First King of Shannara

Well, that was a blast from the past. I read "The Sword of Shannara" around 1980-or-so, followed by "The Elfstones of Shannara" and "The Wishsong of Shannara" as they were published in '82 and '85. And that seemed to be that. A fun trilogy of magic and adventure. The first book a pastiche/homage to Tolkien's books, and the remainder original stories.

I read his follow-up, the unrelated "Magic Kingdom: For Sale", but was not enchanted by this new world and it would be 5 more years before Brooks produced another Shannara novel, though I was mostly unaware of it, at the time. Next thing I know, there seemed to be an entire library of Shannara books! And, to be honest, it was simply too daunting and I turned to various other books of magic, show more science, mystery and so on.

Now I decided to step back into the pool and chose this one because it is a direct prequel to Sword. It sets up why and how the events of Sword "had to" happen. It fills in the crevices and shines some light in the darker corners of the world, as it appeared in that trilogy.

Once again, it was fun and easy and had it's share of thrills and buckling swashes. Not one of my favourite books, not even one of my favourite fantasy novels, but enough fun and headlong excitement that I do not begrudge the experience. In fact, enough that I am now going to read more. And more, probably... and more... god there are a lot of them! show less

I love Terry Brooks. I love Scott Brick. I hate First King of Shannara.

I've been going through the Shannara series in chronological order, starting with Running With the Demon. Brooks has captivated me with his characters like Nest Freemark and John Ross and Hawk. Prue and Pantera weren't too bad, either.

I didn't connect with a single one of the characters in First King of Shannara. There seemed to be zero character development, the plot never seemed to change, and all this added to Scott Brick's over-dramatic reading left me exhausted. I couldn't wait to just get through the damn thing.

The Knights of the Word and demons fascinate me. I'm sad to see them gone by this point in the series. (I'm hopeful they'll return!)

All in all, I am a show more great fan of Brooks' works and of Scott Brick; however, FKoS fell well short of what I expected. show less

I love Terry Brooks. I love Scott Brick. I hate "First King of Shannara."

I've been going through the Shannara series in chronological order, starting with "Running With the Demon." Brooks has captivated me with his characters like Nest Freemark and John Ross and Hawk. Prue and Pantera weren't too bad, either.

I didn't connect with a single one of the characters in "First King of Shannara." There seemed to be zero character development, the plot never seemed to change, and all this added to Scott Brick's over-dramatic reading left me exhausted. I couldn't wait to just get through the damn thing.

The Knights of the Word and demons fascinate me. I'm sad to see them gone by this point in the series. (I'm hopeful they'll return!)

All in all, I show more am a great fan of Brooks' works and of Scott Brick; however, FKoS fell well short of what I expected. show less

I'm crushed! This is what I've always feared when rereading childhood favorites! This was good, but I didn't enjoy it very much at all. I started Sword of Shannara, I'm 130 pages in and I just can't get excited about it. I adored these books as a teenager! (It wasn't all that long ago either!) I just moved into a new apartment and brought these from my childhood bedroom, all 12 that I could immediately put my hands on! I wanted to get lost in this world that I once loved so much. Now I'm regretting the valuable shelf space their taking up here, regretting that I left Terry Goodkind's SWORD OF TRUTH in preference of these. I think maybe the time is just not right for me to try these again? I'll try again. I'm not ready to give up on Mr. show more Brooks. This is very disappointing. show less

I've read all of Terry Brook's works, starting with "The Sword Of Shannara", but I only recently came across "The First King Of Shannara". I must say that I did hesitate before buying this, as sometimes a Prequel is just a way of cashing-in on previous successes, but this is a real masterpiece. The background was all so familiar, the events new and quite gripping. I could not put this book down and was most disappointed when I had finished it.

I have only ever seen one other author pull off this approach as well. And that was CS Lewis. "First King" is a prelude book that was written after the main story, just as the first Narnia book (The Magician's Nephew) was written a long time after the more famous "The Lion, the Witch and the show more Wardrobe".

However, both books have the virtue of being able to be read before any other books, or after reading them, or without going ahead and reading any of the other books ever.

If you like the Shannara books, add this one to your collection. It does not invalidate the other books, and has the virtue of being a true starter book, even though written with hindsight. show less

This is basically a pre-quel to the Sword of Shannara, though set far in the past. As such, it parallels that novel in many ways. In this time, Brona has risen for the second time, which feels like the third time if you've read Sword often enough, and must be defeated by the usual alliance of Elves and Dwarves. This time, the Sword of Shannara has been created to help them, if they can use it.
As a foreshadowing of many of the events in Sword of Shannara, this book does its job, though it really feels like a repeat of that book, not a prequel.

I remember reading The Sword of Shannara ages ago and being enthralled with it. I think my tastes have matured, or changed at least. I picked this up off my husband’s nightstand because I was out of new stuff to read. My husband put down The Sword of Shannara because he’s said there’s too much traveling and not so much story. This book doesn’t enthrall me and I’m not sure why. There’s good conflict. There’s action. There’s not too much traveling. Maybe it’s too broad for the size of the book. Maybe not enough depth. Maybe I’m in a funk and not responding to the story the way I normally would. And the title bothers me because Shannara is a person but the title indicates a country. That’s a nitpick but it stays on my show more mind. show less