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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:An acorn falls far from the treeFormer Chicago lawyer Ben Holiday was very proud and quite happy. And why shouldn't he be? The Magic Kingdom which he ruled as High Lord was finally at peace. He was free to lie back and watch as his new daughter grew.
And grow she did--by leaps and bournds, shooting through infancy in a matter of months. She took her first steps and learned to swim in the same week. An amalgam of magic and heredity, Mistaya was born a seedling, show more nourished by soils from Landover, Earth, and the fairy mists, come into being in the dank, misty deadness of the Deep Fell. She was as lovely as her mother, the sylph Willow, with dazzling green eyes that cut to the soul. Ben wished he could enjoy his daughter's childhood and his happy kingdom forever.
Alas, those idyllic days were not to last. For Rydall, king of lands beyond the fairy mist, rode up to the gates of Sterling Silver and shattered peace of Landover. His armies were poised on the border, ready to invade unless Ben accepted a challenge: Rydall would send seven champions to face Ben, each in a different form. If Ben triumphed over all seven, Rydall would then abandon his claims to the kingdom.
Some counseled the High Lord to refuse Rydall's challenge, but Holiday could not, for Mistaya had been snatched from her guardians by foul magic. And Rydall held the key to her fate...
From the Hardcover edition.. show less
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I'm not sure what to think of this book. This is the fifth book in the series and I loved the first one so much, I've wanted to read all of the others. And most have been decent -- but not as good as the first one.
In this one, Ben Holiday and Willow's daughter, Mistaya, is growing at an astounding rate. She's two, but looks 10 and acts 15. In other words, she's a spoiled little bitch and entirely unlikeable and I didn't like this about the novel. And it centers around her, for the most part, so we're inundated with her attitude. So, someone comes to the castle and issues Ben a challenge for the kingdom of Landover. If he can defeat seven monsters, he'll keep his kingdom. If not, the challenger gets it. Strangely, though, Mistaya is show more kidnapped almost immediately and used as bait for Ben to follow this stranger's rules. While traveling with Mistaya in a fruitless effort to find her safety, Questor and Abernathy are sent back to Ben's home world of Earth, where Abernathy is turned from dog back to human and he is elated. Of course, not all is as it seems. Nightshade, the witch, is behind everything and steals Mistaya to train her to become a witch -- and to unwittingly kill her father.
In the last book, I complained that Ben seemed pretty dense, which was odd considering that he had been a high priced, successful attorney in Chicago and was now king of the land. In this book, he's just as dense and so is Willow. In fact, they spend most of their time together in the book "holding" each other for support -- and that gets pretty damn old very quick.
There is magic in this book, of course. And we get to see some of the characters we know and like, such as the Earth Mother and her mud puppy and Strabo, the dragon. And Ben does somehow defeat several monsters through the help of his alter ego, the Paladin. But by the time Ben has figured out what's going on, the reader figured everything out eons before and is annoyed by his ineptitude and I've got to fault Brooks for that. I want to give this three stars, but because it's a Landover book and I enjoy the series and because it does introduce some new people and elements to the setting, I'll give it four. Cautiously recommended. show less
In this one, Ben Holiday and Willow's daughter, Mistaya, is growing at an astounding rate. She's two, but looks 10 and acts 15. In other words, she's a spoiled little bitch and entirely unlikeable and I didn't like this about the novel. And it centers around her, for the most part, so we're inundated with her attitude. So, someone comes to the castle and issues Ben a challenge for the kingdom of Landover. If he can defeat seven monsters, he'll keep his kingdom. If not, the challenger gets it. Strangely, though, Mistaya is show more kidnapped almost immediately and used as bait for Ben to follow this stranger's rules. While traveling with Mistaya in a fruitless effort to find her safety, Questor and Abernathy are sent back to Ben's home world of Earth, where Abernathy is turned from dog back to human and he is elated. Of course, not all is as it seems. Nightshade, the witch, is behind everything and steals Mistaya to train her to become a witch -- and to unwittingly kill her father.
In the last book, I complained that Ben seemed pretty dense, which was odd considering that he had been a high priced, successful attorney in Chicago and was now king of the land. In this book, he's just as dense and so is Willow. In fact, they spend most of their time together in the book "holding" each other for support -- and that gets pretty damn old very quick.
There is magic in this book, of course. And we get to see some of the characters we know and like, such as the Earth Mother and her mud puppy and Strabo, the dragon. And Ben does somehow defeat several monsters through the help of his alter ego, the Paladin. But by the time Ben has figured out what's going on, the reader figured everything out eons before and is annoyed by his ineptitude and I've got to fault Brooks for that. I want to give this three stars, but because it's a Landover book and I enjoy the series and because it does introduce some new people and elements to the setting, I'll give it four. Cautiously recommended. show less
We're introduced to Ben and Willow's daughter but she's already aged quite a bit. She's odd and the way she's described, she doesn't come across as all that loveable. I certainly didn't like her. The plot was stronger than the characters. I always thought Elizabeth didn't have much depth and she still doesn't. This could have been a lot better.
The final (until the next one is written) book in the Landover series! I couldn't believe how disinterested I was in Ben and Willow's storyline. I wanted to spend much more time with Nightshade and Mistaya or Abernathy, Quester, and Elizabeth. Maybe that's because I feel like Willow and Ben have gone about as far as they can go as characters. They do reveal some very personal secrets to each other in this book, but they're always accepting of each others' (mostly Ben's) faults. Mistaya, on the other hand, gets to hear Nightshade's history, though somewhat edited, and they develop a strange friendship that you know can only be doomed in the end. I think that Terry Brooks has some real potential with his villains, but we spend so much show more time with the heroes of the story, who are fairly bland in comparison, that we hardly ever get the villains' perspective. More Nightshade!
Maybe it's just the move to Washington, but it was very cool to see Abernathy and Quester set in a local environment for me as a reader. I was hoping Elizabeth would reappear in the series, but the potential relationship between herself and Abernathy gets dumped by the wayside for Ben and Willow's story. *grumble*
Okay, I'm complaining a lot. I did like this book, but I never felt pressed to keep reading, so I started and stopped several times along the way. The side characters her are much improved and, while it's not my favorite Landover book, I thought it was a good one. show less
Maybe it's just the move to Washington, but it was very cool to see Abernathy and Quester set in a local environment for me as a reader. I was hoping Elizabeth would reappear in the series, but the potential relationship between herself and Abernathy gets dumped by the wayside for Ben and Willow's story. *grumble*
Okay, I'm complaining a lot. I did like this book, but I never felt pressed to keep reading, so I started and stopped several times along the way. The side characters her are much improved and, while it's not my favorite Landover book, I thought it was a good one. show less
Ben Holiday faces a dual threat to the Magic Kingdom of Landover when his rapidly growing daughter, Mistaya, is kidnapped by the witch Nightshade and a menacing ruler named Rydall forces him into seven dangerous contests for control of the realm. While Ben battles for his kingdom, his allies work to rescue Mistaya.
Another enjoyable entry in the Landover series. I have really enjoyed this series, and I hope Brooks pens more in this series after the next entry.
Okay I guess. more of the same. had the feeling I've read parts of the book before
This book had absolutely nothing interesting in it. Which is why it was the last of the Landover novels. But it was typical Brooks, so who knows why this series didn't take off like the Shannara one
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Author Information
147+ Works 111,867 Members
Terry Brooks was born in Sterling, Illinois on January 8, 1944. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Hamilton College and a graduate degree from the School of Law at Washington and Lee University. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a practicing attorney for many years. His first book The Sword of Shannara (1977) was show more the first work of fiction to appear on the New York Times Trade Paperback Bestseller List. He made the list again with his title The High Druid'd Blade: The Defenders of Shannara. His other works include the Word and Void trilogy, The Heritage of Shannara series, Magic Kingdom of Landover series, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series, High Druid of Shannara series, Genesis of Shannara series, and the novelization to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Witches' Brew
- Original publication date
- 1995-04
- People/Characters
- Ben Holiday; Willow; Abernathy; Questor Thews; Nightshade; Mistaya Holiday (show all 7); Rydall of Murnhall
- Important places
- Landover
- Epigraph
- All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to he... (show all)r mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan - Dedication
- To Lisa.
For always being there.
&
To Jill.
Because you must never give up
on yourself. - First words
- The crow with the red eyes sat on a branch in the towering old white oak where the leafy boughs were thickest and stared down at the people gathered for their picnic in the sunny clearing below.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)When he did, he could almost swear they were human.
- Original language
- English
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- 10,273
- Reviews
- 11
- Rating
- (3.59)
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- 7 — Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 47
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- 13