Since it's been 24 years since I last read a fantasy from this popular author, I thought I'd give him another go. This is the first book of a trilogy which finds a motley crew of adventures on a mission to find out what happened to an earlier mission and to recover some artifacts and hopefully get their greedy little hands on some new magic. There are elves, a druid, a seer, "Rovers" (like a gypsy), and all sorts of magic aboard the airship Jerle Shannara. It's an easy read but moves at a glacial pace. For such a popular author, you'd expect a more crackling story. But it seems to rely heavily on -- hey, what's the plural of deus ex machina? machinas? -- it uses magic too often to get characters in and out of trouble. That whole element should be toned down. Regardless, I'm enjoying the character of Truls Rohk, a somewhat minor character but more inventive than the others. The leader of the mission, Walker Boh, the druid, is a bit of a cipher. I'm hoping the second book gets more interesting. ( )

Not Brooks' best, but not unreadable. The Shannara well may have run dry. ( )

The first of a new mini series set in the Four Lands. Like the Heritage series, we get to see parts of the Four Lands we haven't seen before. However, unlike the previous series, technology has started to creep back into the world, in the form of airships. That part about this series seemed a little odd to me - the constant battle between the forces of freedom and the dictatorship of the human federation has now taken on an almost 1941 RAF feeling. Not that that is bad, but the sudden rise of airships and their technology is a little bit jarring.
This is still a good book and well done. ( )

The first time I picked up one of the Shannara novels, I was made a little bit uneasy by the lavish praise heaped on the covers—I’ve found that it almost never bodes well if lines from positive reviews are on both covers—but I figured that I would read it anyway. Unfortunately, my suspicions hadn’t led me wrong, and I found myself disagreeing with all of the blurbs that had gotten onto the book.

Now on the ninth book, I was equally wary, having read and not been particularly impressed by the previous eight books. However, this seemed like Terry Brooks’ chance to get away from his poorly-written imitations of The Lord of the Rings, since Tolkien’s elves most certainly do not have things like airships, so I began reading the book with a slightly renewed enthusiasm.

The plot is easily the best thing about this book and of the majority of Brooks’ other Shannara novels. In short, a Druid by the name of Walker obtains a map that had been accompanying a now-dead member of the elven royal family, convinces the elven king to allow him to go on an expedition to find the locations and what had been written on the map in a long-lost language, and assembles a party made up of the elven Home Guard, Rovers (people akin to gypsies), and other miscellaneous humanoids.

About six chapters in, it seems like Brooks would have liked to step into the science fiction genre, with airships sounding somewhat like solar-powered spacecraft, and later with mysterious keys and robot-like creatures, which were explained away by being the vestiges of a society formed before the “Great Wars”, which based all of its strange “magic” on science.

The writing style is rather like a more flowery, more archaic-sounding version of Tolkien’s, which draws a great deal of comparison. I prefer to compare it to a somewhat inexperienced writer who has a (self-professed) admiration of Tolkien, and who thus attempts to model his writing after it. There are some cases in which the writing style works well, but very little adjustment is made from the scenes describing the setting to battle scenes. No matter what the background of the character, they either sound too stiff for their own good or, in the case of the dwarves, somewhat like the stereotypical country bumpkin. The characters take a goodly amount of time to ruminate on things that the omniscient narrator has already thought about at length, as well, which gives the book a slow and ponderous feel. However, the writing in this book has improved since the last installment of Shannara, so take that as you will... This is also a very contemplative book in that a good deal of time is spent inside the characters' heads, which isn't necessarily the best for a book that deserves to be action-oriented. However, it fits the style of the prose pretty well.

The most unfortunate part of the entire book was a glaring inconsistency toward the end of it. Ever since the sixth or seventh book—possibly even earlier—Walker Boh has had only one arm. In the beginning of the book where the exposition of previous books was being laid out, it was mentioned that Walker still had only one arm. On page 429, he has two hands, which are being laid on something. Fortunately for Brooks, the reference goes by quickly enough so that if one is wrapped up in the scene, it’s not noticeable. (But if one is thinking about breakfast and comes upon plural hands that the character doesn’t have, it’s something quite remarkable about a lauded writer.)

If the reader is able to muck through the thick prose, the plot in this particular book (and presumably the two following it in the trilogy) would be worth reading the book for. If the background information is enough to make it seem worthwhile to read the first eight books, I would recommend reading The Lord of the Rings and the backs of the previous books to piece together the plot, because that’s far more pleasant than actually reading them. ( )

A new trilogy by Terry Brooks in this Shannara series. This time Walker Boh is the Druid in the series and his nemesis is the Isle Witch. This was a disappointing start to the series with it mostly seeming to give an introduction to the plot and to the main characters. It spent a lot of time setting up the journey, but then it seemed to go too quickly and too easily.

The same magics were involved as the previous series: the wishsong, the elfstones and the sword of shannara. Some new ideas woudl have made a refreshing change, nevermind. I will continue with the series and hope that it improves on this one. ( )