The Sword of Shannara: a book review

The Sword of Shannara. Terry Brooks. 1977. Del Rey Books. Pages: 726. [Source: Library]

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Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil ruined the world. In peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knows little of such troubles. But the supposedly dead Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy everything in his wake. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness is the Sword of Shannara, which can be used only by a true heir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline, rests the hope of all the races.

Thus begins the enthralling Shannara epic, a spellbinding tale of adventure, magic, and myth...

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Rating: 3/5

When the librarian at my library suggested this book for the "library staff recommendation" category of the Bookopoly Reading Challenge my library is hosting, I was happy because my Dad had read it once so there was a bit of a legacy going on with how he read it and then I read it...

Maybe I'll make one or all of my kids read it when they're around my age, just so they can learn to appreciate well-written novels. I'm not saying that The Sword of Shannara was well-written, but it is something I've grown to expect from a majority of the novels from the era that in which was published.

So, while I wait for the forecasted thunderstorm to come barreling over my home, I'll discuss the pros and cons, and the things I liked and disliked about the story.

As the title of the novel suggests, The Sword of Shannara is about the Sword of Shannara—to an extent. It's mostly about Shea Ohmsford, and the fact that he's the only one left who can properly use the thing.

At the beginning of the novel, we're introduced to Flick Ohmsford—Shea's adoptive brother. He's walking along, on his way home from helping some of his fellow Man who live on the outside of the Shady Vale, the quiet and quaint Shire-like sanctuary protected by the Duln Forests that surround it on all sides. Suddenly, he comes across a stranger who seems to leap from the shadows of the trees to ask him for directions to a place to stay in nearby after nearly giving poor Flick a heart attack.

This is how Allanon, mysterious historian of the Four Lands, came to stay in the Inn of Curzad Ohmsford, the father of Flick and the man who took in Shea when his mother died. And that is how Allanon found Shea, and ultimately sent Shea and Flick on the adventure of their lives.

Now, this is the kind of story that leaves me feeling a bit disappointed when I finished it. Yes, I made it all the way through this 726-page MONSTROSITY (I say that because of its length, not because it was so bad as it could be considered monstrous), and I couldn't be more happy because now I can finally read something else.

But I didn't hate this book as much as some of my fellow Goodreads users. No, I think I was okay with it, but I feel it could have been stretched out a bit. The Sword of Shannara itself could have been stretched into its own trilogy in my opinion, with more details and more attention to each event as they happened. Then, The Elfstones of Shannara, and The Wishsong of Shannara could have continued on afterwards as consecutive instalments in a series.

There was too much crammed into this one book, in my opinion. Scenes were too generalized and I noticed that several important, probably pivotal conversations were glazed over and only described. Secondary characters were hardly introduced before they were thrown into battle where they were slaughtered (though I was kinda sad that Sheelon was killed by his fellow man because he had survived so long that it seemed he should have been allowed to die of old age and not in battle).

The main characters, too, kinda felt half-baked. Shea appeared and we weren't given much of a background other than he was the last living descendant of Jerl Shannara and he's the only hope for the whole world and his father was an elf and his mother was a human from Shady Vale and that when he was a kid Curzad adopted him. There was no mention of what he liked to do in the day, or much describing of what he did in his day to day life. What was his job? How did he help Curzad and Flick run the Inn? What were his dreams? hopes? passions?

Who Is Shea Ohmsford?

Who Is Flick Ohmsford?

Who Is Menion Leah?

Who Is Balinor Buckhannah?

Durin?

Dayel?

Hendel?

So many questions and no answers. That is one of the reasons why I'm disappointed about this book. I can only hope that The Elfstones of Shannara is better than The Sword of Shannara. I'm not holding out much hope though, and it will be a while before I pick up the next instalment of the trilogy.

I made the point of making a list of all the things that were similar between The Sword of Shannara and The Lord of the Rings because I wanted to know if the novel really was as bad as a lot of people on Goodreads proclaimed. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I like to stray from the pack that tends to follow and agree with those who rant and rave about how bad something is.

Similarities:

• A wizened old man (Gandalf / Allanon) comes to the main character warning them of coming danger.
• Two characters (Frodo and Sam / Shea and Flick) flee their home from ghostly bad guys out to get the main character.
• They encounter an ally in the first town they come across (Strider in Bree / Menion Leah in Leah).
• Unearthly monsters chase them through the wilderness.
• They battle a tentacle monster in a swamp (at the door to the Mines of Moria / in the Mist Marsh).
• There was an epic battle between wizard-figure and servant of the evil overlord over endless pit (Gandalf versus Balrog / Allanon verses Skull Bearer).
• The evil overlord's land is shrouded with shadow (Moria / Skull Kingdom).
• An evil advisor has control over the ruler of a strategic kingdom (Grima Wormtongue and King Theoden / Stenmin and Prince Palance Buckhannah).
• The evil overlord's forces attack the last real defence of the lands of the Free People (Minas Tirith / Tyrsis).
• The evil overlord is defeated by a magical object.

