Customer Reviews

Antrax - The Voyage Of The Jerle Shannara, Book Two

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've read the entire Shannara series since I was introduced to The Sword of Shannara two years ago, in high school. I read the last book in the series, Isle Witch, last year. Luckily for me, Antrax was released about a week after I finished it.
I just finished this book last night, and I cursed Terry Brooks and his evil, evil tendency to write cliffhangers. He gave me four or five different cruel cliffhangers to chew on, and I felt ready to destroy something! I HAVE to know how this ends!! I eagerly await the release of Morgawr in September.
The book was very absorbing, just like the rest of the Brook's books, and I found it very easy using my imagination to imagine the world they were in. That's the nice thing about Terry Brook's writing - he's so descriptive.
Long live the Sword of Shannara!

"The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Antrax" had me completely spellbound throughout its entirety. I finished this book and quickly decided that it was by far the best in a long line of great novels by Terry Brooks. The character development is excellent; the plots are intriguing; and the twist are fascinating.

Even after finishing the third in the series, Morgawr, Antrax still gets my vote as Terry brooks best effort ever. Many criticize his Shannara novels for following similar plotlines every time, but a fantasy novel is a fantasy novel. And if you like fanatasy novels, then Antrax will most definitely sit prominently on your bookshelf.

Terry Brooks does it again.

Fascinating epic of the continuing saga of the heirs of Shannara. Terry Brooks introduces a new cast of characters that have been well developed leaving the reader with a sense of kinship to them all.

If there is a downside to the book, it would be that it mirrors too closely "the Matrix". To the Shannara fan, I do not feel that it takes anything away from the book, but I do believe that, to the new Shannara reader, it may act as a hinderance to those who will feel that the plot is a "poor imitation".

All in all the book is magical. The reader will be transported to another world. There is a part of each of us in every character. I highly recommend it.

In his new installemnt in the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series, Terry Brooks offers up a very unusual spin on his world of the Four Lands. Science and technology, hinted at and looming in the shadows of the readers perception is presented boldly here. The book is in many ways almost a science fiction with magic. It is this element which both intigued me and bothered me at different points.
The investigation of the band of companions into the city of Castledown continues from the first book, Isle Witch, and we learn that the technological marvels of the place are more sophisticated and far reaching than we first thought. The characters are plunged into a world so completely alien to them that you feel them being transported to another world. This blend of high fantasy and science provides the intrigue and the basis for much of the riveting action sequences. The story is fast paced enough to hold your nose to the page and the characters deeply defined enough to keep you from feeling like you are reading a comic book. In that respecta nd others, Mr. Brooks has found a perfect balance.
Why then do i only give it 3 stars? A personal preference actually. I am not or have I ever been a fan of the the magic-meets-science theme. Fantasy novels are pure escape for me and having something like a computer present never sits quite right with me. If science and technology are hinted at or used in the background in some way, I usually find it easier to swallow. As I said, just a personal peev.
That said, I must admit I found the book hard to put down and while I hold some of Terry Brooks' other novels in higher regard, I do not hesitate to recommend this one to an interested fan.

In this sequel to his wonderful Ilse Witch, author Terry Brooks continues the adventures of the crew of the Jerle Shannara. With the party sundered, each member must fend for him or herself. The seemingly all-powerful opponent that they face is given a name: Antrax. A creation of the Old World, it exists everywhere and nowhere at all; how can Walker defeat it? Bek confronts his sister, but she has long been wrapped in lies for so long, how can he reach her?

This book is even better than the first book of the series. Where that one laid the groundwork, this one built on it. The story is gripping, screaming along to the final page. Getting more and more enthralling with each page, it left me truly frustrated that I have to wait another year for the next chapter!

This is a great book, absorbing, with a fascinating storyline. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

If you are looking to relax and get away from it all, reading the adventures in Terry Brooks novels will certainly help. This book is no exception, I could hardly put this book down there is nearly non-stop action from beginning to end.

Following the Ilse Witch, first book of the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, the exploring party led by the Druid Walker found themselves on a faraway land. The map which led them there brought them to the site of an ancient ruin from an era bygone.
At the end of the first book, the landing party had been savagely assaulted by strange mechanical devices and subsequently separated from each other. Their ship was also ambushed by the Ilse Witch and taken over. The book had concluded with the first face to face meeting between Bek Ohmsford, heir to the Wishsong, and the Ilse Witch, who was also his long-lost siser Grianne Ohmsford, the only other living wielder of the Ohmsford legacy, the Wishsong.

The book Antrax has several separate, sometimes intertwining, threads running at the same time, which is similar to Tolkien's the Two Towers. Bek Ohmsford found himself trying to convince the Ilse Witch that she had been duped by the Mograwr and most of her life was a lie. Truls, the shapeshifter, fought hard to keep him alive and help Bek gain better control over his nascent prowess of the Wishsong when Grianne disbelieved him. Finally, Bek decided that he had to make Grianne face the truth, and allow himself to be "captured" by her.

