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Legends #2
Legends II: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell
Legends is an anthology of all original stories written to honour the memory of one of Britain’s greatest fantasy authors. Determined warriors, hideous creatures, wicked sorceries, tricksy villains and cunning lovers abound as fantasy’s finest imaginations do their best and their worst. James Barclay reveals the origins of his elite mercenary band The Raven, Adrian Tchaikovsky unveils new aspects of the realm of the Apt, Tanith Lee, Joe Abercrombie, Storm Constantine, Stan Nicholls, Juliet E. McKenna and more weave their magic as only they can. Produced in cooperation with the David Gemmell Awards, Legends will, in part, act as a fund-raiser for the awards.
Steel yourself, throw caution to the wind, and dare to enter the realm of Legends.
Determined warriors, hideous creatures, wicked sorceries, tricksy villains and cunning lovers abound as fantasy’s finest imaginations do their best and their worst...
In November 2013, NewCon Press released Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell. We are now delighted to unveil a second volume of original stories from some of the world’s leading fantasy authors written in honour of one of the genre’s greats. As before, Legends II will act in part as a fundraiser for the David Gemmell Awards.
Contents:
Introduction by Stan Nicholls
The Blessed and the Cursed by Gav Thorpe
A Rescue by Mark Lawrence
The Lowest Place by Edward Cox
The Giant’s Lady by Rowena Cory Daniells
An Oath Given by John Gwynne
The Singer by Stella Gemmell
Sandrunners by Anthony Ryan
Smokestack Lightning by Gavin Smith
Oak by Lou Morgan
An Owl in Moonlight by Freda Warrington
Heaven of Animals by John Hornor Jacobs
The Iron Wolves: Retribution by Andy Remic
Steel yourself, throw caution to the wind, and dare to enter the realm of Legends.
Determined warriors, hideous creatures, wicked sorceries, tricksy villains and cunning lovers abound as fantasy’s finest imaginations do their best and their worst...
In November 2013, NewCon Press released Legends: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell. We are now delighted to unveil a second volume of original stories from some of the world’s leading fantasy authors written in honour of one of the genre’s greats. As before, Legends II will act in part as a fundraiser for the David Gemmell Awards.
Contents:
Introduction by Stan Nicholls
The Blessed and the Cursed by Gav Thorpe
A Rescue by Mark Lawrence
The Lowest Place by Edward Cox
The Giant’s Lady by Rowena Cory Daniells
An Oath Given by John Gwynne
The Singer by Stella Gemmell
Sandrunners by Anthony Ryan
Smokestack Lightning by Gavin Smith
Oak by Lou Morgan
An Owl in Moonlight by Freda Warrington
Heaven of Animals by John Hornor Jacobs
The Iron Wolves: Retribution by Andy Remic
265 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2015
63 people are currently reading
1028 people want to read
About the author
Ian Whates
122 books81 followersIan Whates lives in a comfortable home down a quiet cul-de-sac in an idyllic Cambridgeshire village, which he shares with his partner Helen and their pets – Honey the golden cocker spaniel, Calvin the tailless black cat and Inky the goldfish (sadly, Binky died a few years ago).
Ian’s earliest memories of science fiction are fragmented. He remembers loving Dr Who from an early age and other TV shows such as Lost in Space and Star Trek, but a defining moment came when he heard a radio adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. From that moment on he was hooked and became a frequent haunter of the local library, voraciously devouring the contents of their SF section.
This early love of science fiction manifested most tellingly during his school days, when he produced an SF murder mystery as homework after being set the essay title “The Language of Shakespeare”, much to the bemusement of his English teacher.
Ian’s first published stories appeared in the late 1980s in small press magazines such as Dream and New Moon Quarterly, after which he took a break from writing in order to research his chosen fields of science fiction and fantasy. In other words, he read copious amounts of both. Clearly the research was extensive, because he published nothing further for some seventeen years. In the early 2000s he made the decision to pursue writing seriously, joining the Northampton SF Writers Group in 2004 after being introduced to its chairman, Ian Watson.
In 2006 he started submitting stories again, and has subsequently been surprised at how many otherwise eminently sensible people have chosen to publish him. A couple have even appeared in the science journal Nature, and one, “The Gift of Joy”, even found its way onto the five-strong shortlist for best short story in the British Science Fiction Association Awards. And it didn’t come last! Ironically, the award was actually won by Ken MacLeod’s “Lighting Out”, a piece Ian had commissioned, edited and published in the NewCon Press anthology disLOCATIONS (2007).
