Now this is what I like to see in a fantasy novel. This has everything that makes the genre so appealing to me; it’s got a diverse set of races and cultural systems; it’s got both great darkness and profound good. But, most importantly, it’s got history. When I read books like this I want to feel like the fantasy universe has existed a thousand years prior and will exist a thousand years after. With Shannara it feels like I’ve stepped into the middle of a vast, complex and beautiful world that h...

Wow - that is pretty much all I could say for hours after finishing this absolutely epic first installment in the Shannara series.This book gave me everything I want in my fantasies - a vast landscape, colossal amounts of world-building, varied characters, mythical and mystical creatures, a definite good/bad binary, a quest to save the world, great character development, legions of backstory, action, adventure and intrigue, and ending on a battle scent to end all battle scenes.The best fantasies...

So, I've read reviews that say this is just Terry Brooks' Lord of the Rings. I do see that, but at the same time, I think he made it his own in a lot of ways. I mean, aren't all fantasy adventures just someone's take on Lord of the Rings ... anyway, other than the fact that it's 700-some pages and I thought I would never finish it .. I liked it. I wasn't happy that 2 of the characters I liked died, but, it was a battle-adventure, can't live happily-ever-after for everyone. There were some lullin...

Everyone says that you fall into one of two camps: Those who love Tolkien, and philistines. I belong firmly in the latter. It is my firm belief that the man (Tolkien) got paid by the word. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoy Brooks' Shannara series. I have read all of them, own most of the hard covers, and have spirited debates (code for a fight) with my friends about why these books are not carbon rip-offs of Tolkien's works. Great characters, epic stories with fallible heroes, and a world lov...

A mysterious stranger came into a peaceful village of Shady Vale. From him one of the village boys learned about being the last hope of vanquishing an ancient evil with the legendary Sword of Shannara. I am not going to go deep inside the plot as it was used numerous times after this book; it fact the book can be partially blamed for almost all of fantasy with a poor farm boy/girl destined to be the last humanity savior. The rest of the blame goes to The Lord of the Rings.The general consensus a...

I really wanted to like this, but that just wasn't the case. This book was just overly boring and it lacked plot. It felt like nothing was happening half the time. Overall disappointed with this book.

Terry Brooks is my friend's favorite fantasy author, and he gave me the entire set of Shannara books a while ago. Respecting his literary opinion, I read the first.WARNING: IT IS AN EXACT COPY OF THE PLOT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS.And Brooks is no J.R.R. Tolkien. That aside, it is an okay read. The storytelling isn't bad, and the story becomes slightly more original as it goes along. I actually finished it, so it can't be terrible, but it gets two stars for its absolute lack of originality.

If The Sword of Shannara was a film, it would go like this:Mirkwood Productions proudly presents:THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SWORDDirected by Meriadoc Brandybuck. Director of Photography: Celeborn. Costume Design: Arwen Evenstar. Visual Effects: Saruman the White. Sound Design: Noldor Unlimited. Starring Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf the Grey, Sauron the Necromancer, Aragorn Arathornsson, Gimli van Gloin, and many more!SynapsisThe Ohmsford brothers Shea (BAGGINS) and Flick (GAMGEE) live a pea...

I loved this when I was thirteen. I loved it when I was sixteen. And probably at least once in between there. When I was thirty-six I picked it up, made it about a chapter and a half in, and threw it against the wall. Literally. It left a dent. (Edited for the trolls among you: A- this is a touch of hyperbole. Look it up. andB- It's a 700+ page book, and I was incensed. It's not entirely inconceivable that this thing would dent the drywall.Just saying. Back to the original review... )This book w...

