Morgawr [Import] [Unbound]

Terry Brooks (Author)

Product Details

• Unbound
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 2002)
• ISBN-10: 034545863X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345458636
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Terry Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the Genesis of Shannara novels Armageddon's Children and The Elves of Cintra; The Sword of Shannara; the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy: Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr; the High Druid of Shannara trilogy: Jarka Ruus, Tanequil, and Straken; the nonfiction book Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life; and the novel based upon the screenplay and story by George Lucas, Star Wars(R): Episode I The Phantom Menace.(tm) His novels Running with the Demon and A Knight of the Word were selected by the Rocky Mountain News as two of the best science fiction/fantasy novels of the twentieth century. The author was a practicing attorney for many years but now writes full-time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A travelogue disguised as the ending of a fantasy series, October 4, 2002

By 

David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morgawr (The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, Book 3) (Hardcover)

I've been a fan of Terry Brooks' Shannara series ever since the first book. The series is both interesting in its own right, yet wrapped in a familiarity that's very pleasant to the fantasy reader. The main knock against the later books in the series is that Brooks' characters tend to be very similar to previous versions. The entire Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series has suffered from this affliction. Not only that, but Brooks seems like he has been treading water with this series. The third and final book, Morgawr, is more of the same: comfortable, yet just a little too familiar. Rabid Brooks fans will definitely love it. Other Brooks fans will find that they enjoyed it, but it left them feeling a little bit empty, like having eaten some Chinese food and feeling hungry a couple of hours later.

The main problem with Morgawr is that it is basically a runaround. The main characters run, the Morgawr and his mwellrats pursue them. Some of the party runs into a monster, some action happens, and it's over. It all builds to a final confrontation that's obvious from the beginning, and it can take forever to get there. Doctor Who fans may be familiar with the "endless corridor" aspect of that show, where it seems like most of the story consists of the characters running back and forth down corridors. This book had much the same feeling, only on a larger scale.

There are also a series of coincidences and other illogical happenings that make the eyes roll. The party regroups in a much too easy way after being separated for so long. They basically run into each other. A few of them are better explained, having been found by Hunter Predd and his roc, a huge bird with very keen eyesight who has been patrolling the area in the air. However, the others are just a chance meeting that strains credulity to the limit. Not only that, but the Ilse Witch wakes from her catatonia in order to heal somebody, and gives Bek a vital clue that he needs, before returning to her catatonic state. The clue makes this happening very important, but I don't really buy the ultimate reasoning for why it happened.

The characters in Morgawr aren't bad, and Brooks has no qualms about killing some of them. This is a very bloody book (series, actually, since it started in the first book). Again, though, the characters are very similar to characters in past Shannara series, and the recognition factor jars. Bek is pretty much the same as previous Ohmsfords, Quenten Leah is like the Leahs of old, with his magic Sword of Leah. The Rovers are, as a group, similar to characters in the previous two series. At least the two main Rovers, Redden Alt Mer and Rue Meridian, are fairly distinctive, and interesting in their own right. This is not to say that the characters aren't interesting, because for the most part they are. I just wish they were different. They're comfortable characters, however, and fans of the series will like them. If this is the first Shannara series you've read, you won't notice this and will probably enjoy them in their own right.

The final problem to mention is Brooks' tendency to have is characters brood. They do this a lot, and the most annoying times are when the characters are in danger, or waiting for danger to come to them. It's not unusual for a character to be on guard, or watching for something to come at them, and spend one or two pages brooding about his or her circumstances, what's happened on this mission, friends who have died, or whatever. For me, it breaks the tension rather than adding to it. I kept saying to myself "would you please stop thinking and just get on with it?" And since the characters are usually brooding about similar things (the events since they arrived here), it also gets a bit repetitious as well.

Still, it is an enjoyable series to read, even more so if you've never read a Shannara book before. Brooks really has a talent for action scenes, and when they happen they are usually exciting. You do care for the characters and they are three-dimensional for the most part. You never know whether a character is safe or not, which also adds to the tension. Brooks kills off quite a number of them. I really enjoyed the finale, as the Morgawr, who has been shown to be much more powerful than any magic Bek or the Ilse Witch have, is defeated by brains rather than "a lucky shot" or something like that.

