The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The Sword of Shannara was a very popular book back in the 70s right after the huge success of The Lord of the Rings when everyone wanted to read more fantasy. I wasn’t old enough to read it back then, so I came to it much later. I read part of the first book and, knowing how popular it had been, and feeling like it was a classic, I was prepared to enjoy it. About half way through I gave it to my ten year old son. The weird thing is, it’s so like The Lord of the Rings, at the same time that it’s not. I don’t mind a few common fantasy elements (especially in works written before they were cliché), but Brooks’ plot and characters come almost straight out of Tolkien. This may have been acceptable if the writing had come straight out of Tolkien, too… Read the rest.
