Customer Reviews

Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! (Landover Series)

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm an avid fan of fantasy, but I'd read (or tried to read) other books by Terry Brooks, and not really been able to get in to them (probably my fault, but still. . .) Anyhow, this book was captivating from the first page to the last, and I found myself wishing that I could find a magic kingdom for sale in some odd catalogue, as Ben Holiday does in this book. As he journeys to the magic kingdom of Landover, he finds that being king of a fairy kingdom isn't all strolling through ferny forests and sunlit meadows -- for all is not well in this kingdom, and the king is the one with the heaviest load of responsibility. . . and the most pressing weight of danger. . .

I highly recommend this book to any fantasy fan, which at points is funny, mystical, romantic, action-packed; and it's interesting throughout. Enjoy, and the check out the rest of the series, because they're all great reads!

What can I say!? Terry Brooks is the one who pretty much spearheaded my interest in Fantasy with The Sword of Shannara, and from there I also went on to enjoy the tales of the magical kingdom of Landover. Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold is one of my all-time favorite books. I loved it as a child, and still love it as an adult. In fact, I've lost track of how many times I have read and re-read it over the years. It is a definite keeper, and one that I have recommended to all my friends, and anyone that has a love of Fantasy.

Have you ever wished that you could find a portal to another world? Have you ever dreamed of being swept away into a magical land with fantastical creatures? Well that is exactly what happened to Ben Holiday. He answered an add in a Christmas catalogue, thinking it to be a joke, and instead found himself stepping through the boundary between our world and the world of Landover ... and as it's king no less! Sounds wonderful right? Well, let's just say that things were not exactly what he expected!

Terry Brooks has spun a thoroughly enchanting tale with Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold! It has so many wonderful elements; magic, romance, fascinating creatures, humor, a hint of mystery, and lots of wonderful, quirky characters. But be warned ... once you pick it up, you will not be able to put it down until you have read the last page! And the adventure doesn't end there. There are four more books in the series, all equally as good as the first; The Black Unicorn, Wizard At Large, The Tangle Box, and Witches' Brew.

I highly recommend this book. If you haven't yet read it yet, then what are you waiting for?!! Buy it now! You will not be disappointed ... I promise.

Recently I finished reading an exciting book "Magic Kingdom For Sale:Sold" by Terry Brooks. I would definitely recommend this book to others that are interested in this author. This book may appear to be a classic style fantasy with knights in shining armor fighting dragons. But, Terry Brooks has managed to add an unusual twist to it by placing the setting in a large, modern city in the first part of the novel. This is a great book for summer reading because you simply cannot put it down. It may be a little more difficult for children under the age of eleven because of its length and some of the vocabulary. The story starts out in the large city. A well-known lawyer named Ben Holiday is the main character. Ever since Ben's wife died, he had been very depressed and in need of a break from the real world. One night, Ben arrives at his house from work and he has received a Christmas catalog in the mail. As he is flipping through it, he finds an ad for a private island filled with fantasy and magic. At this time he is strongly in need of a place to escape. He considers it. When Ben's working partner hears about this consideration, he becomes very angry. The thought that the top lawyer in the firm is considering making a serious dent in his finances by quitting, the idea doesn't go by him very well. From that point on, the book is an action packed adventure. This is one of those books that you can read over and over again and never grow tired of. I enjoyed how the book kept going from one problem to the next. I think that is what makes you keep reading.There are also two more books in this series. I can't wait to read them. If you have not read this book I highly encourage you to do so.

The book cover for 'Magic Kingdom' didn't look very promising to me, but I was inspired by its reviews, its comical premise, and the fact that Terry Brooks wrote it--hey, one of fantasy's best supposedly, though I never really made it through the first book of Shannara. The name itself suggests a fun, light-weight, humor filled adventure and that's what I went in expecting.

I was disappointed. Almost all elements of Landover follow standard fairy-tale cliches. Granted, that is pretty much what was promised, but the book did little to make up for its lack of originality, in humor or otherwise. It's actually quite serious and dry, and too much of it is just plain boring. Sometimes I found myself taking in the words as quickly as possible without bothering to visualize the scenes or soak it in, just to get on with it. Strange since usually when a book doesn't interest me I'll hardly finish it, I guess in this case, like Ben, I was stubborn.

It starts slow enough, introducing us to Ben Holiday's normal life preceding the purchase of Landover, and doesn't really pick up that much once he moves into the Kingdom and we are introduced to his four companions: bumbling wizard Questor, the talking dog squire Abernathy, and a couple of fierce monkeyish warrior kinda guys.

One major gripe I have is that Landover feels so barren, like endless plains of uninhabited earth. For the most part it fails to give us a sense of a real, living world. "Where are all the people?" I asked myself at one point. There was no sense of things happening, until of course the fivesome journey forth to wherever they must be for the story to progress and people seem to appear. At some points you'd think they're living on the moon or something.

