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Legends II: Dragon, Sword And King (2004)

by Robert Silverberg(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1435291131 (ISBN13: 9781435291133)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Ballantine Books/Del Rey

review 1: I've read the fantasy of George R.R. Martin, Orson Scott Card, and Terry Brooks before, and I liked their three stories. It's been over a decade since I read any of Mr. Card's or Mr. Brooks's fantasy, and I didn't enjoy their stories here as well as Mr. Martin's; I liked Mr. Card's story about Alvin Maker better than the Shannara story (although at the time, I think I liked the Shannara series better.)The Shannara story was like one of the novels in miniature: Stranger arrives in Shady Vale, takes scion of Shannara off on a quest to destroy evil, journey sequence, sneaking into the stronghold, finale. It even had a miniature version of the bad guy. Being so accelerated as to just go through the bare formula, however, is sort of like seeing the trick in a magic show. I... moret feels flat. Diana Gabaldon and Elizabeth Haydon were new to me. Ms. Gabaldon's story was very readable, and enjoyable, although hardly fantastic (the only real element of fantasy was a mention, in passing, of a time-traveling Woman, but the story itself was simply historical fiction.) I did not like Ms. Haydon's story; I found it an unartful mishmash of stock fantasy elements.
review 2: For the record, I'm only read the George R. R. Martin story in this one, library book and I don't read fast enough.I thought the story was pretty good; mostly a demonstration of how detailed the Westeros world is, and that is pretty impressive. Parts of the story were somewhat cliche, strong woman kept down in a man's world, differences in social standing getting in between people, etc. I was a bit down on the story until the last 20 or so pages, when it finally picked up. I imagine folks who are completely in love with Martin's world must love the richness of these stories, but I'm still somewhat down on the extra material in Feasts for Crows to be one of those folks. less

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