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David Gemmel is recognised as the undisputed master of heroic fantasy across the Channel. Legend is his first novel, and in my opinion, the best.
It tells the story of the preparation and defence of a gigantic fortress by a handful of fighters against five hundred thousand barbarian invaders (the Nadirs). It’s an opportunity to meet the iconic character of the series: Druss the Legend, a big bearded man accompanied by his gigantic double-bladed axe (Snagaaa!).
The Drenai Saga consists of 11 volumes. Chronologically, Legend sits roughly in the middle. Each book tells an independent story, but we always find roughly the same pattern (crisis, brawl, predicted defeat then final plot twist, as improbable as it is expected) with typecast characters each time (a big guy with an axe, a taciturn swordsman, a simpleton, a sex-obsessed character and a single bombshell, who invariably ends up under the arm of one of the protagonists).
Don’t look for psychological drama in Gemmel’s work. Instead, you witness terrible battles where testosterone-fuelled He-men clash with fists, swords or axes, sprinkled with a bit of magic (shamans, telepathic warrior monks, wolf-men, demons, and whatnot…) and low-brow romance (when a young farm girl gets kidnapped by bandits, gets raped multiple times, and is seen, a few pages later, jumping on her saviour’s neck to snog him senseless, it raises questions about the author’s view of women…). All very subtle!
It’s nonetheless very well written and entertaining, even if it doesn’t reinvent itself from one book to another. I would add, though, for Legend, that I was very disappointed by the ending: “all that for this”.
That said, if Wikipedia is to be believed, the plot (and its resolution) would be an allegory for the author’s fight against cancer.
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Legend
Légende