The Wishsong of Shannara

Rating:
Summary: Sword of Shannara II- same plot
Review: The third in the series, Terry Brooks decides to replay the first in the series without the Sword of Shannara and in the Eastland. He makes it interesting, though, by adding the wishsong. This gives godlike power to our heroine Brin, but the main hero, Jair, gets to go through a much tougher adventure. While Brin has to fight temptation, Jair gets to fight an army of bad guys. This allows for some interesting situations, but it's still not quite as good as the Elfstones of Shannara. The ending is very unrealistic; I don't think a hostile army in a fortress will run away from some hostile commandos who slaughtered a bunch of the comrades and killed their leaders. No, they should all have been dead at the end, but hey- how can you have a sequel them? The book is still very good though, and I will reread it many times

Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as Elfstones
Review: Terry Brooks' style may be a bit awkward attimes, but he has a great sense of storytelling and pacing. He is also a master at depicting desparate situations and heroic feats of selfsacrifice

Rating:
Summary: I WAS going to give this FOUR stars. . .and then. . .eek!!!
Review: I honestly did like this last book of the Shannara trilogy the best. And then I thought, now wait a minute! Brooks, instead of copying Tolkien's plots, has now decided to copy his own plots! I mean, I loved that this was FINALLY more original work from Terry Brooks, there are original characters, new types of magic like the wishsong and the Ildatch that I've never seen in a book before. It was refreshing to see, Brooks did get better at originality and creativity as his writing career progressed.

However, copying the basic outline of your former plots is like making re-fried re-fried beans! (Yes, I meant to type re-fried twice!) The Ohmsford family is being called on AGAIN by, who else, the last Druid Allanon whom everyone still mistrusts, and AGAIN, they must go on a hopeless quest into the depths of the evil kingdom and AGAIN fight dark, hooded, evil creatures with only glowing points of light for eyes. It gets tiresome to do the same thing all over again with different characters!!! Sword, Elfstones, Wishsong, all are elven magic used to make something impossible happen. When one considers JUST the basic plot, one finds that all three books of the trilogy are IDENTICAL.

But, as I said, I did like this one the best. After rewriting his story three times, Brooks came up with some very original things! I mean, imagine being able to sing and make trees explode, poison rise from a dying body, and control a large cat! I also like that this book involves Brin and Jair, the children of Wil and Eretria. I didn't like how Elfstones jumped from Shea to his grandson, I was happy to see, at least briefly, some characters I was familiar with. Also, Allanon was not completely dark, angry and mistrusted this time. Brin felt a sort of kinship with him and he treated her very gently and kindly at times, there was an understanding between them I liked and for the first time I saw how Allanon's life must be very lonely and thankless. Plus, I liked the new characters better. Slanter, Helt and Garet Jax were more believable, trusting and they all worked together, there wasn't so much mistrust in this book. The characters were more multi-dimensional than ever before.

Brooks at this point was beginning to come into his own more as an author. His dialogue was better too. And, we can see Brooks' improvement throughout. For example, I liked the end of the Sword of Shannara better than the beginning, the beginning of Elfstones better than the end of Sword, the end of Elfstones better than the beginning, the beginning of Wishsong better than the end of Elfstones and the end of Wishsong better than the beginning!!! So, Brooks' improvement is visible. In fact, I'd say this book could almost stand alone without the preceding two.

There were moments of brilliance as well: "The past carries forward and becomes what is to be" as the King of Silver River said. I'm glad we finally got to meet him too. As I have said before, Brooks does have some good points, he tells that if people don't unite to destroy evil, the evil will overwhelm them and they cannot hide. This rings true even today. Also, this trilogy is full of the truth that if we do not change our dependence on chemicals, fuels and nuclear weapons and energy, we are doomed to fall into a near non-existence and lose everything and more we have gained.

Brooks is not an idiot, he definitely has some knowledge of the practical world. I'm going to keep reading his works, possibly start on the Heritage of Shannara or The Voyage of Jerle Shannara next. I believe those books will be better than this trilogy, I saw his improvement throughout this series and am sure he will continue to get better. I just hope he stops with the endless hopeless quests, it is a TOTALLY overused theme! But, don't give up on him yet!