Bek's childhood friend Quentin Leah, along with several elven Trackers, had been separated from Walker in the ambush in the ruins. With Tamis and Panax, they encountered a strange race of natives, the first sign of sentient settlers in that land. The natives had been hiding from the inhabitant of the ruins which they called Antrax. Recovering from their ordeal in the native village, the party learned that Antrax had been sending out mechanical moving machines to kidnap the villagers, disasssembling them and reassembling into part machine part flesh creatures. Quentin and company learned the truth of this when they saw Ard Partnell, an elven warrior who had fallen in the first ambush, being sent after them. Quentin learned the hard way of dealing with these machines.

Ahren, the unwanted elven prince, found himself cowering during the ambush. Shamed by his cowardice, he unwillingly escorted Rye Ord Star the seeress to enter the ruins in search of Walker. Unknown to him, both of them were weighed down by guilt of their own betrayals. Somehow, each must find a way to redeem himself and herself from the past.

Walker, who knew more about the supposed treasure than he admitted, found himself in a nightmare where an unknown being was siphoning off his magic. He finally realized the truth about Antrax later, and realized that the fabulous treasure could help or destroy the future of the world, and the choice fell on him!
Unable this time to let the people make their own choice, as previous Druids had done, Walker, for the first time, had to make the choice on behalf of the world.

A refreshing change in this book from previous books, Brooks as well as non-Brooks, was that the dialogue was more mature. Characters were less narrow-minded and could actually reason things out themselves. The success of Brooks in this case was that he could make them no less distinctive as individuals, each with his/her own sets of fears, hopes and dreams.

The background revealed so far was the Antrax was a legacy from an era prior to the Great Wars which obliterated civilisations, wiping out technological achievements of the world. With the mission to protect the libraries of knowledge, Antrax evolved somehow a need to gain more energy and sought this from the magical sources of the Four Lands, which had forgotten technology and had developed magic in its place.

The ending of the book was somehow unsatisfying, with cliffhangers for each development thread. For readers who got the book early, the waiting is simply killing.

I found this book to be a great improvement over Ilse Witch. I finally get the feel that I know the characters as each struggles to survive in Castledown and I enjoyed how the author incorporates the old world technology into the fantasy world. The characters confront the power of a machine that seems an eerie reflection of our own and the reader can't help but wonder if our civilization came before the magical present that is Shannara. The whole situation with Antrax was very well thought out and complex. Of course, the whole concept of sinister science reaches melodramatic heights, but it makes for a more compelling 'villain' than exists in most current fantasy. Brooks definitely brought some new elements to his writing in this novel and almost all was to the betterment of his work.

I got Terry Brooks's Antrax for Christmas and immediately dived into another of his always enjoyable books. This book surprised me as it bested the first volume of the series, Isle Witch. I liked Antrax because of the characters, the plot, and the new style of fantasy that he has created. It is not a copy of Tolkien's work. The plots are completely dissimilar. He mixes the plots with twists that hint at mysteries and deceptions that leave dying for the answer! The characters are appropriate and well developed and the story of the Isle Witch's self-deception is fantastic and imaginative. The new style in which Brooks writes is a techno-fantasy. There are now airships in the land of the Four Lands. It is growing up and magic that once dominated is being scorned. Antrax, which is a machine itself, is very fascinating. It is almost comical in how the characters describe the laser weapons (fire threads) as well as surveillance cameras and heat sensors. The book also introduces cybernetic creatures reminiscent of Star Trek's Borg Collective! It also strikes me that you can look back on the book and think that this could really happen! Great Book and a must read!

I cut my Fantasy reading teeth on Terry Brooks and JRR Tolkien. So I didn't have a lot of preconcieved notions about Brooks Books being the same as the Tolkien Books, but for a high school kid they were great,BUT to me they haven't evolved into anything greater. I expected the story lines to get more complex and the characters to be more involved. To me they have stagnated to go over the same thing again and again. New characters are the same as Shea.
A big bad guy is coming, a druid comes out of no where, The hero getstricked into going, everyone objects because of those crazy druids , they get elfstones, Sword, or wishsong and go a battling.
I have read several other authors now and they all had great hopes for this new series Antrax,but it revealed that it is more of the same again. the story is fairly interesting and it moves along ok, but all the hipe just barely covers the bland old story. I hope that the coming last book is much improved. The Scions series was at least different, I will still pick up the last book to see Bek use the wishsong on the warlock, the Elessedel prince use the stones on the warlock (then go back and take the throne), the shapeshifter will die, and some how the sowrd will be used to finish the job on the warlock. Probably by the Ilse Witch. Who will take everyone back to fight the bad guy in the end, she just doesn't know it yet. And If I am wrong I will eat my hat.