Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold

Rating:
Summary: A good book, seriously toned...
Review: A highly successful lawyer falls into deep depression over a death in the family, as I remember. To fight this crisis he decides to do something brash: answer and ad he sees in the newspaper: to buy a magic kingdom for one million dollars. To the shock of his partners, he leaves his law practice. Then, having bought the kingdom, he discovers it has...quirks, which he has not expected. As king, he must rid the kingdom of a dark paladin and other evils. This book was good, with a spiritually resonant ending. I enjoyed it, and I will read its sequels. But it is not the refreshing, zealous sort of work he took delight in writing in Sword of Shannara and Elfstones of Shannara. This is sometimes a sad book, sometimes speckled with humor. Overall, it comes across as a mysterious adventure. I award it three stars instead of four because of occasionally strained humor that did not make me laugh, and a few thematically heavy turns that initially dragged me.

Rating:
Summary: Different from the rest
Review: Ben Holiday, a long-time lawyer, who recently lost his wife Annie, finds an odd advertisement in the Wishbook Catalogue. The ad stated that a magical land, Landover, is for sale for one million dollars. He decided that this would be perfect because it would allow him to forget his sorrow. Thus begins his adventure and his ascension to the throne of Landover. In Landover, he must overcome demons, dragons, witches, as well as human obsticles. This was a fairly enjoyable book. It lacked the usual complexity of other fantasy novels, but had a very interesting twist to the story line. The author writes with a sense of humor. He also adds love into the mix. I would recommend this book for a short quick novel to pass some free time.

Rating:
Summary: Just plain and simple fun
Review: Ben Holiday, a successful lawyer and recent widower purchases a magic kingdom out of an exclusive catalog for a million dollars.

A great fantasy done by one of the best. A fun and action packed adventure that is refreshingly unpretentious. What makes this work is that the book never tries to be more than what it is. There is no deep rooted symbolism or abstract concepts to be found here. Just a cast of great semi-quirky caracters in a book with a unique charm. Those who like their fantasy in an epic scale look elsewhere. All others enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Lackluster
Review: Maybe I'm just not a fan of Terry Brooks' style, but I find his work extremely boring and dry, incapable of capturing either my imagination or my heart. I've read the Landover series (which begins with this book) and the Sword of Shannara, and I was disappointed to find it all quite tedious. The worlds and characters are so stereotypical and flat that I can't bring myself to care about any of it. Worse, many of his plot points and frameworks seem to be lifted directly from Tolkien, the parallels were so obvious it started to smack of plagiarism. I recently sat down with Magic Kingdom for Sale...Sold again and couldn't get through the first three chapters. I have given up on Terry Brooks.

Rating:
Summary: Terry Brooks takes you in to an whole new world
Review: Recently I finished reading an exciting book "Magic Kingdom For Sale:Sold" by Terry Brooks. I would definitely recommend this book to others that are interested in this author. This book may appear to be a classic style fantasy with knights in shining armor fighting dragons. But, Terry Brooks has managed to add an unusual twist to it by placing the setting in a large, modern city in the first part of the novel. This is a great book for summer reading because you simply cannot put it down. It may be a little more difficult for children under the age of eleven because of its length and some of the vocabulary. The story starts out in the large city. A well-known lawyer named Ben Holiday is the main character. Ever since Ben's wife died, he had been very depressed and in need of a break from the real world. One night, Ben arrives at his house from work and he has received a Christmas catalog in the mail. As he is flipping through it, he finds an ad for a private island filled with fantasy and magic. At this time he is strongly in need of a place to escape. He considers it. When Ben's working partner hears about this consideration, he becomes very angry. The thought that the top lawyer in the firm is considering making a serious dent in his finances by quitting, the idea doesn't go by him very well. From that point on, the book is an action packed adventure. This is one of those books that you can read over and over again and never grow tired of. I enjoyed how the book kept going from one problem to the next. I think that is what makes you keep reading.There are also two more books in this series. I can't wait to read them. If you have not read this book I highly encourage you to do so.