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.The Sword of Shannara was a very popular book back in the 70s right after the huge success of The Lord of the Rings when everyone wanted to read more fantasy. I wasn't old enough to read it back then, so I came to it much later. I read part of the first book and, knowing how popular it had been, and feeling like it was a classic, I was prepared to enjoy it. About half way through I gave it to my ten year old son.The weird thing is, it's so like The Lord of...

this is perhaps my first experience with a Bad Book. young nerds like myself shouldn't have to scorn fantasy literature, but this wet piece of crapola put me off of fantasy for years. something this derivative should never have seen the light of day. i don't care if folks needed a tolkien fix, there were other, better literary drugs out there they could have turned to. Brooks spends a very long time blowing tolkien style, but it is an extremely un-relaxing bj and i found myself getting agitated

If you are comparing the literary value of science fiction/fantasy books, I think it is best to use food as an example. Terry Brooks can be viewed as a really good bacon cheeseburger, it is fun to eat, makes you feel full, however it is often sloppily put together in a hurried fashion, without much effort and does not give your body true fulfillment. While Tolkien on the other hand, or C.S. Lewis, are like well planned home cooked meals, with each food group represented and placed on a finely se...

Alright. Before anyone goes into a tirade of why I gave this book a five-star rating, read on.I was never the novel-reader type. I was never much of a novelist, either. I live in a Third World country, so when I was young, we kids amuse ourselves by learning to climb trees, playing hide-and-seek and all sorts of outdoorsy games.Until I met Terry Brooks through The Sword of Shannara.A neighbor of ours was moving out, and with the bulk of books and other stuff they have, they decided to sell most

The Lord of Shannara? The Sword of the Rings?

A friend who was also into fantasy insisted I read this series, and I got as far as the first three books before I stopped believing him when he told me they were magical and wonderful and would get better and better. As far as I can tell, they all have the exact same plot. Mysterious Wizard shows up at home of person. Tells person he is Chosen for an Important Quest. What follows is chapter after chapter of "I don't WANNA go on a Quest!" "You MUST go on a Quest!" Seriously, I know the reluctant...

I acquired this book in the lobby of a Greek hotel in 1979. It was on a table of free books, ones that had been left behind in guests' rooms. I was on holiday with my parents and very bored (ungrateful little shit, I know, I know). It was the illustrated edition and as a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings I dived right in and loved the hell out of it.Even then, I did notice the STRONG ... oh-so-strong ... almost play by play parallels to The Lord of the Rings. To this day, I'm not sure how that w...

The Sword of Shannara is basically The Lord of the Rings version 2.0. It is also one of the best fantasy novels I have ever read.The book was first recommended to me by my father and uncle at a family gathering last year (I should clarify that 'recommended' here means 'briefly mentioned during a short discussion about good literature'). I had not read a fantasy novel for quite a while and was in search of something to read, so I found the book in one of my parents' bookshelves and brought it wit...

Man did that ever SUCK. And not your garden-variety, ham-fisted hackiness kind of suck. No, this was dumbfounded, frustrated bitterness swelling into white heat for which the only salve is the venting of my smoking, bile-filled vitriol in the form of this juvenile tantrum scathing rebuke of Brooks’ abominable, turd-like abortion of appalling plot-stealing gall.…Therefore listen to Baby Rage above and take cover…*inhales deeply and launches*…... PLOT SUMMARY:A shitty, lifeless point for po

DNF @ 180 pages. Not horrible book, I could have put up with it until the end but I don't see why. During this book I had the same feel I had when reading Feist's Magician: Apprentice and that is feel of tasteless, generic fantasy that might be passable in video game but it's very dull in relatively long book.Very forgettable book.Edit:Because not long ago I decided that every book I DNF gets 1 star this book gets it rating decreased from 2 to 1 stars

When I was but an impressionable teen, my crush gave me this book for my birthday. He had teeth like little baby pearls and could quote from The Princess Bride, so I was pretty far gone on him. This book was so bad that it effectively cured me of that crush. Despite being a plot-point-for-plot-point, character-for-character rip-off of the Lord of the Rings, it's pretty boring. In fact, the only surprise in this novel is that despite such blatant plagiarism, none of the beauty of Tolkein's descri...