I also made it a point to jot down any differences that I noticed, because there is enough of a difference that The Sword of Shannara is just able to stand on it's own. Just.

Differences:

• While Gandalf returns 17 years after Bilbo's Birthday Party and sends Frodo and Sam off on their adventure, Allanon warns Shea the day after he arrives at the Ohmsford's Inn.
• The two-character dynamic in The Lord of the Rings is friend with friend fleeing the Shire, while the two-character dynamic in The Sword of Shannara is brother–brother.
• Frodo and Sam are quickly joined by Merry and Pippin, while Shea and Flick remain alone until they reach Leah.
• Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are kind of ambushed by Aragorn while they were waiting for Gandalf at the Prancing Pony. Shea and Flick go to the town of Leah and seek out Menion on purpose. Allanon is nowhere to be seen, and the two don't expect to see him there.
• Only nine Ringwraiths are chasing Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. An undeterminable amount of Skull Bearers are searching for Shea.
• On that point, the Nazgûl are chasing Frodo because Frodo had the One Ring. They were chasing him for the ring and nothing else. The Skull Bearers were searching, not chasing, having no idea where Shea was, because Shea is the last of Shannara's descendants.
• The battle in the swamp in LotRO happens near the door to the Mines of Moria, while the battle in the swamp in The Sword of Shannara happens in the middle of literal nowhere. The monster caught Shea, Flick, and Menion while they were on the way to a certain river that would lead them to the dwarves in the forest. They knew of a danger in the swamp, which they knew as the "Mist Wraith", but they had no idea if it was real or what it was.
• Gandalf fights the Balrog in Khazad-dûm until he wins, then dies of exhaustion before being revived by the Valar as Gandalf the White. Allanon battles the Skull Bearer in the bowels of Paranor, over the deadly flames of the castle furnace. He defeats the Skull Bearer, but is dragged into the furnace and assumed dead by the sole witness of the fight, Flick. Fortunately, he manages to survive by catching himself before falling all the way in.
• The Northland is a mixture of Mordor, that one shadowed island from The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and that poppy field from The Wizard of Oz.

Of course, there were too many similarities between The Lord of the Rings and The Sword of Shannara for my liking, though I wouldn't classify it as a "Retelling" of Tolkien's work. I find it bold, though, that Terry Brooks thought he could write a story so similar to Tolkiens so soon to its publication. The Lord of the Rings was published in the span of two years—1954 to 1955—while The Silmarillion was published in 1977, the same year as The Sword of Shannara. Nevertheless, LotR was still fresh on everyone's minds, and publishing such a story at that time would only be akin to setting yourself on fire as a writer.

I have no idea how Terry Brooks managed to pull it off—to make his book so popular that he was able to go on and expand the world of Shannara with nothing standing in his way.

Shea (portrayed by
Steve Moakler)

Frodo (portrayed by
Elijah Wood)

There are some things that I liked about the book. Shea's personality was nothing like that of Frodo's, and I liked how Brooks managed to make a point of making Shea see how flawed he was, since Shea had never seen himself as flawed or that he harboured any stereotypes (which he did, of the Trolls). Brooks managed to make the main character different from Frodo, as a human/elf hybrid is as far from a hobbit/halfling as you can get.

I managed to find a picture online of a man who kind of looks like how I pictured Shea in my head, so that was a plus. Thankfully, I liked the story enough that I was able to finish it, because if I hadn't liked it enough I wouldn't have finished it and I would have had to go back to the library and ask the librarian for another recommendation. My favourite aspect of the story would have to be, though, is the fact that it takes place thousands of years after a nuclear holocaust which brought the world as we know it (basically "the ancient Evil" in the synopsis) to an end. There are remnants of that world littered about the place—like in the Wolfsktaag Mountains, in a valley, there's the ruins of a city with an ancient guardian made of flesh and metal, obviously something mutated by the radiation from the nukes. And the Gnomes didn't dare to step in there, which obviously meant that in their culture there was a legend about the place which probably warned them not to go there because it might have been irradiated. The world's background in The Sword of Shannara was what fascinated me the most in this book.

The plot twists when they came were welcome and unexpected, placed in just the right places. I don't know when I will ever read The Sword of the Shannara again, but when I have money to burn I will buy a copy so I can have the chance to place it in chronological order like it is suggested on Goodreads. It'll be interesting to read Terry Brooks' books in chronological order because then maybe the story will make more sense.

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Read in order to complete a category for Bookopoly Reading Challenge.

Qualifies as the book read for the year 1977 for a Century of Books Reading Challenge.