Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't compare with LOTR
Review: ...Brooks grabs your attention from the start and holds it throughout the story. Terry Brooks is a master craftsman.
Rating: 
Summary: not worth reading except...
Review: ...to see how closely someone could copy the Lord of the Rings and get away without being sued for breach of copyright.
Rating:
Summary: A friend recommended this
Review: A coworker recommended this book to me after I had mentioned I had loved the Lord of the Rings books. I am glad I listened. This book takes you to far away lands. Where trolls, dwarfs, elfs, and wizards play. I was hooked from the very first chapter and was unable to put the book down. I whole heartedly recomend this book to all people to love fantasy and to be taken far from the hectic world we live in. If you loved Tolkiens books you will surely love this series.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad 1st book, but Brooks improves with experience
Review: A pair of brothers sets out from their idillyic home in order to save the world from destruction. They need to find a magic talisman (sword) that will destroy the evil wizard-turned-evil-spirit. Along the way they are assisted by a company of companions they meet along the way including a druid (wizard), fighter, theif, ranger/tracker etc. The band of heros and many of the events seem far to similar to Lord of the Rings to be coincidence, but not as well executed as Tolkein. The characters are very cardboard and immature and there are a few big problems with the writing. However, the ending was a pleasant surprise - not to give it away but the way in which the 'bad guy' is defeated was original and interesting. That all said I believe this was Brooks' first book. I read one of his later books before I read this one, and found the newer books much better, so I guess he just had to practice and grow a bit. He learns to write more believable and human characters, and develops some of his own ideas instead of relying on "borrowing" from Tolkein. Really you could skip this trilogy and go to Brooks' later stuff. I prefer Scions of Shannara to this trilogy, although those of you who prefer to read complete series may want to wade through Sword first to learn the background of the Shannara world.
Rating: 
Summary: Ok I get it already
Review: All three books in this trilogy were entirely too slow moving and plodding. There were vast stretches of the story that lacked enough detail or activity to make it interesting. If you can bear with this, you will be rewarded. I would also like to point out the formulaic plot lines in these stories. Boiled down to their essence, all three stories had the same general progression of events. Only the scenery changes. I get it already, they have to go somewhere and do something. Again and again and again. I don't want to spoil things for you, but there is little variety between these stories. In otherwords, the same themes and high level events are present in each book. To put it bluntly, I do not feel this series even compares to J.R.R. Tolkein's works. That being said, I would also like to say it is still enjoyable. In fact, I've gone on to read Terry Brooks' Heritage of Shanara and Voyages of the Jerle Shanara series. The Sword of Shanara trilogy is good, but not great.
Rating:
Summary: Hey! I Remember This Story!
Review: Allow me to provide a quick summary of the first 300 pages in Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara, which is the first book in his popular fantasy trilogy of the same name: A mysterious powerful wizard arrives in a sleepy rural town. The wizard convinces two young men to leave the town immediately and pursue a quest they have yet to understand. The young men leave the village and along the way have to escape from dark menacing inhuman pursuers who leave chills in everyone they approach. The young men link up with another friend who joins them on their journey. After a few adventures and many weeks of journey, the unlikely heroes end up in an ancient city where a council gathers to decide the fate of the world. The young men discover that an evil menace across the land in Mount Doom...I mean Skull Mountain is trying to obtain a powerful magical item which allow him to take over the world. Surprisingly, one of these young farmboys is linked to the magic item and has to form a fellowship based on the members in attendance (led by the wizard I might add) to prevent the evil forces from taking the magic ring...I mean magic sword. And thus, the second half of the book begins. Sound familiar? Hey, everyone borrows from Tolkien! He was the man, the myth and the legend who put centuries of mythology and folklore into an epic series long before the fantasy genre became such big business. And... I can tolerate books stealing other writer's ideas as long as it's a good read and I enjoy the new characters. Brooks isn't a terrible writer, he's certainly better than some of the amateur hacks you'll read in a typical Dungeons and Dragons series, but I never found his heroes intriguing enough to keep reading. His half-elf farmboy might be the most boring unintentional hero I've ever read about in a fantasy series and none of his compadres added to the grind. In short, too few characters and those that mattered weren't interesting. I picked up this book because I remembered my younger siblings enjoying it while we were growing up. Maybe that's when I should have read it. Based on the comments of other reviewers, it sounds like most people had the best memories of this book while still a teenager. I know that Brooks has had great success in the fantasy genre and I'm sure some of his other books are far more original but this was one that I couldn't finish. If you'd like an epic fantasy series that will replace the same joy you felt when reading Tolkien, I recommend you check out George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series or the early books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series because this series doesn't do it.
Rating:
Summary: Rather poor writing ability.
