I did not read this when I was in my teens, and I’m afraid my reading experience suffered for that. I hated everything about this book, from the plodding storyline to the writing to the cardboard characters. Nothing worked.
The Sword of Shannara is often written off as a Lord of the Rings copy, and while I didn’t like the book I don’t think that’s especially fair. It absolutely has similarities and I can see where that criticism is coming from, but I don’t think it’s any more similar to Lord of the Rings then say Divergent is to The Hunger Games. The plot is fairly standard, Chosen One goes on quest to defeat dark lord. He has a group of companions that join him along the way. There are dangers and blah, blah, blah.
I found it extremely boring. Not because it’s so derivative but because it’s just badly written. While Brooks was clearly trying to ape Tolkien, he aped all the wrong bits, like the landscape descriptions. I’ve heard people complain about the endless, ENDLESS, landscape descriptions in Tolkien and I’ve always wondered exactly what they were talking about because I don’t remember them being so bad, but there that bad here. Endless blahblahblah about trees. I skimmed PAGES (electronic pages, yes, but still pages) of text trying to get to the next plot point, or speaking place. But for all the endless descriptions there is so much telling and so little showing when it comes to the plot and characters. Also, how many times can you refer to a character by their nationality/race? I mean, who even does that? And not in a nickname kind of way, as a name placeholder. All over the place it’s The Valeman this and the Highlander that. (What’s really funny, is that as soon as I complain about this, The Virginian pops into my head as a novel where that writing technique works. Well it just DOSEN’T here. Ok.)
Now, to be fair, I do think there are some interesting ideas in the book. The idea that this is a post-apocalypse fantasy world is pretty cool. And while the idea that magic is dependent on groupthink is one I’ve seen explored in other places, I like it’s application here. Though I rolled my eyes when the dark lord was
logiced out of existence.
I can understand why someone who encounters this book early in their reading experience might love it, (which is why I tend to forgive very young people who love Eragon) but for me it was just not enjoyable at all.
Teenage me avoided this book, because I’d heard it was a LOTR derivative and I wasn’t really interested. I wish very much I had listened to teenage me, but the combination of The Shannara Chronicles on MTV and the fact that this is February’s book for Sword & Laser convinced me to pick it up. Honestly, I’m a little afraid to pick up my beloved Lord of the Rings (or my favorite of the epic fantasies, The Riddlemaster of Hed) after reading this for fear that it will be hit with the suck fairy.
I read this book when I was 15 or so, and didn’t have a favorable opinion. I definitely placed it behind Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind (two writers I don’t hold in high esteem) in the “epic fantasy” genre. Even then I thought it was derivative and plodding.
I think you’re probably safe to give Lord of the Rings another run.
Oh that’s a relief. I LOVE Lord of the Rings and I’d hate to think I’d somehow outgrown it. I attempted Goodkind years ago and couldn’t make it past page 25. At least with Jordan I made it through one of the books. I never finished Wheel of Time because I just didn’t care enough to pick up any more.
Honestly I’m more worried about how something like Dragonlance (which I LOVED as a teen) or Eddings stacks up to adulthood. I don’t really want to go back and read them. And I’m afraid if I do, they’ll end up getting hit with the suck fairy.
I loved Legend of the Seeker! So fun and campy and full of pretty people. And they managed to salvage large portions of the plot of those books and make them palatable.
It really was just one of the best shows. And then I attempted to read the first one of those books and NOPED right out at page 25.
I’ve read The Sword of Shannara as a teen, too, and it’s one of the few books I actually threw in the trash.
I still own several books by Eddings (haven’t read them in ages), and the Dragonlance Legends hold up surprisingly well.
That actually makes my inner teen breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, I’m not holding out any hope that they were actually good. I just really didn’t want to stumble across them a second time and have to question the sanity of a younger me.
I’ve wondered about David Eddings. I read those before Tolien, and loved them.
Don’t read Eddings as an adult. I tried it. I made it through the Pawn of Prophecy but that was it. I also tried the audio book hoping that it would give it a little something different. I had to return it. I couldn’t stand how certain names were pronounced. Did you know that Polgara is pronounced Pole-guh-ruh? I had been calling her Pole-gare-uh for years!
That’s how I pronounced it in the first place. But yeah, I don’t expect anything great should I re-read Eddings.
I did not know that. Like you I was pronouncing it Pole-gare-uh. Because that’s how it LOOKS like it should be pronounced. I’ll be honest, Eddings is one I wasn’t expecting to hold up very well. I have fond memories of reading them, but even when I read them I didn’t think they were GREAT books, just fun ones. The Dragonlance ones fall into a similar category. I’ll just go on my merry way and never revisit them.
I read however many of the Shannara books as there were when I was a teenager, because I read every fantasy novel I could get my hands on then. I remember them being fine just fine. Nothing too world shattering but readable.
Have you watched the tv show? I quite like it. It seems so suited to be a sort-of MTV pretty people thing. Cool visuals, neat outfits, YA romance. Fine just fine.
I am watching the TV show. It’s one of the reasons I decided to finally give this book a try. I’m definitely enjoying it a lot more then I enjoyed this book. Because there aren’t ENDLESS PAGES dedicated to scenery descriptions. I mean, it’s not great TV by any means (nor does it have that campy goodness that Legend of the Seeker had and was hoping they could recreate) but I think it’s slowly getting it’s footing and it’s an enjoyable watch for sure.
On a scale of 1-10, Tolkien’s writing is easily a 9-10 (if a bit old fashioned). Goodkind is a 2. Brooks is a 1. It doesn’t speak well for either author that only teenagers seem to appreciate their writing . . .
I love that scale. Love it. I went through some of the reviews on Goodreads, just cause, and noticed that quite a few of the positive ones were from people who said some variation of “I read this when I was a teen”. I really do wonder what it is about the books that appeals so much to teens. Because there really are better fantasy, even epic fantasy, books out there.
I mean, teenagers don’t appreciate language. At least, I didn’t when I was that age. Really great language made books better, but I never knew that’s what was happening–sublety goes over their heads, and they never seek it out or express it.
And I read SO MANY BAD BOOKS because I was more interested in my emotions being played like a fiddle with dramatic happenings and plot twists and such. Teenagers are dumb and romanticize a lot of stuff. Also, teenagers have no way to really judge originality. Like, no teenager ever read Wheel of Time and thought to themselves, this is too much like Tolkien, even if it is also playing off the standard Campbellian hero’s quest. They were like TROLLOCS. CHASES. FANCY LANGUAGE MUST BE SMART. Even smart teenagers do this!
And so on.