I first read "The Sword of Shannara" by Terry Brooks as a child, honestly. I recently read it for my third time - it had been over ten years since my last read of it. I was in the mood for more fantasy and thought I would go through at least a portion of the Shannara series again. The first book did not disappoint.
I grabbed a copy of the first trilogy tome on eBay. It is a lovely and valuable collection - I wish it had some of the Hildebrandt illustrations in it that my initial copy had had. Alas, it does not. But I've included one of those illustrations in this blog just for fun.
It does have obligatory maps, though. One can't do fantasy without a map!
The Shannara series has often been criticized for reusing old tropes from other fantasy series - most especially from Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." I find this to be a little unfair and, indeed, having read both three times each now, I must say I like "The Sword of Shannara" more than "The Lord of the Rings." A likely unpopular view, to be sure, but it is a truthful one. Am just being candid.
Yes, fantasy novels have tropes in them. Various things that each are inclined to do to put together a fantasy story. I don't think that is damning. I think they are just characteristics of the genre. In this case, a band of unlikely heroes undertake a seemingly impossible task in an effort to save the world. That happens in most of these stories. It's fun. It gives the characters something to do and room to grow.
In the case of "The Sword of Shannara," each character does grow to varying degrees. Some have more fleshed out roles than others, but, ultimately, they all make individual contributions to the group's success. There are no placeholder characters. That's awesome. And one of them even lays down his life multiple times to that end - the last time even losing his life. They aren't invincible. That was one thing that often bothered me when watching or reading "The Lord of the Rings." The bulk of the characters, save Boromir, get through relatively unscathed. How is that? Was the situation really that bad, then?
This re-read, I was struck by the absence of religion in the book, especially having recently read "The Rivan Codex" by David and Leigh Eddings. They created religions for their fantasy world. The Gods were actually characters and had personality. There were religious documents and gospels. It helped to flesh out the world. In this case, Shannara is later (or even contemporaneously) envisioned to be a distant future, much-altered world. Were the religions native to our reality still a part of theirs? Or did they fashion new religions? The author is totally mute on it.
I did notice at least one mention of heaven and several mentions of prayer, but no elucidation of what anyone was praying to. It was mildly disappointing to me, during this re-read, that the world was only partially built. I understand there are probably many reasons to be mute on it at this stage of his professional career - this being his first novel. I just wish there were a little more boldness and daring on the part of the writer. That said, it probably wouldn't have been published had he included real religions and may not have been at that time if he had created his own. I'm sure it was excluded as it was considered an unnecessary distraction. I respectfully disagree that it is extraneous, but I understand any storyteller has to make a bunch of judgment calls about what to include and what not to and it's not my place to second-guess them.
"The Sword of Shannara," put simply, is a tale about a distant heir to a royal Elven line having to obtain and wield a mystic sword to vanquish the Warlock Lord, a fallen druid originally known as Brona. He is guarded by a motley party of advocates and some elf stones, which are both mysterious and extremely powerful. The party ends up being pulled apart by circumstances during their journey and splits up into several groups. Each group is tasked with their portion of the defense of the world against the Warlock Lord's assault. It's truly epic in scope and delivery.
I enjoyed re-reading "The Sword of Shannara" and there were a number of scenes that I hadn't recalled. Waiting this long to re-read it makes it not quite like reading it for the first time, but it does make it fresh. I'm looking forward to reading the next volume in the tome soon.
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