The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

This is the first book publpished by Terry Brooks. It came out in 1977 and quickly rose up the chats. An instant classic in the Fantasy Genre.

This book has mystery, romance, politics and titanic battles. Everyhting one would want in their Epic Fantasy telling. We are introduced to the main players in the first chapter. We quickly learn some of the history of the world that leaves you wanting to know more. The world is richly detailed, with intersting characters and an environment with a life of its own.

It has been said that this book is too close to The Lord of the Rings. I would agree that there are some similarities, however, I did not once think of any comparisons while reading the book (I had tead LOTR first). While there are some similarities, the differences are vast enough that this book stands on its own and the criticism is unecessary.

The book is also Terry's longest work. A stand alone novel in conception, it has a solid beginning, middle and end. The end, though complete, also leaves itself open to the possibility of more stories, from which we get the rest of the series.

I highly recommend this book. It is a slower read then others by Terry Brooks, but is in no way any less of an entertaining read. This was one of the first books I read on my own, without being required to for school. It was because of this book, that I found my love for the fantasy genre.

I like your review. I agree that it was a slower read but I thought it was really good. It's been a long time since I've read this book.

I actually just read it this past year. It was indeed a solid book and had a lot to it.

For a while I thought there were a lot of points in the book that were very corny, until I realized that it was one of the first 'fantasy' books and so the concepts, far from being so overused that they were 'corny', were still rather original. It's hard to wrap ones mind around something like that, just like I remember one of my friends only watching the original star wars movies recently and to them the concepts and effects were old by then.