Review: At the time the book was written Terry Brooks can not be said to have been a skilled writer. His newer books I can not speak for. He breaks various rules of writing that are "rules" for good reason. If not followed the story loses it's immersiveness and you see the author behind the words bungling things with an invasive hand. One thing that stands out in my memory as bothersome was the contant interjection of information that should not yet be known to the reader as no character present has the information nor is their any reason anyone should have it. The author apparently has troubles using forshadowing and simply stating in narative voice what is going to happen is his substitute. Generally you should have a clean cut point of view for a section of text. Skipping back and forth between thoughts of characters in the same chapter or especially in the same paragraph is very much a bad idea unless you are writing about the perceptions of a telepath. The narrative voice was clumsy to put it mildly. If the author has improved dramatically since this work, he might consider putting out a revised work as it's popularity demonstrates the story has potential far greater than is allowed by it's current poor rendering. Take your somewhat above average Dungeons and Dragons game master. Have him write out what happens in the adventure he is running. You'll get something like this. I've read well over 1000 books in my life and this one would fall into the bottom 10% if I actually could choke myself through reading it all.
Rating:
Summary: delivers
Review: B is a good writer. have no fear about that. but his characters are mostly uninteresting, and he can be very uninventive. in one book here, some characters of interest have a role, but then in again, in another the introduced characters are very uninteresting. but his writing style is always good, and he delivers. it's not flawed writing. the main characters are never really interesting, but not too bad either. but hey, it's good read. don't expect too much inventiveness and interesting characters, that's all.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best. . .
Review: Comparing Brooks to Tolkien, is like comparing Spielberg to Shakespeare. Of course there's going to be similarities when comparing a modern fantasy writer with a man who helped found an entire genre. I was not a fan of fantasy writing until reading Brooks' Sword of Shannara years ago. I can appreciate all that Tolkien has done for the genre, but at times I found his style meandering and wallowed in description. I instead found Brooks' Shannara series engaging, quick paced and his world just as realized. This is one of the best pieces of not just fantasy, but fiction of the last 25 years.
Rating:
Summary: For the times when you have little else to do...
Review: Despite the hype and impassioned fan-made reviews, the Shannara trilogy is hardly one which will keep its place forever on your bookshelf.
While it is, in all fairness, a well crafted story of good versus evil in a fantasy setting, that is where it ends, for it is the same story we have all heard time and again...
Readers (they need not even be fans) of the Tolkien line of books (The Lord of the Rings) will, having read but the first few chapters of this series opening book (The Sword of Shannara), immediately recognize how very passe (even cliche) this tale is...for instance:
* The Shannara tale features two young men from a back-country area questing into the evil lords land in hopes of defeating him, and acquiring a magical artifact (the very same background description encompasses the life of Frodo and Sam, Tolkien's rustic heroes).
* The heroes are led by a mysterious wizard, of whom little is truly known, who comes from a council of like empowered beings (even as Tolkien's Gandalf led Frodo and Sam, and comes from the council of wizards).
* The party which embarks with our heroes to the evil lords land is made up of men, elves, and dwarves (boy, if Terry Brooks threw in a hobbit there would be no difference at all).
* One of the men is little trusted by one of the rustic heroes (Tolkien fans will appreciate how very much this mimics the feelings displayed by Sam towards Boromir).
* One of the men wields a great and mystic sword, and is well versed in wood-lore (Aragorn, anybody?)
* The antagonist is an evil lord of dark creatures, once thought defeated, who has since gathered his dark powers to reform himself and reconquer the world (need I even tell you that this is the very same premise behind Sauron of the Lord of the Rings).
* On our heroes journey through the mountains, when the trek becomes too perilous to continue, the decision is made to take a new path...through abandoned mines that lead under a mountain, mines never before successfully crossed (Just as Tolkien's heroes left the mountains when thwarted to go through the mines of Khazad Dum...).
* Our heroes are accosted by a monster who emerges from a lake, and ensnares them with it's tentacles, seeking initially only after the ringbearer, errr, the hero of Terry Brooks original tale... (Tolkien fans will recall this same scene being played out before Khazad Dum).
* The two rustic heroes are named Shea and Flick (as opposed to Tolkien's, Sam and Frodo)...I know it is a stretch, but really...there do exist many other consanents of which to make use...I might also bring up the fact that the name "Durin" appears in both tales.
* The most evil servants of the dark lord in this tale, bring terror wherever they go (the description of which reads like Tolkien's work), and seek after the hero Shea (all too much like the Wringwraiths), and are even drawn to the powers of an artifact he bears (once again, all too much like the Wringwraiths).
* The hero of the tale is injured, and subsequently brought to the home of the healers, where his wound is tended, he recovers, is greeted by his fellow rustic hero, the ranger-like character, and the wizard (if you have read Tolkien, I need not even go into such, however, for those who have not...Chapters 11 through 13 tell the very same story, albeit, in a far better manner).
Suffice to say, after having read the first half of this book, and continuing to find the material a near blatant knock-off of J.R.R. Tolkiens celebrated work, I promptly tossed such aside, and moved on to better literature...
However, that is not to say that the tale is not entirely without merit (the only reason I gave it more than one star). While many chapters of the majority of these books will be all too familiar to true fantasy bibliophiles, the occassional fresh take on old ideas, and even (rare) original concepts make it an experience better left for the moments when you have little else to do...
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