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Summary: Best book I've read-Very personal to me
Review: WOW! This was the first Terry Brooks book I've ever read. I happened to find it lying in my parents room one night. My dad knows Terry(acquaintences) from there hometown of Sterling, Illinois. Others who have read this book will know it as Hopewell, Illinois. I found this book enthralling for many reasons. The fight of Good vs. Evil, of course, but also because I've run and play in Sinnissippi park just as Nest did. I knew every spot she was in, because I've been there many times. The whole town was the same. I loved it. My grandma still lives there, so whenever I go up there it's weird looking around at the park. My dad even showed me the tree that housed the maentwrog!! That's pretty cool. This is the best book I've ever read!
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Summary: Something different
Review: This is the first book by Terry Brooks I ever bought, I found it in hard cover in a bargain bin. The book starts off with John Ross, a knight of the word. He is a traveler who fights against the void in a never ending battle of good and evil. He dreams of what life would be like in the nightmare future of the void's victory over the word. This keeps him on his quest. The void is the opposite of the words order. Chaos is what the void wants for the world and demons are it's servants. And Nest Freemark is caught in the middle. This book is set in our modern times with fantasy elements. There are forest creatures and spirits and creatures of evil. I thought it was a refreshing change from the normal elves and dwarfs and dragons. I was very pleased reading this book. It is one of my favorites.
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Summary: WORST BOOK IN THE SERIES
Review: The dialogue is awful. There's little action or suspense until the last few pages and it's over quickly. The villian isn't much and is defeated quickly. Most of it's just filler with not much of a plot.
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Summary: A book which defies gravity.
Review: This book is captivating and you simply won't want to put it down. As with any good book you get attached to the characters and are drawn into the action and progression of the story. This book will not be put down until it is finished!
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Summary: A book that defies gravity!
Review: This is one of those books you just can't put down! Brooks works his magic and does a marvelous job of character developement. The storyline is not complicated, really, but it is told very well. It is ripe with twists and surprises that keep those pages flying. But be warned, once you pick it up you won't stop, you can't stop.
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Summary: Engaging and thought-provoking
Review: Terry Brooks has cleverly fused his unique, contemporary, and personalized approach to the supernatural together with a dramatic coming-of-age story about a special 14-year-old girl. The plot is intricately constructed. Every event - big or small - happens for a reason. This theme of purpose in every event is carried one step further - small events add up to make life-changing occurrences. (A theme echoing the chaos theory touted in the contemporary social and physical sciences.) However, instead of randomness and chaos determining the significance of events in this story, the incremental orchestration of events is insidiously carried out by an evil being. This orchestrated plot is solid and brilliant. Character development is strong - another highlight of the book. The manner in which conflict is dealt with in the book is adequate. While Brooks' style in dealing with conflict does not interfere with the flow of the story, he could have refined his story-telling a bit more, providing further details for the reader to really feel engaged in the ongoing battle. Brooks is quite adept at actively engaging his reader elsewhere in the story through character development and plot construction. One measure of a book's worth is if you still ponder its themes a few days after you have completed the book. Brooks' treatment of the difficulty of coming-of-age, the balance of good and evil, and the purposeful methods taken by servants of good and evil may spark you to think about the fabric of truth, awareness, and balance in our real world. It did me.Scott Granado
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Summary: Demons & Trees, Oh My!
Review: I loved this novel. Brooks demonstrates in this dark, contemporary fantasy that he is a master author. If you think Brooks isn't talented because you believe he stole from Tolkein, read this novel and forumulate a new opinion. Though still fantasy, Brooks demonstrates that his skills go far beyond the realm of elves, trolls, druids, and dwarves. Rather, Brooks demonstrates a child's understanding of magic in what appears to others to be a workady world. This novel is a fantasy must read, and is written in such a fashion that I found myuself skimming the paragraphs in anticipation of what would come. You will want to know how the battle between the Word and the Void comes out in the small town of Hopewell. You will want to be with fourten year old Nest Freemark as she comes to understand her true nature and cope with an impossible responsibility, destruction of a demon and the saving of mankind. Read it and enjoy.
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Summary: Very good!
