Book Review: 'Legion from the Shadows' by Karl Edward Wagner
'Legion from the Shadows' (253 pp.) was published by Zebra Books in April, 1976, and features cover artwork by Jeff Jones.
I remember picking up this book in that Spring of '76, and thinking it was OK........how does it hold up when re-read some fifty years later ?
'Legion' is a sequel of sorts to the Robert E. Howard short story 'Worms of the Earth,' first published in Weird Tales in the fall of 1932, and subsequently reprinted in the Zebra Books compilation of Bran Mak Morn tales, 'Worms of the Earth' (1975).
As with 'Worms of the Earth,' 'Legion' is set in Caledonia (i.e., Scotland), circa 208 A.D. Although the events of 'Worms' have led to a setback for Roman plans to bring more of the northern British Isles under their control, Lucius Alfenus Senecio, the governor of Britain, is intent on renewing the effort. As 'Legion' opens, a Roman outpost has been established in the highlands, and Bran Mak Morn, the king of the Picts, has gathered a force of several thousand barbarians to lay siege to the outpost.
As Mak Morn prepares for the assault on the outpost, a scout comes running with astonishing news: the entire Roman garrison has been eliminated, and the outpost destroyed. Bran finds disturbing evidence that his allies from 'Worms,' the so-called serpent-folk of the tunnels and burrows that lie beneath the earth, have struck out at the unsuspecting Romans.
Mak Morn learns that the witch-woman Atla, and the Roman legate Claudius Nero, have raised an army in the labyrinthian depths. They have a proposal for Mak Morn: an alliance of the Picts and the subterraneans, for the purpose of driving the Romans back into permanent shelter behind Hadrian's Wall.
While Mak Morn has little love for the Romans, the idea of an alliance with Atla and Nero is poisoned by the latter's decision to hold Mak Morn's sister Morgain as hostage. Mak Morn embarks on a hazardous quest to traverse the underground empire of the serpent-folk, find and free Morgain, and return her to the Pictish fortress of Baal-Dor. Whether he wants it or not, Mak Morn will have the aid of the mysterious warrior-woman Liuba. But as Mak Morn is to discover, two warriors against the entirety of the Worms of the Earth makes for poor odds.........
'Legion' is a workmanlike effort from author Wagner, who deploys the sort of pulpish sword-and-sorcery prose style in wide use in the 1970s. Readers should have a thesaurus handy for 'rubrous,' 'actinian,' 'cantrips,' 'acclivities,' 'lancinations,' and 'boskage.'
Most of the narrative takes place within the tunnels and burrows of the subterraneans, which handicaps the plot: our hero spends most of his time stumbling around in the dark, reacting to various forays perpetrated by Nero and Atla. Since Bran Mak Morn is even dumber than Conan, it's often a matter of some well-timed intervention by other parties that saves him from death (or at the least, mutilation).
The closing chapter of the novel restores some badly-needed action and import to the plot, but coming after too many interminable sequences that should have, and could have, been trimmed from 'Legion,' it fails to raise the novel above a middling, Three Star Rating. This novel mainly is for Karl Edward Wagner completists.
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