It's really the last 100 pages that save my impression of the book, it turns into a real page-turner with some surprising and captivating elements. The character of Strabo the dragon is awesome, very well done, my favorite in the entire book. Most of the characters throughout are quite well done I think, if not outstanding. I take that back. They serve their purpose I should say, though some of the scenes between them strike me as cringe-worthily melodramatic. Let me quickly inject a complaint that the constant quibbling of Questor and the dog wore swiftly thin. I didn't care much for Willow, she seemed thrown in just to serve the "necessary" romance portion, which I didn't care for at all. It's forgivable since it wasn't the focus of the book but it was pretty straightforward and cringe-worthy. Throwing in a fairy-tale creature more-or-less reserved for Ben just seems like the easy route, and it kinda annoyed me adding to the "substanceless fantasy" feel. For being the only other female character can't say I'm too impressed.

Now I realize this review is starting to drag on so I'll sum it up. Terry Brooks still has work to do to esteem himself in my eyes, from what I've read of him he doesn't strike me as that creative and his writing lacks that... grandeur. I will pick up book two of this series because, even though it's far from the best out there, somehow it managed to keep me reading to the end and I came to enjoy Landover and its tiny group of mismatched characters. I wish to stick around a little longer.

This is a review of the Kindle edition the book.

It is good that Kindle edition of this book is free, as no effert has been put into making it a sellable edition of the book.

The text has obviously been OCRed (Optical Character Recognition) in which a printed version of the book was scanned and mechanically converted back into text (vs. pictures of the printed page). This OCRed text was never proofread.

The "book" is filled with upside-down exclamation points, non-English accented characters, and numbers where letters should be. For example, in the middle of one sentence I found the characters "1.1", and the sentence made little sense. It took me awhile to figure out that "1.1" should really be "I. I" and that my 1 sentence was really 2 sentences. Also, the name of the land "Landover" is constantly mis-"typed" with random umlauts, accent marks, and/or spaces in the middle of the word. Words with apostrophes often shed the apostrophe and adjoining character (e.g., "'s") and some random character is put in their place. All signs of the OCR software guessing letters incorrectly.

That said, the errors are distracting but not insurmountable. You can read the book, but are jarred out of the experience by obvious errors that could have been corrected if an intern/outsourced employee had been given the task of proofreading the results of the OCR software. Most people skim a book, and your mind will learn to just skim over the most obvious and frequent errors.

I am considering buying the next book in the series (if it is for sale) but am concerned about the utter lack of quality exhibited by the publisher.

Terry brooks is a master of fantasy. Magic Kingdom was the first book of his that I had read and it is so good that I have read it three times, given it to a friend to read, and then bought it again for my fiancee. It is always a joy to pick up a book, and within a few pages, be thrown into a fantastic world, on an incredible journey, with such vivid characters. I felt as though I had become the main character, Ben Holiday. And the link between this reality and the kingdom of Landover made it seem so ... possible. If you long to get away from it all and take an exciting journey, do it now, and buy your own Magic Kingdom!

This book breaks away from the bonds of normal fanatasy writing and yet takes you away from reality as well as even Tolkien could. If you're not much of a fantasy fan, I would still recommend this book very highly. It is very relatable. In fact, I recently just had a discussion with a friend about why we believe this is the best of all Brook's works and I came up with the fact that it may appeal to more mature audiences more than a book like Shannara, because it is easy to relate to the main character: a middle-aged lawyer from Chicago who's life has hit a plateau, and when he finally finds his fairy tale land, it is all to real, plagued with problems, deceit, and challenges just like every day life.
So many fantasy books follow the formula like Shannara: A young man of royal blood who somehow has spent enough time away from royalty to be street-wise admits his fate and saves the world (or kingdom, or whatever).
This book is an individual piece of art all of its own. Congratulations to Brooks. Most authors spend their entire careers trying to produce something like this, and yet here it is. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't take advantage of this opportunity and experience it for themselves.
As with almost all series I've ever read, the first book in this series (Magic Kingdom:For Sale-Sold) is definately the best. However if you are the kind of person who enjoys the continuation of stories like this, I highly recommend the rest of the series. However, if you are someone who thinks it best to leave well enough alone, you will still be able to live on satisfied with this story just of itself in your heart to treasure for years to come.
Happy reading.

Ben Holiday, a long-time lawyer, who recently lost his wife Annie, finds an odd advertisement in the Wishbook Catalogue. The ad stated that a magical land, Landover, is for sale for one million dollars. He decided that this would be perfect because it would allow him to forget his sorrow. Thus begins his adventure and his ascension to the throne of Landover. In Landover, he must overcome demons, dragons, witches, as well as human obsticles. This was a fairly enjoyable book. It lacked the usual complexity of other fantasy novels, but had a very interesting twist to the story line. The author writes with a sense of humor. He also adds love into the mix. I would recommend this book for a short quick novel to pass some free time.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found this book. It didn't look like much, but the story is fantastic. It pulls a normal modern day person into a wonderful fantasy land, complete with annoyances and it's own economic problems. The characters are very likeable and it's a very fun read.

I read this after the first Shannara books, so expected a great deal. I was not disapointed! A fun book which keeps you interested. If you want deep forget it, if you just want a light read this will do you fine.