Legends

Stories by the Masters of Fantasy, Volume 4

By: Anne McCaffrey, Raymond E. Feist, George R.R. Martin

Narrated by: Sam Tsoutsouvas, Kathryn Walker, Frank Muller

Legends, the monumental series of fantasy audios, concludes with this astounding collection of all-new stories by three of the best-loved and acclaimed authors of the genre, all of them set in the uncanny realms of their phenomenally popular novels.

In this extraordinary fourth volume, Anne McCaffrey returns to her world of romance and adventure to tell the story of a Runner of Pern. Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga is the setting for the revenge of The Wood Boy. And George R. R. Martin sets his adventure of The Hedge Knight in the generation before his epic A Song of Ice and Fire. The Legends series spans four audio volumes and includes short novels from the greatest living writers in all fantasy. Look for other Legends volumes with stories from: Stephen King, Robert Silverberg, Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, Terry Goodkind, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tad Williams.

In addition to her best-selling Dragons of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey is also the author of Acorna: The Unicorn Girl and the Brainship series. Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga includes Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master, Silverthorn, and A Darkness at Sethanon. George R. R. Martin is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author best known for his novellas and his Wild Cards novels. Kathryn Walker performs Runner of Pern, Sam Tsoutsouvas performs The Wood Boy, Frank Muller performs The Hedge Knight.

©1999 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Harper Audio, a division of HarperCollins Publishers (P)1999 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Harper Audio, a division of HarperCollins Publishers

The Dragon Squire

What did you love best about Legends?

RR Martin

What did you like best about this story?

How Dunk and Egg meets.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He did a ok job,he did bring a lot to the 7 vs 7!!

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

The adventures of Dunk and Egg.

Any additional comments?

If you like Game of Thrones you must start the legends series,you will love how Dunk and Egg travel the Sevan Kingdoms.

Great set of short fantasy stories.

This is a really interesting set of stories. I enjoyed the stories by Feist and Martin. The first one was okay.

2 out of 3 isn't bad

The McCaffrey started off great and I thought I was in for a really good story. I thought it was a really good idea and it was written really well but it was predictable and ended abruptly. I would have like to have seen more.
The Feist story never got my attention and to be honest after an hour I moved on.
Martin was flawless but I didn't care for the reader.

Legends

There is nothing I can add that has not been said by better reviewer than I. I'm grateful there are such gifted authours for me to read and listen too.

The Hedge Knight almost makes up for the others

So I'm not going to beat around the bush: I love A Song of Ice and Fire, and as such I didn't mind dropping my credit on this book just to get the Dunk and Egg story out of it. And I was not disappointed at all by that story. George R.R. Martin can make me love or hate (or love to hate) a character in a single sentence, and this story is no exception! There really isn't much else to say, aside from being a gushy fangirl.

The other two though. Well. Not so much. McCaffrey's story certainly isn't bad, it's just nothing special. I loved reading the Pern books in middle school and high school, so it was a nice bit of nostalgia, but it just didn't really have anything special to offer. The main character is a typical fantasy heroine: super beautiful and Not Like Other Girls. The plot is very predictable and infuriatingly slow, but underneath it all not a terrible way to pass a couple of hours.

The Feist story though. Wow. I don't remember much of it because I honestly had a very hard time paying attention. I think I remember it being predictable, and having certain undertones that were uncomfortably racist. It was so bad that I am giving this whole book two stars despite that Martin's story is excellent and McCaffrey's merely forgettable. I actually wish I would have just skipped the entire section, I would have been far more satisfied with the book as a whole.

Love Short Stories

I love the idea of small little stories of regular people in the great big worlds we know and love. I expected to like R.E. Feist most of all (it was amazing!!) but the Hedge Knight truly surprised me. It really sucked me in and I wanted to know what happened to this simple character in over his head.

When you want magic

These three short stories held a world of magic in them. Each was entertaining, had a good moral to it and was a wonderful listening experience.

The Hedge Knight

A captivating tale with most vivid imagery. One could forget the hold this world has on them and be lost in a world of knights squires and kings.

Mixed...

This is a 3 story volume, and I must admin that I only bought it because of the story by George R.R. Martin. I did want to hear the McCaffrey and Feist stories too, in the hopes of finding more authors that I like. In The Hedge Knight, I was not disappointed. If you have read any of the Song of Ice and Fire series, you will enjoy this mini-prequal. GRRM truly is one of the masters of fantasy.

However, the Runner of Pern is a predictable, contrived, and uninteresting girl-meets-boy love story. I had never read any of the Pern series, and this was not a positive first experience. She is a good enough writer, but the premise of the story leaves something to be desired.

The Wood Boy by Raymond Feist is terrible... the characters are 1 dimensional cliches of fantasy fiction. The "plot", if you want to call it that, is completely absent until the last 10 minutes of the story. What makes it worse is that the author had, up until that point, described a moderately interesting world for the protagonist. Dont waste your time.

My recommendation would be to buy this if you appreciate the fantastic work of George R.R. Martin. The other two get a free ride, but should be ignored unless you need something to fall asleep to.

The Hedge Knight is great, skipped the others

I picked up this book solely to listen to George RR Martin's Hedge Knight. At this point I haven't listened to the other stories and I don't expect I will any time soon.

The Hedge Knight is and enjoyable listen. Overall, it's a bit lighter in tone and content than the Song of Ice and Fire series, but it still feels completely grounded in the world and is a satisfying filler for GRRM waiting for the next book in the main series.

While the performance didn't ruin my enjoyment, I didn't care for the way the reader lets words and the ends of phrase hang in a somewhat breathy way. After a little while I was able to ignore it but was not a particularly strong performance in my opinion.

Paying the full price of the collection might seem a little steep if you are only interested in one story, but fans who are already deeply invested in the events of Westeros will probably find this story a worthwhile listen.