There are three novellas in this book. I enjoyed all of them.

"Debt of Bones" by Terry Goodkind is set in his Sword of Truth world. I never read any of those books, but upon starting the story, I realized that is the world that the TV show "Legend of the Seeker" was set in. I enjoyed the world-building and the characters. I'd be interested in reading the books. I had enjoyed the TV show too. There are twists at the end that are a bit contrived. So they all live happily ever after. It felt like there was more the author wanted to write bt ran out of time/space and had to condense the ending.

"The Hedge Knight" by GRRM is obviously set in the world of ice and fire and takes place about 100 years before the books. The fight scenes were incredible. The characters were well fleshed out. I'd like to read more about Dunk and Egg.

The third story "Runner of Pern" by Anne McCaffery is part of the Dragonriders of Pern stories. There are no dragons in this one, although a few are sighted briefly flying high above. This story is about a runner. They are long-distance messengers that use special trails that crisscross the continent. The runners are an interesting group and a world with them minus dragons would be interesting on its own. This one has a meet-cute, or a meet-angry to tie the information about the world and the runners together. A runner is nearly run off the road by someone on a beast who shouldn't be using the runner trails. They meet later at a gathering and there's chemistry after he apologizes profusely. The author went on and on about how pretty Tenna is, which bothered me. Because everyone kept saying how people (read: Men) pay more attention to pretty women. So when she speaks to the local lord about being run off the trail, he'll listen to her when he didn't pay attention to others. Or that the wild boy Halogan would be more inclined to stop using the runner trails on his beast if pretty Tenna gave him "what-for." Her falling into a sticklebush and needing three days to heal when she should have been courioring more mail should have been enough. That she was prettyshouldn't have been such a big deal except for Halogan to want to spend more time with with her. Although the fact that she was an excellent dancer, could have made him more interested. ( )

Includes : Sword of Truth: Debt of Bones / Terry Goodkind ; Song of Ice and Fire: the Hedge Knight / George R. R. Martin ; Pern: Runner of Pern / Anne McCaffrey. ( )

Bought this book for the Anne McCaffrey story "Runner of Pern". The other stories are OK, but I'll shelve it with McCaffrey. ( )