In 2006 Ian launched independent publisher NewCon Press, quite by accident (buy him a pint sometime and he’ll tell you about it). Through NewCon he has been privileged to publish original stories from some of the biggest names in genre fiction, as well as provide debuts to some genuinely talented newcomers. The books, their covers and contents have racked up an impressive array of credits – four BSFA Awards, one BSF Award to date, inclusion in ‘Year’s Best’ anthologies and recommendations and honourable mentions from the likes of Gardner Dozios and Locus magazine.
In addition to his publishing and writing, Ian is currently a director of both the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA), editing Matrix, the online news and media reviews magazine, for the latter.
His first two completed novels are both due to appear in early 2010: City of Dreams and Nightmare via Harper Collins’ imprint Angry Robot, and The Noise Within from Rebellion imprint Solaris, with sequels to follow. When not pinching himself to make sure this is all really happening, Ian is currently beavering away at the sequels… honest!
Ian’s earliest memories of science fiction are fragmented. He remembers loving Dr Who from an early age and other TV shows such as Lost in Space and Star Trek, but a defining moment came when he heard a radio adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. From that moment on he was hooked and became a frequent haunter of the local library, voraciously devouring the contents of their SF section.
This early love of science fiction manifested most tellingly during his school days, when he produced an SF murder mystery as homework after being set the essay title “The Language of Shakespeare”, much to the bemusement of his English teacher.
Ian’s first published stories appeared in the late 1980s in small press magazines such as Dream and New Moon Quarterly, after which he took a break from writing in order to research his chosen fields of science fiction and fantasy. In other words, he read copious amounts of both. Clearly the research was extensive, because he published nothing further for some seventeen years. In the early 2000s he made the decision to pursue writing seriously, joining the Northampton SF Writers Group in 2004 after being introduced to its chairman, Ian Watson.
In 2006 he started submitting stories again, and has subsequently been surprised at how many otherwise eminently sensible people have chosen to publish him. A couple have even appeared in the science journal Nature, and one, “The Gift of Joy”, even found its way onto the five-strong shortlist for best short story in the British Science Fiction Association Awards. And it didn’t come last! Ironically, the award was actually won by Ken MacLeod’s “Lighting Out”, a piece Ian had commissioned, edited and published in the NewCon Press anthology disLOCATIONS (2007).
In 2006 Ian launched independent publisher NewCon Press, quite by accident (buy him a pint sometime and he’ll tell you about it). Through NewCon he has been privileged to publish original stories from some of the biggest names in genre fiction, as well as provide debuts to some genuinely talented newcomers. The books, their covers and contents have racked up an impressive array of credits – four BSFA Awards, one BSF Award to date, inclusion in ‘Year’s Best’ anthologies and recommendations and honourable mentions from the likes of Gardner Dozios and Locus magazine.
In addition to his publishing and writing, Ian is currently a director of both the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA), editing Matrix, the online news and media reviews magazine, for the latter.
His first two completed novels are both due to appear in early 2010: City of Dreams and Nightmare via Harper Collins’ imprint Angry Robot, and The Noise Within from Rebellion imprint Solaris, with sequels to follow. When not pinching himself to make sure this is all really happening, Ian is currently beavering away at the sequels… honest!
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
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August 22, 2024RIP to Andy Remic, one of my fellow authors in this anthology, who died yesterday.
I'm going to take down my copy and read his story.
Well, sometimes life gets in the way, but today I did take my copy down and read Andy Remic's story. I'd 'met' Andy at Bristolcon at least once, but by 'met' I mean 'drunk beer in close proximity to". I don't think we spoke directly or perhaps even knew at the time that the other person was an author (though at Bristolcon that's pretty likely, statistically speaking).
Anyway, it was a good, swords & sorcery, grimdark or grimdark adjacent tale. The writers it most reminded me of are Michael R Fletcher, Luke Scull, and of course, David Gemmell himself.
There were some nice lines there too. Snow was described as falling with "diagonal violence", which I liked!
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I'm going to take down my copy and read his story.
Well, sometimes life gets in the way, but today I did take my copy down and read Andy Remic's story. I'd 'met' Andy at Bristolcon at least once, but by 'met' I mean 'drunk beer in close proximity to". I don't think we spoke directly or perhaps even knew at the time that the other person was an author (though at Bristolcon that's pretty likely, statistically speaking).
Anyway, it was a good, swords & sorcery, grimdark or grimdark adjacent tale. The writers it most reminded me of are Michael R Fletcher, Luke Scull, and of course, David Gemmell himself.
There were some nice lines there too. Snow was described as falling with "diagonal violence", which I liked!
Join my Patreon
Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes
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Read
June 1, 2017On hold as I enjoy having it to pop back to now and then.
