The Sword of Shannara

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Summary: An epic work epitomizing the best this genre has to offer.
Review: Terry Brooks tells a classic story that you can't help but read again and again. It's all there: valiant hero's, deep and well developed characters, fantastic battles, a rich history, and the timeless fight of good against evil. The plot gets deeper and deeper, and in so doing pulls you ever farther into its folds. So grab a sword, join a party of Elves and Dwarves, and go in search of the legendary Sword of Shannara.

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Summary: Cynical marketing scam
Review: Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Lin Carter edited a series of fantasy novels, mainly reprints of older works, for Ballantine Books. The Ballantine Adult Fantasy line included works from the whole history of the literature, from Dunsany and Morris to Fletcher Pratt, Mervyn Peak, Peter Beagle, and so on. It included in some cases the only modern editions of 17th and 18th century fantasies.

When Lester Del Rey became head of the Ballantine fantasy program, and it was renamed Del Rey Books, he went through the sales records, and discovered that those old fantasy novels sold in direct proportion to their similarity to Tolkein's Lord of the Rings (which Ballantine also published).

Then along comes Terry Brooks, slush-pile hopeful, with his semi-plaigiristic novel of Tolkeinesque adventure. Del Rey gloms onto it, beats it into publishable shape, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Try this exercise: create a flow-chart of plot and character actions in each book. The Sword of Shanana is almost a precise mirror of the Lord of the Rings. BUt it is bones only: none of Tolkein's linguistic meat. But Brooks' success creates an entire publishing sub-category.

If you want to read _really_ great fantasy, get Mervyn Peake's _Gormenghast Trilogy_.

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Summary: A Tolkien-Like Descent into a cliched world.
Review: I found this book mediocre. The world created by Mr. Brooks, while seeming to be able to be touched, has been done many times before. The characters, while detailed and complex, don't seem to react as a normal person would. Growing angry at something I would shrug off, or meekly accepting defeat. The climax of the story is also hard to belive. I DID enjoy the book, but I have many other books similar to it, whether Mr. Brooks borrowed his ideas from other authors or other authors from him is unknown to me.

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Summary: Quest to Save the Land
Review: Shea Ohmsford is just an ordinary valeman when he received a visit by the mystical Druid Allanon, who informs him that he the last of the Shannara House. Only he can wield the fabled Sword of Shannara, to stop the Warlock Lord and his army. The Only other alternative is a bloody war that there is only a slim chance of winning. So aided by his brother, he sets of for Culhaven, to begin a Quest that thousands will depend on.

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Summary: Is this even legal !?
Review: It's been said already but I still can't beleive how much this plot is copied from LOTR. I mean there's even the two huge statues of soldiers holding a sword. I'm not done reading this book yet and for the first time in my life I'm considering not finishing a book. This book really lacks originality in my opinion.

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Summary: I don't get the rave reviews
Review: As an avid reader, especially of fantasy novels, I will pick up just about anything, long or short. I am not extremely crtitical of books, but I have my expectations, this book I'm afraid, does not live up to them. I dove into this book on the advice of other critics who sang praises of it. I found this book bears an immediately apparent resemblance to the LOTR series. Brooks even brings up Allanons black garb every so often in order to contrast with the famous Gandalf the White. the story goes that a mysterious figure (aka:Allanon the wizard)appears in a quiet town to warn of an impending doom. Thus two friends and their small band set out to retrieve a ring, er excuse me, sword, to destroy the lord of all evil. Heard it before? However, even putting the stark resemblance to LOTR aside, this book is NOTHING SPECIAL. All your steriotypical fantasy elements are here, magic, intrigue, booby traps, you name it. Still, how bad could a tale about a group of heroes, including, you guessed it, an elf and a dwarf, setting out on a perilous quest, be? The answer: pretty bad. Even the interesting scenarioes, where it would be interesting to see how the band copes, are solved 1,2,3, by Allanon. The sense of urgency and anxiety present in LOTR is gone. I strongly advise you to pass this book by. Instead, go for the first three Wheel of Time novels, the Malazan series, and of course the LOTR series, to name a few.

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Summary: The best books ever!!!!!!
Review: The Shannara books are my all time favorite! The whole series is packed with suspension and adventure. It keeps you turning pages late into the night! If you're looking for some books with magic swords and talismans, good and evil battles, and twists to keep you wondering, you're looking in the right place.

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Summary: Good but a major Tolkien ripoff.
Review: After hearing much praise of the Shannara series at my school, I picked up this book with high expectations. Unfrotunately, I was let down, not because of the way the book was written but the story itself. If you have read LOTR you have pretty much have read this book. You have Frodo(Shea), Sam(Flick), Borimir(Balinor), and Gandalf(Allonon). Then you have a problem common in most Shannara books, the Ohmsfords. Flat, boring, goody goodies, and have as much depth as a shoe, I found almost no difference between them all. Wren(in Elf Queen) is more interesting than Wil, Shea, Flick, Coll, etc.. However, what saves this book is Brooks' highly entertaining style of writing. The seige of Tysris, the fight against the Warlock Lord, and the trials the characters have are all great to read. So read this book so you can understand the next books which have far more originality than this one. Somewhat recommended.

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Summary: Not His Best
Review: While Terry Brooks has by the time this review was written shown himself to be a good author, this book just doesn't do it.

His descriptions are excellent, as always, and lend some reality to the whole thing, but they aren't enough to make up for the flaws below.

Brooks' characters are not entirely human and are, quite honestly, very difficult to sympathize or empathize with, always important in any work of fiction. The druid, Allanon, who plays an unfortunately significant part in this book and the remainder of the series, is too much larger than life in too many ways to make his character sustainable. His looming presence has a tendency to make the books drag until Brooks finally wakes up and deals with the problem, though sadly not until the end of the series.

Furthermore, the plotline drags along as you finally make your way to what you think is the final battle. While I can't put my finger on it, there is a cetian something in the plotline that takes it from the wonder it could have been to merely mediocre.

Moreover, if there is one necessity for every work of fiction, it is that the author know the history of the world about which he is writing very well, and either convey that knowledge or make it abundantly clear to the reader that he's got it, as Tolkien did. I know you're probably very tired of hearing about Tolkien this and Tolkien that, but it's true: he really was the greatest fantasy fiction author in the past hundred years, if not ever, and he is the standard to which all others are measured. Brooks clearly does not have a sense of the history of this world, whose name I'm not sure we ever discover, at the time this book is written. This is remedied only to a small extent by the belated prequel, First King of Shannara, which is itself a much better book. (Please read First King of Shannara first, it's really much better that way).

All in all, though this book made it to the NY Times best seller list at some time in the distant past, it, along with the rest of the series, encompassing The Elfstones and The Wishsong, is really only worth reading for background that becomes valuable in the next series, The Heritage of Shannara (begining with The Scions of Shannara).

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Summary: Great Fantasy Fan!
Review: The Sword of Shannara has a great pacing and not too much detail, you can tell the book is going to be good even in the beginning some fantasies I've read have really not gotten very good until the middle or end of the book. The characters are beautifully created, it's like a fellowship, they have to get Shea to the sword because he is the last of the bloodline that can rule it besides a mysterious person wanting to steal it. It's an exciting and adventurous book, I reccomend it!