Review: This book reads like Terry Brooks writing a Dean Koontz novel, to some degree. But the characters are fresh and likeable, the situations are original, and the plot is compelling. And I like Dean Koontz and Terry Brooks both. :P A young girl with the potential to be a professional runner (and some minor magical abilities)suddenly finds that mysterious secrets and terrible events are happening all around her, and a demon has come to town with the purpose of taking her. Her only protection is her tough old grandmother (also with a little magic) and a drifter who is a Knight of the Word, sworn to spend his life hunting demons and trying to prevent or postpone a horrific future which he is given visions of in his dreams. The magic is all a secret undercurrent under the otherwise normal small-town activity. The plot is suspenseful and captivating! My main complaint with the book is the way some characters babble on for ages explaining all the plot points and events the reader might not have figured out on their own, especially Pick, and especially at the end.
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Summary: Completly entertaining
Review: This book is very different for Terry Brooks in that it takes place in "the real world" and not in some created land. It is a complete success as far as entertaining the reader. I read it in two days and actually had difficulty putting it down. Many times I said I would finish the current chapter and go to bed, only to stay up later. The book actually brought to mind Stephen King's book the Stand becouse of it's reference to good and evil and the possibility of the world's evil end. Brooks made the charactors work even if they were somewhat thinly composed. Nest the fourteen year old girl comming of age seems a bit too mature for her age, but not to any detriment of the book. I was often thinking of Barney Fife as Nest spoke to her best friend Pick, who is a Sylvan and is overly rife with his own argumentiveness. It is all very entertaining. Most of all the book keeps throwing up charactors and events that beg for immediate answers which keeps you reading. Who is the indian by the name of Two Bears, and what is his relationship to Nest and the books hero John Ross. Is John Ross the father of Nest? If not who is? These questions keep building on themselves making for great reading. Very well done.
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Summary: bittersweet nostalgia; small hometown but an evil underbelly
Review: QUICK SYNOPSIS: Story opens with a prologue where we gather insights into the dark dreams that John Ross, a Knight of the Word, must always have; every evening; every time he sleeps. It then opens with Nest Freemark, 13 and talking with a faerie pixie creature in a small town, racing to rescue a child from the dark creatures. Nest is sort of a guardian for people against the Feeders, who feed on the fears and negative emotions of humans, and does her best to keep them all safe. But larger events are in progress. A demon has arrived and knows that Hopewell, Illinois will be the powder keg for the big blow up. Amist her adolescence, Nest must help Jon Ross, as well as her sylvan friend, stop the demon from setting off this little town, which will result in overall chaos and darkness in the world. MARKETING APPEAL: The genre appeals to some readers especially with the success of Neil Gaiman's works. As far as Brook fans go, this would appeal to dark urban fantasy types; it's well written and deals with good vs evil at an epic level in a small urban town. Not a huge story like Shannara (I think the big epic scale fantasies of good vs evil are the bestselling stories in fantasy novels). SCORING: Superb (A), Excellent (A-), Very good (B+), Good (B) Fairly Good (B-) Above Average (C+), Mediocre (C ), Barely Passable (C-) Pretty Bad (D+), Dismal (D), Waste of Time (D-), Into the Trash (F) DIALOGUE: B+ STRUCTURE: A- HISTORY SETTING: n/a CHARACTERS: A- EVIL SETUP/ANTAGONISTS: B+ EMOTIONAL IMPACT: A SURPRISES: B LITTLE THINGS: A- MONSTERS: B+ PACING: A OVERALL STYLE: A- FLOW OF WORDS: A- CHOICE OF FOCUS: A TRANSITIONS/FLASHBACKS/POV: A- COMPLEXITY OF WORDS/SYMBOLISM/THEMES: B+ OVERALL GRADE: A- EMOTIONAL IMPACT: This is where Brooks really hit the mark. I was emphatic to many of the Shannara characters, especially those in ELFSTONES, but RUNNING pushed it even further for Nest and her grandfather. There's a bittersweet quality to Nest's adolescence. True, she has all these magical powers, which ward off the evil Feeders, but she has little control over the dysfunctional families of her friends (i.e. Jared, for instance) nor can she do much to help with the crumbling relationship of her grandparents. Hopewell is also an ideal, idyllic little town. Everyone knows everyone and there's more of a community to it. That was one of the major reasons I enjoyed reading it, since it's never a community I knew or experienced. The loss of Nest's mother, which has wounded Nest and especially her grandmother (which is tearing apart at her relationship with Nest's grandfather) was heart breaking.
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