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A review by joshwrose
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
2.0
I have a lot of thoughts, and mentioned some of them in my updates during my reading.
1. It feels like a knee jerk reaction to Lord of the Rings. Like Brooks thought the trilogy was too long and decided to write his own better version while still not truly understanding a lot of Tolkien's masterpiece.
2. This was Brooks' first novel, so he wasn't a very skilled writer when he wrote this and thus misused a lot of literary devices like foreshadowing, and despite wanting to be more "realistic" than Tolkien (no songs and less descriptive), still let's two characters fall in love in 2 days somehow. It's clearly written by a twenty something man from the 70s who hand feeds his readers information rather than letting them read between the lines.
3. If I read this as a teen before Lord of the Rings, I'd probably feel differently about it. Some moments were actually pretty interesting when it wasn't trying to be a copycat.
4. I probably would have taken much much longer to finish this book if I didn't also listen to the audiobook. It didn't demand my attention and it probably should have been a DNF for me, but I wanted to finish it because it was only /just/ interesting enough.
5. Of all the loose threads he tied up, he doesn't even consider explaining the deus ex machina Elfstones. He makes up and throws in random information about the Druid GandAllanon but not the stones which were Frodo/Shea's version of the One Ring to find the Sword that would destroy Sauron/Brona.
1. It feels like a knee jerk reaction to Lord of the Rings. Like Brooks thought the trilogy was too long and decided to write his own better version while still not truly understanding a lot of Tolkien's masterpiece.
2. This was Brooks' first novel, so he wasn't a very skilled writer when he wrote this and thus misused a lot of literary devices like foreshadowing, and despite wanting to be more "realistic" than Tolkien (no songs and less descriptive), still let's two characters fall in love in 2 days somehow. It's clearly written by a twenty something man from the 70s who hand feeds his readers information rather than letting them read between the lines.
3. If I read this as a teen before Lord of the Rings, I'd probably feel differently about it. Some moments were actually pretty interesting when it wasn't trying to be a copycat.
4. I probably would have taken much much longer to finish this book if I didn't also listen to the audiobook. It didn't demand my attention and it probably should have been a DNF for me, but I wanted to finish it because it was only /just/ interesting enough.
5. Of all the loose threads he tied up, he doesn't even consider explaining the deus ex machina Elfstones. He makes up and throws in random information about the Druid GandAllanon but not the stones which were Frodo/Shea's version of the One Ring to find the Sword that would destroy Sauron/Brona.