More fun with Ben, Questor, Willow, Abernathy and the others ( )

Cute, but not as good as his Shannara books. Its not that the writing is all that much different, but Landover is much less complex and interesting than the Four Lands, and the villians are less complex as well. ( )

I love this series! It's simple reading but just the kind of easy escapism read you need sometimes. ( )

Interesting story, but this reader surmised early on what the protagonist's problem was so it was rather insufferable to read about a leading edge lawyer who couldn't figure out what this simple reader figured out immediately. (No diatribe intended, just long sentence.)

Also, for someone who is a crack lawyer -- meaning good, not the illicit drug -- Ben (protag) certainly loses his cool a lot. I found Ben to be a bit of an oaf -- hardly what he was portrayed to be.

Those two points were distracting, but I did have a catharsis at the end of the book, so 3/5. ( )

Summary: The previous owner wants his magic kingdom back.

The Take-Away: A nice follow-up, but I'm going to spoil a couple of things if you haven't read the first one.

While it was great to see the lengths to which the wizard Meeks would go to get the kingdom back from Ben Holiday (the lawyer from Chicago.) In fact, since Meeks never really intended for Holiday to stay, he was quite determined to get the kingdom back.

After Meeks deceives Holiday and gets back to Landover, Holiday's adventure highlights how well he is ruling the kingdom, and getting the disjointed factions back to working together. Part of me wonders how well this is going. Part of me realizes that this wouldn't be the best storyline for Brooks to follow, even though I'm more curious than what was answered in the book. The havoc with the reluctantly-previous owner is quite rightly the focus.

Recommendation: While I liked the first one better, the second in the series isn't the failsafe for continuing -- Book Three is (regardless of the series.) Since I haven't read that one yet, I can't give this one an accurate shakedown. ( )