but it is they -- as much as any plot, story line, or dark evil -- which make these stories worth reading.

Legends is a lot of fun. It is an excellent sampler for those new to the high fantasy genre so popular today (though not all of these would technically fall into this "quest" category), and shows the wide range of what this sort of fantasy now encompasses. This would make a grand holiday gift for the fantasy book lover; not only for the newcomer, but for the seasoned aficionado wishing to see what some of the other series are about that might have been passed over in the bookstore.

Not being a major fan of never-ending (open-ended) fantasy series, I find it highly ironic that the vehicle employed to promote them in this book is the self-contained unit of the novella (commonly assigned the word length of 17,500-40,000 words for Hugo and Nebula voting consideration). Editor Silverberg, and many others who have given thought over the years to the ideal length for the SF or fantasy story, have often remarked that it is perhaps the novella which best fulfills this role. A recent example which supports this view is George R.R. Martin's 1997 Hugo-winning novella "Blood of the Dragon", which was an excerpt from the first book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones. Which is another reason, I suspect, why I enjoyed Legends as much as I did. There are eleven novellas here, eleven complete stories, written by some of fantasy's most able, creative, and popular wordsmiths. How can you go wrong?

Table of Contents
Stephen King	The Dark Tower: "The Little Sisters of Eluria"
Terry Pratchett	Discworld: "The Sea and Little Fishes"
Terry Goodkind	The Sword of Truth: "Debt of Bones"
Orson Scott Card	Tales of Alvin Maker: "Grinning Man"
Robert Silverberg	Majipoor: "The Seventh Shrine"
Ursula K. Le Guin	Earthsea: "Dragonfly"
Tad Williams	Memory, Sorrow and Thorn: "The Burning Man"
George R.R. Martin	A Song of Ice and Fire: "The Hedge Knight"
Anne McCaffrey	Pern: "Runner of Pern"
Raymond E. Feist	The Riftwar Saga: "The Wood Boy"
Robert Jordan	The Wheel of Time: "New Spring"

Dave Truesdale has been reading science fiction and fantasy for forty years. For the past four years he has edited TANGENT: The Only Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Fiction Review Magazine. It was runner-up for the 1997 Hugo Award.