Customer Reviews

A Princess of Landover

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm a huge Terry Brooks fan. As I write this review, all his books are sitting on the shelf next to me (with the exception of his adaption of Star Wars, Episode I - The Phantom Menace and Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life.)

Magic Kingdom for Sale--Sold! (The Magic Kingdom of Landover) was the first book of his books I read. Part of the attraction was his wonderful depth of character, and the way the characters, while still in character, used all of their resources to surmount the problems in front of them.

In this book, by contrast, characters seem one-sided, and, frankly, there are too many. In passing, Brooks brings back nearly all the characters of the Landover world. To explain all of them, recaps of all of the previous books are required. These recaps are seemingly stuck into the story (one particularly artificial-feeling (3 page!) one has Ben Holiday thinking to himself about his past while standing around.)

Worst of all, at least in my opinion, by bringing back all of the characters, Brooks lets plot holes abound! We know how Ben Holiday reacts when his daughter is missing--how is it that much of the book goes by without him having an original thought? If you want to have the focus be around Mistaya and her efforts to overcome adversity, give us a reason for why her extremely powerful family and friends cannot come to her aid. An earthquake, perhaps.

Furthermore, he created wonderfully complex characters in the Landover world. Even the evil Nightshade and semi-evil/good Strabo are shown to have delightfully complex personalities, quite understandably because of their complex pasts. In this book, unfortunately, they are all given one-sided roles to play. For someone attracted to Brooks's ability to create such characters, this was a disappointment.

Now, you know an author has done his job when you pick up a book and not even fifteen pages in you feel inspired to write. Despite not having felt particularly excited about writing in the last couple weeks, that was exactly how I felt when I picked up this book.

Sure, it's been 15 years since the book before it in this series was written so I'm a little rusty on the story line but even so it's easy to pick up and Brooks gives you enough details to go along even without remembering everything from the previous five books in the series. Disclosure here, I have a soft spot for this particular series. When I was really little I would always demand that my dad make up stories to tell me when I was bored (for example, waiting to get a haircut or something). He used to take the characters from the Magic Kingdom For Sale-Sold series and make up short stories about them. When I finally read the book myself it had a whole new dimension to it because I already knew and loved the crazy characters and their quirky personalities.

Terry Brooks has since become my favorite author. Out of the 24 books I've read of his, he has yet to let me down. (Something else to note, it takes Brooks only about a year or two to produce a new book, which is fantastic and exciting for readers.)

What strikes me about this book is the way he falls perfectly into the tone of the main character, Mistaya Holiday. In this case, unlike most of his other books, a fifteen year old is driving the story and the voice matches accordingly while still maintaining the mystery and intelligence of his other books. There's always more going on than you can predict even though you are constantly being provided with clues that, when the solution is found, click into place.

This series takes place five years after Witches' Brew. Mistaya Holiday, now fifteen, has been sent to her father's world (Earth) to make friends, learn about people, and receive an education she can't get cooped up in Sterling Silver (the magical, living castle that takes care of the royal family of Landover) with only inept wizard Questor Thews, Abernathy the half-dog half-man scribe, and a magical mud puppy named Haltwhistle for companions. Not a big fan of this plan, Mistaya manages to get herself kicked out of the boarding school where she was sent and returns home to a not-so-thrilled father. To make matter worse, a not-so-nobleman, recently widowed, has asked for her hand in marriage. To make matters worse, her father decides she should go to Libiris, the royal library, abandoned and located in a remote part of the kingdom, to continue her education. Being fifteen, Mistaya is none to thrilled with her parents decision and runs away, intent on staying away until she can come up with a better option than those offered to her. But where does one go when trying not to be found? (Especially when your father has a magical devise that allows him to scan the entire kingdom better than if he had a GPS tracker?) To the last place he will look for you. Which, in Mistaya's case, is Libiris. But things in Libiris, though forgotten by the citizens of Landover, is not as forgotten as Ben Holiday would have liked and Mistaya soon finds the old library filled with mystery and danger. Can she get to the bottom of everything and save Landover in time?

If you haven't read the rest of the Magic Kingdom Series at all (beginning with Magic Kingdom For Sale-Sold) you'll find yourself confused while reading A Princess of Landover, as this one picks up where the others left off and many of the details are directly related to what happened in the other books. But if you have an even vague sense of the past, then you will find the return of old characters welcome (in particular we get a suprise visit from the ever mysterious Prism Cat Edgewood Dirk) and an exciting new tale in store.

The biggest downside to the book was that it felt rushed. Where most of Brooks' books tend to be somewhere in the six to seven hundred page range, this book was only a little over three hundred pages. Not to say that a book needs to be long to be good, but it felt as though the long journey and the character growth that normally comes from it happened almost instantaneously. I would have likes a little more time in the various places that Mistaya went and for it to be a little more difficult for everything to come together in the end.

But even with the faster than normal novel, I was more than thrilled to get back to Terry Brooks's world-any of his worlds. Landover is still as rich in detail and life as ever and Brooks has set it up for much more adventure to come.

Once upon a time, there was a kid who loved reading fantasy novels. His name was Steve. One day he stumbled across a novel by Terry Brooks called MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE--SOLD!, and he loved it. It was a fairy-tale of sorts where a struggling man in our world sees an advertisement that will allow him to purchase a magical kingdom for the sum of one-million dollars. What followed was a fantastic adventure that allowed the imagination of that kid to wander...