Rating:
Summary: Another great book
Review: I love how the author keeps with the lineage. Too many times authors will try to continue a series but the characters change to much and the reader looses enterest. Terry does a great job of letting the reader get to know the characters envolved in his works. I loved the whole series of the Shannara books. I am glad I read them for it furthered my loved of the fantasy world. Where there are creatures and beings one may never know about. Terry does a great job as well with making the reader belive in the characters he creats weither it be human, elf, wizard, etc. or something more dark and evil.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book but not 5 stars
Review: To tell the truth Im not much of a fan for Terry Brooks. His books are very repetetive in the aspect that a great evil always threatens the world and the omhsford family always has to save the four lands. So sorry Terry but your books arent that great. They need a bit of variation if not a bit more imagination in its construction.
I must say though, that The Wishsong of Shannara was a bit different than the typical Brooks novel. Sure I liked the sword and the elfstones of shannara but they lacked what I truly wanted...in depth characters. So those novels just werent up to par. They were a good read if you needed to kill time but ultimately they were not books I would get in hardcover. Wishsong though blew me away. At first I was expecting just another great evil threatening the world kinda book, but when I first met Jair and Brin Ohmsford I knew that they were different from the others. For one they were born different...with the magic of the wishsong. Yes yes i know that all the other ohmsfords had magic to help them, but this started out different. Their ability was innate. So i kept reading slightly intrigued with the main characters. Thats when I met Slanter the gnome tracker. Slanter is the dont push me kind of character with a pragmatic attitude. His character more than anyone else is real because a reader can relate to him. Slanter more than anyone shows what a seemingly normal person would have thought in the situations he was in, but instead of falling to better instinct Slanter decided to stay as the protector of the boy Jair.
Then we meet Garet Jax. He is the fearless and slightly invincible weapons master. Jax is an enigmatic character. He alone in the novel is secluded by his ultimate skill with weapons and he proves unbeateable through out the novel. He definitely was my favorite character in the book.
What I really liked about this book though was that it let characters that you liked die. This is uncharactersitic for Brooks. Usually he shows his characters as heroes who survive to the end. Not in this one. So many well liked characters meet a heroic end of epic proportions (and I wont say who to those who havent read the book)It makes the reader go through a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions. So all I gotta say is read this book because its good.

Rating:
Summary: WOW! The best yet.
Review: Everyone is saying how this book is the same as all his other ones, i really disagree with them. The whole idea behind the Shannara books is the repetitive type of plots. Yes they are repetitive, but they are all unique and better then the last. If you truly like Shannara novels, then you'll like this book. GO SHANNARA!! (woot woot)

Rating:
Summary: Write your own Shannara adventure!
Review: Follow these simple steps to write your first Shannara novel:

1. An ancient evil (quite a lot like something in Lord Of The Rings) threatens the lands. Choose from
a. Wraiths
b. Sorcerer Lord
c. Demon Army
2. Allanon the druid (who's a bit like Gandalf) seeks out a placid peacful living half-elf (a bit like a hobbit) descended from the line of the Ohmsford family (a bit like the Baggins family) in the quiet town of Shady Vale (which is kind of like The Shire).
3. He asks them to seek out something from the following list:
a. Sword
b. Mystic Fire
c. Book
4. 7 pages explain why Allanon is not to be trusted.
5. Despite the previous 7 pages, the Ohmsford decides to go on the perilous quest with the following:
a. No Map
b. No weapons (maybe, just maybe a small dagger that will
never get used)
c. Enough supplies for two meals on a seven day journey.
d. One or more companions (preferably descended from other
lines of families - Ellesedil, Leah etc)
6. They eat some stew, cheese nuts and berries.
7. They get into a scrape where only a one-legged blind leprechaun can save them from certain death.
8. A one-legged blind leprechaun shows up and saves them from certain death.
9. They eat some beef stew and some bread and cheese.
11. The Ohmsford gets into another scrape near the Silver River where they are facing certain death. The King Of The Silver River resuces them in a floaty white light.
12. Allanon disappears.
13. They eat a small meal of stew and cheese.
14. Allanon re-appears where they learn he has been withholding information and lying about the nature of the quest. Doh! If only they'd listened to:
a. Uncle Flick
b. Great Uncle Flick
c. Great Great Uncle Flick
16. Oops! Someone lost the Elfstones.
17. Phew! Someone found them again.
18. The adventurers eat a hearty meal of berries, nuts and cheese before facing some evil, and finding the artefact which is not quite what was expected.
19. There's a final conflict where Allanon does such a fantastic job of fighting off the evil armies/wraiths etc with blue fire that the whole quest starts to seem like a totally uneccessary waste of everyone's time.
20. Somebody from the quest group dies.
22. Peace is restored.
23. They celebrate witha hearty meal of cheese, nuts and berries.

Rating:
Summary: An utterly brilliant hack-and-slash fantasy!
Review: Terry Brooks burst onto the fantasy scene in 1977 with his Tolkien rip-off "The Sword of Shannara". Despite an unoriginal plot, the book was fast-paced, well written, and throughly gripping. In his second book, "The Elfstones of Shannara", Brooks proved he could write an original, compelling story. Despite the extraordinary success of these two books, though, they don't hold a candle to "The Wishsong of Shannara", which proves that Terry Brooks is, without a doubt, the finest hack-and-slash fantasy novelist there is.

I have read every single book Brooks has written, and I believe that Wishsong is his best work, bar only "The Elf Queen of Shannara". The plot is the strongest element in the book, which throws in some very intriguing twists to the standard "reluctant hero saves world from bad dude". His characters also are much more compelling than those in his first two books. But beware getting too attached to them: Brooks has a tendency to kill off some of his characters.

Anyone who purports to be a fan of hack-and-slash fantasy (ala Terry Goodkind or David Eddings), who hasn't read Terry Brooks yet is in for a real treat. Brooks is a master of the genre, and "Wishsong" is Brooks at his absolute best.