While I enjoy the Shannara books, and give this one just over 3 stars, part of me wishes Brooks would leave Shannara for awhile, or at least try to do something new with it. The concept of the Jerle Shannara series *is* new, with a voyage across the sea, but he wraps it in too many familiarities for this reader. If this is your first exposure to Brooks, then it's not so bad, and you will be entertained. I guess that's not a bad thing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I could not put this book down!, October 17, 2002

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Morgawr (The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, Book 3) (Hardcover)

This book is the sequel to Antrax, and is the final book in the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series. With Antrax defeated, the scattered crew of the Jerle Shannara might have hoped that their worries were over. However, the Ilse Witch's mentor, the Morgawr, has come on a quest of his own. Grianne, in a catatonic trance, needs protection, and Bek, with Walker's words ringing in his ears, sets out to reach through to his sister. But, the world is now vastly more dangerous than any of the Shannara crew could have feared.

In this book, Terry Brooks takes the scattered crew, and brings the crew through many and diverse hardships, with danger keeping the reader ever on the edge of his or her seat. I could not put the book down! The reason I did not give it 5 stars, though, is because the story did have a certain disjointed feel to it, with one peril following another, driving the characters along before them, rather than a unified-feeling story.

That said, though, I enjoyed the suspense and action in this book. I think that this is another great Terry Brooks book, one that I would not hesitate to recommend.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to love it, ended up liking it, December 4, 2003

By 

sc_demandred (Irvine, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morgawr (The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, Book 3) (Hardcover)

The third book in the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy, Morgawr is intended to be both ending and beginning. The Ilse Witch, aided by the mortally injured Walker Boh, has taken the Sword of Shannara in hand and had the shocking truth of her early life and the Morgawr's deception send her into a near-catatonic state.

Meanwhile, the Morgawr, half-mwellret warlock with an eye towards becoming immortal, has descended upon Parkasia with a fleet of airships crewed by soul-eaten walking dead. He's searching for the Ilse Witch, also known as Grianne Ohmsford, and her brother, Bek. They ambush the Jerle Shannara and the Black Moclips, pursuing them into fog and dangerous mountain ranges.

Once again, Terry Brooks has flexed his creative muscle in building a high-jeopardy conclusion to this trilogy, but his prose style is resolutely expository, and causes the story to feel as rushed and hasty as it has from the opening pages of Ilse Witch. Monsters are battled, ships crash, heroics occur, romances bloom, but none of these carry much weight, because the reader can see them coming miles away thanks to Brooks' heavy-handed style.

What really threw me for a loop was reading the preview chapter of Jarka Ruus at the back of the paperback copy I have. Quite astoundingly, the writing style is everything I wish the style in Jerle Shannara had been: subtle, dialogue-rich, intriguing, and leaving plenty to be discovered.

I've since come to the conclusion that the style in Jerle Shannara is a by-product of the type of story Brooks is trying to tell. He's taken a literary snapshot of the Four Lands in the most unsettled period in it's history since the Shadowen occupation of the Heritage series. There is border war in the southland, Walker is the only druid, there are quirky relations between the rest of the races, and all seems tumultuous and chaotic. All reasons for Walker to attempt to seek the knowledge of science and techology of the past that was guarded on Antrax' hard drives.

The story, then, is told as kind of a roguish expedition; fast-paced, with action leading the way rather than introspection and dialogue. The problem with this approach is that the story had so many situations that called for dialogue and subtle writing, I think Brooks was forced to just explain it and get on to the next scene to suit the style he was shooting for.

The other problem is, if he had really gone to town and tried to let the characters tell the story through their actions and discourse, the books would have ended up being Jordan-length, and Terry Brooks just doesn't write 850-900 page books these days. I think the story might have been richer and more rewarding, but I do understand the choices he made.

Overall, I liked the series, and upon reading that excerpt from Jarka Ruus, I understand Jerle Shannara to be almost a bridge series to get to the High Druid books, which promise to be full of political intrigue and more druidical machinations. I, for one, always thought the world of Shannara was at it's best in the early days, when there were political struggles as well as fighting in the trenches. I'm hopeful that the High Druid series will fulfill that promise. In the meantime, though, you could do worse than read the Jerle Shannara series, and if you're a Shannara addict like me, you're going to do it no matter what.