April 8, 2022
I really loved two of the stories, six had some good twist or were otherwise good ones and then there were four that weren't really amazing.
September 21, 2015
Legends II was an anthology I purchased because it had stories from 2 authors that I've really liked lately, Anthony Ryan and Mark Lawrence. Both of their stories were very good, even if Mark Lawrence's was on the really short side.
This wasn't a very large anthology compared to most of the recent fantasy anthologies I've read, but it makes up for that with mostly great short stories.
My only major complaint and the reason I deducted one star was that many of the stories didn't really fit with the theme that I was expecting. I imagined this to be stories that would remind the reader of David Gemmell in some way. In reality, that wasn't the case at all for the majority of the stories.
While I really enjoyed the anthology, it was pretty short and you could probably buy Blackguards instead for a similar price and get a lot more stories in a similar vein.
This wasn't a very large anthology compared to most of the recent fantasy anthologies I've read, but it makes up for that with mostly great short stories.
My only major complaint and the reason I deducted one star was that many of the stories didn't really fit with the theme that I was expecting. I imagined this to be stories that would remind the reader of David Gemmell in some way. In reality, that wasn't the case at all for the majority of the stories.
While I really enjoyed the anthology, it was pretty short and you could probably buy Blackguards instead for a similar price and get a lot more stories in a similar vein.
September 23, 2015
A short but interesting Anthology. A good mix of authors I love.
I do love Horner Jacobs Zombie herding as an idea and it is worth the purchase alone.
Plus this book supports the Gemmell awards which I'm a big fan of.
I do love Horner Jacobs Zombie herding as an idea and it is worth the purchase alone.
Plus this book supports the Gemmell awards which I'm a big fan of.
May 18, 2022
Amazing
Just one unbelievable collection! I love every single story in this book. Each of them different, each great piece of read. Thank you!
Just one unbelievable collection! I love every single story in this book. Each of them different, each great piece of read. Thank you!
July 26, 2023
Overall, I enjoyed all the wide-ranging stories in this anthology especially the stories by Gwynne and Ryan. The others were all well-written and had interesting aspects. Unfortunately, the editing was lacking as I noticed quite a few incorrect names, missing words and spaces and other errors. Despite that, it was a fun read and I will be checking out some of those authors that are new to me.
September 1, 2023
Great book and a fitting tribute to the late great David Gemmell. Some stories were better than others as you would expect in any anthology and my personal favourites were " A rescue" by Mark Lawrence ant "The iron Wolves: Retribution" by Andy Remic. Nonetheless, a cracking book and probably a must for fans of Gemmell.
December 6, 2025
Similar to the first iteration, Legends II has some good and some not so good. But each story reads pretty quickly so I liked the change of pace throughout. Enjoyable. Especially if you have short stints of time to read.
December 18, 2020
An Oath Given by John Gwynne - 5/5
August 10, 2020
Super
Wonderful collection of fantasy. A very enjoyable read entertaining and engaging read. Great contribution from a great line up of authors.
Wonderful collection of fantasy. A very enjoyable read entertaining and engaging read. Great contribution from a great line up of authors.
September 22, 2015
It didn't cost me anything but I felt it was a pretty unremarkable collection. I guess Fantasy can be hard to do in the form of a short story and it kind of shows here with most of the authors having to choose between world-building and characters. Maybe they'd have benefitted from having longer stories? Some of the authors had decent prose though so I'm not going to hold it too much against them. The stories towards the back of the book were on the whole stronger but there were some earlier ones I couldn't finish as they just felt too generic and with no hook to keep me going. It's rare that I enjoy an anthology collection and this one doesn't do much to change my mind.
October 7, 2015
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.
I liked the stories contained in this anthology. The story tellers really made the stories come to life.I did find that one or two of the stories was on the short side, and a story here and there that didn't remind me of David Gemmell's writing.
I liked the stories contained in this anthology. The story tellers really made the stories come to life.I did find that one or two of the stories was on the short side, and a story here and there that didn't remind me of David Gemmell's writing.
January 1, 2016
Great read
The stories were vibrant and colourful, gripping and dark ,yet funny all I want in a good story ,some I didn't want to end I found I wanted to follow some of the characters on their journey as with some stories you never want them to end great read can't wait for the next legends collaboration
The stories were vibrant and colourful, gripping and dark ,yet funny all I want in a good story ,some I didn't want to end I found I wanted to follow some of the characters on their journey as with some stories you never want them to end great read can't wait for the next legends collaboration
September 18, 2016
Enjoyable
Enjoyable read. Would recommend this if you have limited time and want a quick read. . . . . .
Enjoyable read. Would recommend this if you have limited time and want a quick read. . . . . .
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews