Poorly written generic fantasy. Has parallels to LOTR, without the interesting and detailed world.
All of the obstacles are paper tigers, even the big bad evil guy. It really undercuts tension when things are introduced and dispatched easily or ignored repeatedly. For example, the party is going into an ancient hall and the wizard tells them there are sphinxes that will turn themselves to stone if looked at, so everyone wears blindfolds. The next hall has banshees that will drive them mad with voices, so everyone stuffs cloth in their ears. The book is filled with this sort of thing.
The actual characters barely have any motivations or intelligence. At one point, the main character - who is on a mission to find the Sword of Shannara - encounters an evil guy who says he can sense that the Sword of Shannara is nearby. The main character doesn't even consider that maybe he should look around. Even when he opens a bag of swords shortly after and looks directly at the sword, he just ignores it.
It's serviceable fantasy schlock if that's what you want. I've read that the follow up books are supposed to be better. I'll read Elfstones eventually, since I bought these as a pair. I'm probably done reading Terry Brooks after that.
Poorly written generic fantasy. Has parallels to LOTR, without the interesting and detailed world.
All of the obstacles are paper tigers, even the big bad evil guy. It really undercuts tension when things are introduced and dispatched easily or ignored repeatedly. For example, the party is going into an ancient hall and the wizard tells them there are sphinxes that will turn themselves to stone if looked at, so everyone wears blindfolds. The next hall has banshees that will drive them mad with voices, so everyone stuffs cloth in their ears. The book is filled with this sort of thing.
The actual characters barely have any motivations or intelligence. At one point, the main character - who is on a mission to find the Sword of Shannara - encounters an evil guy who says he can sense that the Sword of Shannara is nearby. The main character doesn't even consider that maybe he should look around. Even when he opens a bag of swords shortly after and looks directly at the sword, he just ignores it.
It's serviceable fantasy schlock if that's what you want. I've read that the follow up books are supposed to be better. I'll read Elfstones eventually, since I bought these as a pair. I'm probably done reading Terry Brooks after that.
