There's nothing like getting lost in a good book. Though getting lost in a mediocre one isn't as fun. And that's how I felt about this book the first time. Just mediocre. Not the worst despite its reputation, but nothing special either. Can I lose this attitude? Let's see with Legend of the Lost Legend.
LEGEND OF THE LOST LEGEND
RELEASE MONTH: September, 1996
FRONT TAGLINE: Finders Keepers!
COVER STORY
So this is the tamest cover in all of Goosebumps, hands down. Definitely didn't scare me one iota. But I still like the look of it. The patches of grass and snow. The hazy fog and purple sunset. Just a nice piece of atmosphere. And then there's our Viking maiden who is a neat design. Very powerful looking. Though her face kind of reminds me of Sally Struthers. Not a bad cover, just not an effective one.
TALK ABOUT A HORROR STORY...
Nobody loves a good story like Justin's dad. He's a famous writer and story collector. That's how Justin and his sister, Marissa, ended up in Brovania. Their dad is searching for an ancient manuscript called The Lost Legend.
Just and Marissa want to help. But instead of finding The Lost Legend, they get lost. And the woods of Brovania are filled with the strangest creatures. Like hundreds of squealing mice. Silver-colored dogs. And terrifying Vikings from long ago...
STORY
Justin Clarke and his sister Marissa are in the middle of the arctic looking for their dad. After an incident with the sled dogs, the pair find a giant blue walrus. But the ice breaks behind them, and they're stranded on a piece of ice. But actually they aren't because none of this actually happened. This was all a story being told by their dad, who is a writer. Mr. Clarke doesn't seem to have any idea as to how he'll actually end the story and seems to be telling it off the top of his head. That already bodes bad omens for this book.
So where are they? They're in a small European land called Brovania. Mr. Clarke is in search of the fabled "Lost Legend", a text so rare that it's believed to actually be lost. After Justin nearly burns the tent down with the kerosene lamp, the three camp out for the night. Later that night, Justin and Marissa see a strange silver dog that acts more friendly than feral. They check its collar and see that they have to follow Silverdog, which is clearly THIS silver dog. Marissa is worried, but Justin thinks that maybe this could lead them to the lost legend and not, you know, a trap.
They lose the dog, but still hear its howls. After a few near-mishaps with giant antlered elk and another giant hole to fall into, they eventually find Silverdog at a strange old cabin. The woman inside is a towering giant Viking named Ivanna. She locks the kids inside, but is just messing with them because she's kind of a weirdo herself. She also has in her possession a medallion that can see the entire woods, so she was aware of the Clarke family's arrival. After feeding Justin and Marissa some "poison" chicken noodle soup (another joke), she reads the noodles and says that the lost legend can be found, only they have to go through something called "The Fantasy Forest". Then suddenly a strange black furred creature shows up and attacks Justin.
This creature is Luka and while I'm not sure if he lives on the second floor, Ivanna says that the kids have to follow Luka through the Fantasy Forest to find the lost legend. A lot of alliteration in this book. So, Justin and Marissa do just that. A giant gray dog/squirrel shows up, causing Luka to chase after it, leaving the kids lost to tend to themselves. Then, suddenly, the nuts around them start to hatch like eggs and mice escape from them. Justin soon discovers that the mice have an off switch, meaning that they're actually not real. Oh yeah, this reeks of Stine on the fly.
The kids run for it, but Justin hits a tree that falls on Marissa. But it's not a real tree. They get stuck in a giant stream, but there's a plug in the middle. So the stream's fake too. Then two giant black cats arrive. Justin tries to use the robot mice, but that does nothing. And then the cats eat Justin and Marissa, only to immediately spit them out and leave. They find Ivanna and see she has a wind-up key in her back. She's fake too. I guess that means that they're not kidding when they call this a "fantasy forest". Everything is a fantasy, a fake. Except for Luka, he's real. And he can talk. When the kids run back into him he says that this was all the test. He then gives the kids the treasure chest containing the lost legend.
As Justin and Marissa head back to camp, they get caught by a thief! No, wait, it's just Mr. Clarke. The siblings show him the treasure chest and the three open it, only to find a giant egg instead. They go back to Luka who is a bit embarrassed as he thought they were after the Egg of Truth. He then points them in the direction of the people who have the lost legend in their possession. The family find the owners and manage to get the lost legend at last.
TWIST ENDING
The Clarke family read the lost legend, which says that whoever finds it ends up lost forever. Suddenly the trees grow higher and their path disappears, meaning the lost legend wasn't kidding.
CONCLUSION
I've used the term "Grab Bag" to describe many Goosebumps books, but Legend of the Lost Legend definitely feels like the truest example of that. A book that seems to just go on whatever Stine thinks will work. It definitely doesn't come off as a book that Stine had a thorough outline of. I'll at least say that I like how bizarre everything feels. It doesn't have the same level of strangeness that The Beast From the East had, but still feels unique. I just wish that the stuff involved mattered more. I think if there felt like actual stakes in the adventure, and not just making everything a fake, then you could have had more memorable moments. Like, go full Alice in Wonderland with it. Make it a place where logic and rules don't apply. And aside from the scene with the cats which still has no answer to it, we never really get any of that.
It also feels like a book that Stine had a hard time putting in the normal page amount into and added a lot of padding. Two characters we have to chase after, Stakes that don't feel as high as you'd think, a misdirect with the treasure and then the ending. Everything feels tacked on for the sake of it not being a lower page count than normal. As for everything else, protagonists are fine, but nothing special. A lot less bickering than normal sibling duos. The scares are as minimal as the cover, and the twist is super predictable. Initially I wondered if the lost legend makes you lost, how does anyone actually know about it? But I'm guessing that you can be freed from the curse if someone else gets the lost legend, so maybe the ones who actually escaped told the tale which made people seek out the manuscript. At least that's the closest sense I can make of this. So, in the end, I don't hate this book, but I feel like it's the most superfluous book in the series. One that if it didn't exist nothing of value would be lost. It's the most "meh" book in the history of Goosebumps.
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