Terry Brooks

The Shannara trilogy

First, let me be clear about exactly which Terry Brooks books we are talking about. Bjorn and I recommend the first three, the original trilogy, consisting of The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara, and The Wishsong of Shannara. Do not waste your time with the rest. These three are excellent examples of high fantasy. The meanest thing I would say of them is that the are a poor man's Tolkien, the archetypes stolen without the depth and grandeur. A different take would be that Brooks distilled the essential adventure from Tolkien, without the weird songs. Remember, many people have tried to write great fantasy adventures and failed. Brooks succeeds. I first read them at age 13, and at that age, these books captured my imagination, and still own their own little corner, somewhere between the part of my brain which enables me to scratch my armpit and that part which can integrate sine (which part is more useful? I think the former).

Since writing this I've been told to give the sequels another chance, and the newest one did hit the top 5 on the New York Times bestseller list, but I can't do it. Reading the newest attempt by David Eddings to milk the Belgariad for yet more money made me a bit nauseous and I don't think I could handle more Brooks. There' s just so much other new stuff to read that second- and third-generation reflections of the original don't interest me.