Customer Reviews

The Transformers Legends

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Its a great read! Interesting Little Tales mixed with some FIX's to the G1 and Beast Wars series. Its a great addition to the Transformers fledgling but very good novels. If the Transformers Franchise is to survive Great Novels need to be a huge part of its backbone. Delving into the core charecters is very important for this series, we all know about the Autobots. Some of these stories give us a much needed look behind The Decepticons, especially the High ranking officers. Grab a copy today you wont be disapointed! A+

I read some of the Transformers fiction on the fanfiction on the fan sites, and I gotta say, I'm impressed. So much of the content in this book is what a lot of the older fans crave: an intrspective look into some aspect of a character's life or a moment that made you see something you never thought of before. Sure, the writers are doing this to sell a book, but in the Intro, Cian makes it very clear: These writers are having fun writing this. They're fans, too, and they want to see characters they spent so many sleepless nights perfecting and working with represented as they always wanted people to see how they saw them. Believable.It's this kind of writing that I wish I could see more of. Besides, It's a coupla short reads.

While probably not the most sought after Transformers material this book is certainly entertaining. I keep it in my purse for when I get bored. Quite honestly I absolutely love this anthology. It has a great balance of moods in the various stories. From deep, to hardcore, to hilarious (a couple have made me laugh out loud) to just down right weird, there's a story to satisfy every aspect of the Transfan in you. :)

I'm so glad I got my hands on this one. While I didn't read every single story, the ones I did read, I absolutely loved. Probably my favorite one was the one where Starscream looses his memory and ends up spending a surprisingly peacefully day with the Autobots. Great character development and inside look into one of the most infames of transformers. I also loved the last story, which retold the Beast Machines episode "Bad Spark" through Megatron's eyes. This book was clearly written by fans who truly know the Transformers universe. I just wish there were some more anthologies like this.

Transformers Legends is a collection of 13 short stories set in the different Transformers universes. Like with all short story collections some of the stories are better than others but generally I have liked most of the content of this book. Now the editor points out in the foreword the the book that none of these stories are cannon, in effect this is a book with fan fictions and some of them read that way to, but if you have ever read any fan fiction you will often find that fan fiction authors have a huge passion for the settings they write in and that is true for these stories as well. Here authors play with their favorite characters, you have a story about Starscream loosing his memory and relying on the kindness of Autobots, a heartwarming story about Ratchet and a human medic who have to work together to save a wounded woman, you have a short fun little piece about Bumblebee teaching some punks trying to steal him a lesson and so on, and so on. The stories span several Transformers universes and also span several genre from drama to fluff to action. Also in any media tie in book there is the question on whatever the authors have managed to portray the characters correctly and for the most part I would say that the various authors that have contributed to this book have done a good job with that.

One complaint I have about this book is that whoever where proofreading these stories slept on the job. Now I have dyslexia and I very seldom complain about anyone's spelling and grammar, the throwing stones in glass houses thing, but seriously some of these stories had painful amount of errors. Now in a way the errors add to the sort of fan fiction feel of this book, it feels like you are reading stories of Fanfiction.net and that give it a rustic feeling which I kind of enjoyed, however I know the errors might annoy allot of people so I thought I would mention it.

Transformers legends strength and weakness is in it's diversity. In one way it is nice to see stories from all over the Transformers franchise collected in one book but at the same time many readers might only be interested in one continuity and not care for the others, the same is true for genre diversity, readers who like action might not care for drama and vise versa. Personally though I liked the diversity of this book. I also think that Transformers Legends would be a good way to introduce someone to the various Transformers continuities as you here really have a nice little buffet of pieces that might wet your appetites to know more about these settings.

I enjoyed Transformers Legends, the book have some flaws but I would say that it is generally good. I hope they republish this book. Now do I recommend Transformers Legends? yes but with some reservations. For the price this book when for when it was first published I would have recommended it to anyone however with the book fetching 70 plus dollars I would say that it is not worth it unless you are a huge Transformers fan, if you are a huge fan however then I completely recommends Transformers Legends as there are some great stories in here that really shines some new light on old, favorite characters.

This is a great book. I bought this at a store in 2004 when it first came out. I thought it unusual to see a short-story collection like this, but I gave it a chance having been a fan since 1984. I'm glad I did! There's some real gems in here! I thought I accidentally sold this in a lot in town a few months ago; fortunately I found it again last night! The Editor, David Cian, has a short introduction saying that these don't count as part of continuity. I've read elsewhere that a large number of the fanbase loudly disputes this. I count myself among them after what I read elsewhere about the first story and Bob Skir's commentary for the final episode of Beast Machines. The stories in here are:

A Meeting Of The Minds; Simon Furman. This takes place during Beast Wars' Third Season. Simon has said elsewhere this is one of his G1-centric ideas he had for BW before the final episode.

Collect And Save; Tim Waggoner. A Wreck-Gar/Junkion story.

Paddles; Jean Rabe. An unseen new G1 Dinbot.

Redemption Center; Alexander B. Potter. A different take on G1 Starscream.

Something Robotic This Way Comes; John J. Miller. Takes place during Armada.

Two For The Price Of One; Brandie Tarvin. Swindle deals with Carbomia.

Joyride; Jenifer A. Ruth. G1 Bumblebee.

Lonesome Diesel; David Bischoff. Armada.

Prime Spark; Sean P. Fedora. A personal favorite of mine! Quite a rare gathering of Cybertronians. This is a very unique story.

Parts; Donald J. Bingle. Takes place during the War Within comics/original G1 pilot.

Healers, Fighters And Transformers; J. Steven York. A solo story about Ratchet.

Fire in the Dark; John Helfers. An attempt to merge the Armada and BW timelines.

Singularity Ablyss; Robert N. Skir. Megatron's point of view during Beast Machine's Spark Of Darkness episode.

I was surprised to see how much this book is being sold for online. I guess it had a low print run. After re-reading these stories again recently, I can safely say it's worth the price.

You can't go wrong with this book!

The stories aren't as enjoyable as the art of cartoon. Yet, it is teill a good read for any transformers fan.