NovelCritic

The Sword of Shannara was the first book written by Terry Brooks, and the series of Shannara books is now easily one of the most famous series of Fantasy books of all time.

I recently finished re-reading the book (it was a long time since I had first read the book), and I was still amazed at how much detail Terry Brooks can place in his books and how good the story was.

The first book has Shea and Flick Ohmsford in search of the legendary Sword of Shannara helped by a few other heroes from the four lands including the forbidding and mysterious druid Allanon. The Sword of Shannara, the druid tells the brothers, is the only item which can defeat the Warlock Lord, an evil entity who is trying to take over the four lands.

The characters were very likable, as are the majority of the characters in the Shannara books, especially the host of characters who could best be called the supporting cast. In fact, if there can be any knock on Terry Brooks’s characters, it would be the fact that the supporting characters are often more exciting, fascinating, and complex in nature than the protagonists.

I only really have two problems with the Sword of Shannara.

The first is that the story is too similar to the Lord of the Rings. The companions of the two Valeman are eerily similar to the fellowship of the ring. Allanon is similar to Gandalf. The Warlock Lord is similar to Sauron, and his Skullbearers are similar to the Ring Wraiths. There are things which are different, like the fact that the Sword of Shannara is much more interesting to read, but the similarities are many.

The second problem that I have with the Sword of Shannara is that the vivid description sometimes gets a little tedious. It’s nothing like the tedious and boring descriptions found in the Lord of the Rings, but there are a few places in the story where I thought a little less description might have helped it move along a little better.

Later novels by Terry Brooks don’t have either of those two problems, but if you are planning on reading any of them, you really have to begin with the first one.

I’m honestly surprised that the series of Shannara novels haven’t been made into movies, especially since they are far better than the Lord of the Rings, which were very boring and tedious, or Eragon, which was just recently made into a rather disappointing movie.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS