It's time to get lost in today's Gooseblog as Jovial Bob tries his hand at an adventure epic. Will it work? Find out with Legend Of The Lost Legend AKA Everything is Lies!
COVER STORY
This cover definitely is the least scary of all the Goosebumps covers bar none. There is nothing in it that evokes any form of fear. I mean, unless you're afraid of viking women. Viking women, who I'll give Tim credit are very well designed. She looks like someone you would be more afraid of because you know she doesn't take "no" for an answer. Also, I like the design of the treasure chest, along with the hazy trees and the patches of grass. It may not be a cover you'd get a jump from, but it's still solid work as usual from Tim Jacobus.
STORY
Justin Clarke and his sister Marissa are in Antarctica on an expedition with their dad. Well, at the beginning of the book, they seem to have been separated from their dad and they're trying in vain to find him. They find the rare blue sea lion, whose roar is so powerful that it breaks the ice beneath their feet, sending them floating out to sea and... oh, wait. This is just a story that their dad is telling them. Either this opening was a clever misdirect, or that this feels like scrapped ideas from another book shoved into this one. Needle's pointing to the latter.
Dad is a famous storyteller and explorer, and he's actually brought his kids with him to the small European land of Brovania to find the fabled "Lost Legend". The manuscript within is supposedly worth a fortune. As they all camp out in the forest at night, the kids hear a howling noise. The soon see that the source of the howling is a silver dog who acts more friendly than feral. The kids soon see that the dog has a collar on it, with a note that tells them to follow Silverdog. At first Marissa thinks it's a bad idea, but Justin, being an idiot, thinks that this can only lead to good things. Maybe even to the lost legend.
They chase after Silverdog until it vanishes on them. They wander aimlessly, thinking they hear the dog's howls, but end up running into a deer with gigantic antlers. They hear the howling again, and continue running... into a conveniently placed pit. A lot of kids falling into holes in these books lately. They escape the pit and find Silverdog at what appears to be his home, some fairy-tale looking cabin in the woods. Inside they find a giant of a woman. The viking woman on the cover of the book. She locks the kids in the house as a joke. See, she has a bit of a sick sense of humor, but she doesn't intend to hurt the kids. Her name is Ivanna, and with her medallion she can see what goes on in these woods. She saw the Clarkes in the forest seeking the lost legend, and intends to help them out.
She feeds them chicken noodle soup, then jokes that the soup is poison. See, sick joker. But she does read the noodles and tells the kids that to get the lost legend, they must pass a test in the fantasy forest. Then Justin gets attacked by a strange furry black creature. This is Luka, a... something or other (even Ivanna doesn't know), that was raised by wolves. She tells them that Luka will help them out in their quest. The kids sleep, but soon wake up somewhere else. They follow Luka until he starts to chase after some sort of squirrel creature. This is bad because according to a note from Ivanna they weren't supposed to lose Luka if they intended to pass the test. Then suddenly a bunch of nuts around them start to crack open, and mice break out of them. Wait, what?
The kids panic and try to get rid of the mice. While wrestling with one of them, Justin accidentally hits some sort of bump on its stomach. It's an off switch. These mice that hatched from nut eggs are just robots. Justin grabs some as Marissa runs off. In his haste to catch up, Justin hits a tree, which falls on Marissa. But it doesn't hurt her. The trees are fake too! After being attacked by bats (which actually seem real), the kids hear booming noises from some giant monster. They run, but get caught in a muddy stream and start sinking. They ditch their boots and make a swim for it, just managing to survive. That's when they see a giant plug in the water and pull it out. Yep, even the stream's fake!
Then we get what I can only call Stine pandering to the vore fetishists as a pair of gigantic black cats go after the kids. Justin thinks that maybe the robot mice can distract them, but his backpack containing them gets knocked off. The kids get eaten by the giant cats, only to get spat out immediately. The kids have no time to ponder if the cats were real or fake as they make a run for it. They make it back to Ivanna's and see the woman slumped on a chair. They then see a giant windup key on her back. She's not real either. Luka returns and tells the kids that they passed the test (yes, it can talk apparently). Yes, Luka was the real one in charge, and built Ivanna as a sort of decoy. He gives them the Lost Legend treasure chest and sends them on their way with Silverdog.
But the book still has a bit to go, so as the kids start heading home, they suddenly get attacked by a thief. Oh wait, it's not a thief, it's just dad! They open the chest and inside find an egg. They go back to Luka to get an answer about the egg. Luka tells them that "whoops, I thought you were looking for the Egg of Truth. My mistake. But I know where you can still find the Lost Legend", and he directs the family to people who have it in their possession.
TWIST ENDING
They find the people who own the Lost Legend and manage to get it off of them. Excited to finally find out what the Lost Legend actually is, the three of them read it. It says that whoever reads the Lost Legend winds up lost forever. As they try to ponder what that means, suddenly the trees begin to rise to the sky, and their path seems to vanish. The three of them are lost. Forever.
CONCLUSION
Legend of the Lost Legend is okay at best. I was going into this one expecting to be bored, but I have to admit that at least the story, for as nonsensical as it got, flowed kind of well. We even got sibling protagonists that actually care about one another and don't constantly act like pranksters or jerks to one another on a constant basis. I even like the whole misdirect at the end how Luka put them on this big test for the wrong mystical item. That's actually clever. Although I have to wonder if the lost legend makes whoever holds it lost, how did anyone know of its existence in the first place? Regardless, I didn't hate this one as much as I thought I would going in. It still feels like a Stine grab bag book where he just throws in whatever he feels will pad the story along (robot mice hatching from eggs, what the hell was that?), but he's done that far worse in other books. Overall, I wouldn't say this is the most memorable book, and it's far from a hidden gem. In fact, I'll probably forget all about it soon enough, but compared to some other books in Goosebumps, this is one that isn't that bad to get lost in. Legend Of The Lost Legend gets a B-.
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