Rating:
Summary: A great start to a fresh series
Review: Terry Brooks broke into the fantasy scene with his widely popular Shannara series, but here he breaks out of the epic fantasy mold and creates a fresh new series, one that challenges us right down where we live and breathe. Ben Holiday, a successful trial lawyer is having what amounts to a mid-life crisis, exacerbated by the recent loss of his wife and unborn child in a tragic auto accident. Lost, bereft of purpose and will, he stumbles onto an add in a catalog for a magic kingdom that is for sale. And then the fun begins. He buys the kingship, travels to the land, and realizes that behind all the magic and fantasy of Landover, the problems of running a kingdom are pretty similar to normal every day challenges that face us in life. The collection of characters that Ben meets in this new world are extremely entertaining, especially the dragon Strabo, who may be one of the most unforgetable characters in all of fantasy. Humor, action, mystery, and times of deep reflection: this series has it all, and is sure to please. Every book in this series is a solid 4 stars or better in my opinion. One of the few fantasy books that made me laugh out loud at times when I read it, especially any time Strabo and the hapless wizard Questor Thews get together. I read this series again and again, and you should too!

Rating:
Summary: My wife's first SF/Fantasy book
Review: Terry Brooks has a very charming writing style, totally disarming. You could notice that evenin his first Shanarra book; even while the story was a 100% rip-off of Tolkien.
I bought a used copy to read on the plane over the Atlantic; it served its purpose of providing good, sometimes clever, well written entertainment. My wife then read it - the first book of this genre she has ever read.
The story hoovers between science fiction and fantasy. A lawyer buys a magic kingdom. The kingdom is dying, and just a few faithful servants to the throne try to save it. The lawyer finds out that they seller has tried to cheat him, but instead of running he sets out to do his kingly duties.

Rating:
Summary: Landover is Brooks' first non-Shannara book
Review: The book cover for 'Magic Kingdom' didn't look very promising to me, but I was inspired by its reviews, its comical premise, and the fact that Terry Brooks wrote it--hey, one of fantasy's best supposedly, though I never really made it through the first book of Shannara. The name itself suggests a fun, light-weight, humor filled adventure and that's what I went in expecting.

I was disappointed. Almost all elements of Landover follow standard fairy-tale cliches. Granted, that is pretty much what was promised, but the book did little to make up for its lack of originality, in humor or otherwise. It's actually quite serious and dry, and too much of it is just plain boring. Sometimes I found myself taking in the words as quickly as possible without bothering to visualize the scenes or soak it in, just to get on with it. Strange since usually when a book doesn't interest me I'll hardly finish it, I guess in this case, like Ben, I was stubborn.

It starts slow enough, introducing us to Ben Holiday's normal life preceding the purchase of Landover, and doesn't really pick up that much once he moves into the Kingdom and we are introduced to his four companions: bumbling wizard Questor, the talking dog squire Abernathy, and a couple of fierce monkeyish warrior kinda guys.

One major gripe I have is that Landover feels so barren, like endless plains of uninhabited earth. For the most part it fails to give us a sense of a real, living world. "Where are all the people?" I asked myself at one point. There was no sense of things happening, until of course the fivesome journey forth to wherever they must be for the story to progress and people seem to appear. At some points you'd think they're living on the moon or something.

It's really the last 100 pages that save my impression of the book, it turns into a real page-turner with some surprising and captivating elements. The character of Strabo the dragon is awesome, very well done, my favorite in the entire book. Most of the characters throughout are quite well done I think, if not outstanding. I take that back. They serve their purpose I should say, though some of the scenes between them strike me as cringe-worthily melodramatic. Let me quickly inject a complaint that the constant quibbling of Questor and the dog wore swiftly thin. I didn't care much for Willow, she seemed thrown in just to serve the "necessary" romance portion, which I didn't care for at all. It's forgivable since it wasn't the focus of the book but it was pretty straightforward and cringe-worthy. Throwing in a fairy-tale creature more-or-less reserved for Ben just seems like the easy route, and it kinda annoyed me adding to the "substanceless fantasy" feel. For being the only other female character can't say I'm too impressed.

