He isn’t brave enough to risk his life yet again, and so he leaves, but later finds himself persuaded to return for the fight after falling in love with a young woman whose father is caught up in the brewing war as well.

Regnak (Rek) Wanderer is a ex-officer that left the army after seeing the stirrings of the coming war. The bulk of this story revolves around two individuals that get caught up in the maelstrom of the invading Nadir army. That is the kind of friend that every aspiring author needs. After finding out he was in-fact cancer free, he forgot the story for a while, and only picked it up again and wrote the novel we know today, after a friend read it and said the thing had promise. The original idea for the story at the heart of Legend, the invasion of the Drenai Kingdom by a massive hoarde of invading barbarians, was a metaphor for the cancer that Gemmell believed was attacking his body. LEGEND ( Amazon) was originally published in 1984 and is British author David Gemmell’s first published work. Still, there’s a freaking award named after this guy (one that I hope never gets renamed) and that has to mean something of significance, right? Luckily, I found a slightly used copy of Legend at a local used book store for like four bucks (total steal for me!) and dove into it. Back in the day, I got started on Dragonlance though, and after my first taste of that series, I really didn’t wander into other books all that much.

Gemmell is an author that I’ve been meaning to read for like… mmm, forever. After publishing our first “Best of Genre” page, one of our readers suggested that we pick up something by David Gemmell.

Legend by david gemmell