Fantasy from A to Z: G is for Gemmell

I love Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien, but my favorite fantasy writer of all time is David Gemmell.

David Gemmell had a rough life. He was born and raised in a lower-class region of the UK to a single mother and an absent father. According to his bio, he was kicked out of school for setting up a “gambling syndicate” on the playground, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and eventually came to support himself by becoming a bouncer. Looking for something a little more stable, he eventually became a writer for the local newspaper, though from what I understand he was ultimately fired from that job as well.

His fiction writing career began when he went to get some nagging ache checked out by a doctor, and learned that he had terminal cancer. They estimated that he had only months to live, and scheduled a follow-up visit about two weeks later to find out exactly how much time he had left. Stunned, he decided to chase his childhood dream of writing a fantasy novel, and Legend was the result.

Legend is an absolute masterpiece, not because the prose is perfect or the story is totally original or the worldbuilding is super deep, but because it has so much heart. It poses a question that Gemmell found extremely urgent: what is it that makes life worth living? And then, unlike many more flowery and pretentious novels, it answers the question with raw, direct honesty: the thing that makes life worth living is to give it up for a worthy cause.

The story follows a cast of unlikely characters who are all drawn to a hopeless siege that everyone knows will ultimately result in defeat. The Khan has united the tribes and amassed an army of half a million soldiers, but to invade the southern kingdom he must lead them through a narrow pass that is held by an ancient fortress. However, the fortress is woefully understaffed, with only ten thousand defenders, most of whom are untrained farmers. Everyone who goes to fight there knows that they will die.

The story is about why they decide to fight anyway. There’s the proud daughter of the ailing duke commanding the fortress, who fights to preserve her family’s honor. There’s the cowardly berserker who never really wanted to get drawn into the siege, but stays to protect the girl. There’s the Temple of the Thirty, an ancient order of warrior monks who train relentlessly in the martial arts so that when the time comes to fight in the defining conflict of the age, they are ready to fight for the good, the true, and the beautiful. And there is Druss the Legend, an aging warrior who has wandered the land and single-handedly turned the tides of battles, but now fears growing old and senile, and desires more than anything else to go out of this life on his own two feet with his battle-ax in hand.

David Gemmell wrote this novel in the two weeks between his first appointment with the doctor and the second. But when he went back in, the oncologist informed him that the first test was actually a false positive, and that he had no cancer at all. Stunned for a second time, Gemmell took a critical look at the novel he’d written and stuffed it in his trunk, convinced that it wasn’t very good. After all, who was he to think that he could write a novel?

The story would have ended there, except that a friend of his found out about it, asked to read it, and was so impressed by it that he urged David Gemmell to send it off to a publisher. After a lot of nagging, Gemmell eventually decided to humor his friend, and the book became a massive bestseller over in the UK. David Gemmell went on to write some two dozen fantasy novels, all of them in the same vein as Legend, and they are absolutely fantastic. 

I still remember the sinking feeling in my heart when I read the last book in the Drenai Saga, and realized that there wouldn’t be any more. And I also remember the way my mind was blown when I realized that all of Gemmell’s novels are interconnected in an interdimensional “cosmere” of sorts, with a handful of recurring characters who travel across worlds. Yes, he was doing the Sanderson Cosmere thing before Brandon Sanderson published his first book (and unlike Sanderson, he kept it as a genuine easter egg and never advertised it). 

I’ve collected nearly all of Gemmell’s books, including the crime thrillers he originally published under a secret pen name, and both of the graphic novels that go for a couple hundred bucks. Most of his books I own in mass-market paperback, though I still hope to acquire a signed first-edition hardback copy of Legend. But I’m still dragging my feet to read them all, because it really is an awful feeling when you get to the end of your favorite author’s ouvre and realize that’s all there will ever be.

David Gemmell died in the 00s, in the same way that I hope to die: sitting at his keyboard, writing the last book in his final book series. His wife later finished it. From what I understand, he actually did die of cancer, so maybe there was something to that original mis-diagnosis that kick-started his writing career. Can you imagine how different things would be if that had never happened? I don’t even want to think about it. David Gemmell’s books are amazing, and the world is so much richer because of them. If David Gemmell’s books are new to you, you’re in for a real treat!