Now I realize this review is starting to drag on so I'll sum it up. Terry Brooks still has work to do to esteem himself in my eyes, from what I've read of him he doesn't strike me as that creative and his writing lacks that... grandeur. I will pick up book two of this series because, even though it's far from the best out there, somehow it managed to keep me reading to the end and I came to enjoy Landover and its tiny group of mismatched characters. I wish to stick around a little longer.

Rating:
Summary: I was expecting more
Review: The book cover for 'Magic Kingdom' didn't look very promising to me, but I was inspired by its reviews, its comical premise, and the fact that Terry Brooks wrote it--hey, one of fantasy's best supposedly, though I never really made it through the first book of Shannara. The name itself suggests a fun, light-weight, humor filled adventure and that's what I went in expecting.

I was disappointed. Almost all elements of Landover follow standard fairy-tale cliches. Granted, that is pretty much what was promised, but the book did little to make up for its lack of originality, in humor or otherwise. It's actually quite serious and dry, and too much of it is just plain boring. Sometimes I found myself taking in the words as quickly as possible without bothering to visualize the scenes or soak it in, just to get on with it. Strange since usually when a book doesn't interest me I'll hardly finish it, I guess in this case, like Ben, I was stubborn.

It starts slow enough, introducing us to Ben Holiday's normal life preceding the purchase of Landover, and doesn't really pick up that much once he moves into the Kingdom and we are introduced to his four companions: bumbling wizard Questor, the talking dog squire Abernathy, and a couple of fierce monkeyish warrior kinda guys.

One major gripe I have is that Landover feels so barren, like endless plains of uninhabited earth. For the most part it fails to give us a sense of a real, living world. "Where are all the people?" I asked myself at one point. There was no sense of things happening, until of course the fivesome journey forth to wherever they must be for the story to progress and people seem to appear. At some points you'd think they're living on the moon or something.

It's really the last 100 pages that save my impression of the book, it turns into a real page-turner with some surprising and captivating elements. The character of Strabo the dragon is awesome, very well done, my favorite in the entire book. Most of the characters throughout are quite well done I think, if not outstanding. I take that back. They serve their purpose I should say, though some of the scenes between them strike me as cringe-worthily melodramatic. Let me quickly inject a complaint that the constant quibbling of Questor and the dog wore swiftly thin. I didn't care much for Willow, she seemed thrown in just to serve the "necessary" romance portion, which I didn't care for at all. It's forgivable since it wasn't the focus of the book but it was pretty straightforward and cringe-worthy. Throwing in a fairy-tale creature more-or-less reserved for Ben just seems like the easy route, and it kinda annoyed me adding to the "substanceless fantasy" feel. For being the only other female character can't say I'm too impressed.

Now I realize this review is starting to drag on so I'll sum it up. Terry Brooks still has work to do to esteem himself in my eyes, from what I've read of him he doesn't strike me as that creative and his writing lacks that... grandeur. I will pick up book two of this series because, even though it's far from the best out there, somehow it managed to keep me reading to the end and I came to enjoy Landover and its tiny group of mismatched characters. I wish to stick around a little longer.

Rating:
Summary: Magic Kingdom
Review: This was a pretty good book in my opinion. Too often fantasy books drag on, are hard to follow, and are boring, but this book was easily read. It was a pretty basic story, but I enjoyed the thought of moving to a fairy-tale kingdom. The book is well written and easy to read straight through. Its not the type of book you have to read slowly and analyze, but its great just to pass time. I actually got my husband to read it and he doesn't read so it can't be that bad.