OK, you get the point. Enough of the sappy. Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover series was my first exposure to an Urban Fantasy-ish story, and like the first Shannara novels, holds a special place in my heart. It was very much in the tradition of Narnia, but for an older crowd. The Landover novels never really got the reviews or sales that the Shannara series did, but Brooks kept writing Ben Holiday's adventures anyway.

And they got worse and worse with every novel.

A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER marks the sixth novel in the Landover series, and the first one in over a decade. I had hoped this would be a reboot of sorts, and that it would recapture my imagination and return Brooks to the ranks of goodness.

Instead it is the worst novel Brooks has ever published. This includes his novelizations of the movies HOOK and STAR WARS: EPISODE ONE.

The book is short (300 large-print pages), which is good, because I couldn't have withstood a page more. In this 300-page novel, there are 50 pages of actual plot and story. It mainly deals with Mistaya Holiday's inability to fit anywhere, and then her running away--yep, that's it. The remaining 250 pages? Recap. That's right, we get to be reintroduced to every organism in the Landover universe. And not only once, but several times, from every PoV. Repetition is repeatedly one of the biggest repeated problems with this repetitive novel. Yes, the novel was even more obnoxious than that last sentence.

How many times do I have to read the same description of a creature or event? How many times do I have to be told that Mistaya Holiday (Ben Holiday's daughter) is fifteen, but with the mind and maturity of a woman in her twenties? Apparently, Brooks needed to remind us of this once a chapter (at least). Of course, Brooks' take on the mature teenager means that she whines more than any teen in history, and actually acts more like a petulant ten-year-old than the super-mature fifteen everyone says she is. Mistaya is the worst character Brooks has ever written. No joke. It's a glaring issue, and one that cannot be overlooked.

In addition, somehow the brains of every major character have been scooped out and eaten by, I can only surmise, zombies (if only zombies had actually been introduced...*sigh*). Every character is stupid in their actions and thoughts. And I swear to you, Ben Holiday spends the entire novel looking in mirrors reminiscing on the events from the prior five novels rather than looking for his daughter when she goes missing. The novel should have been titled The Magical Cliff's Notes of Landover. Seriously, the segments start, "Ben looked in the mirror and took a moment to reminisce..." These go on for pages. You know what? If I want to know about the events in those novels, I'll go out and buy the re-release omnibus editions of the prior novels. Don't beat me over the head with redundancy. Does Brooks not have an editor anymore to catch these things? Someone is riding on the laurels of prior success...bad form, Terry...are you related to the other Terry? Terry Goodkind? It would explain a lot...

The villain? He is a librarian. Brooks must have read THE HISTORIAN (where Dracula's nefarious plot is to have historians catalog his library, and is also known as the worst Historical Fiction ever written), and decided this was a fantastic idea. Uh huh. Terrifying.

It came to a point where I had to stop and think about what made Landover great to begin with. The Paladin, Ben Holiday and his wife Willow, Demons, Witches, faeries, dragons, magic, and the bumbling wizard with his friend the talking dog. None of these aspects were improved on. In fact the Paladin--arguably the most important aspect of the series--wasn't even shown. Magic was used three times--inexcusable in a series called The MAGIC Kingdom of Landover. Simply put, there was nothing in this story to hold my interest, and is really a Landover novel in name only. It was boring. Really, really boring.

If you want a Landover novel to read, go pick up THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER VOLUME 1. It has the first three novels of the series in it, and they are the only ones worth reading. Don't, under any circumstances, buy A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER in hardback. If you absolutely MUST have it, wait until it comes out in paperback...then wait a little longer until some other sucker sells his paperback to a used bookstore and buy it from that store for no more than $2.00. I'm not joking. $2.00 is the most money any sane person should waste on this pathetic excuse for a novel. Was Brooks just filling his pockets here, or what?

The absolute worst thing about this novel? Well, for a moment it looked like Brooks was going to be writing this garbage from now on. However, in an interview I read, Brooks mentioned he had no intention of writing anything else in this universe. If that is the case, and he wasn't misquoted, then this is one of the saddest excuses for a novel in recent history.

Recommended Age: This isn't an adult fantasy. It is a poor attempt at YA that is masquerading as a novel for adults. If you are 12 years and up, you are smarter than everyone in this novel. It should tell you something when the only cover-quotes Brooks has now are from YA/Children's authors like the terrible Paolini and Pullman.
Language: The Landover series was where Brooks allowed himself to be an adult, and it usually had more language and adult content in it. There isn't any here. It's for kids.
Violence: Nope. Very, very disappointing. There isn't even any suspense...
Sex: Alluded to, but nothing you don't see in Pixar movies.

I thought overall it was a good book, but not as good as I was expecting after Witches' Brew. The main problem I think is seemingly under-present, underpowered villains. The fact of the matter was that Mistaya with magic (if not experience) on par with Nightshade is one tough princess at the end of the last novel. In this novel, though, the antagonist doesn't even appear until 2nd half of the book (the landowner doesn't count he's just too lame and pathetic). Then, during the fights the obvious way to handicap Mistaya's powers seem to be to have her friend act heroic by knocking her down (to get her out of the way of dangerous blows) right before she saves the day, or throwing valuable keys to the enemy (to obviously keep them away from his good friend).

On the other hand, much better than the action was the plot. I think the fifteen-year-old melodrama was well done (although a bit weird considering she's supposed to be physically 15 but have a mental age of 22). Also, I relished the introduction of old and new characters that really stayed true.

As a long time fan of the Landover novels, I eagerly grabbed this book up as soon as I could. It'd been far too long since I'd last read about all of my favorite characters. What I discovered here in this book wasn't entirely the Landover I'd grown to love. Rather than focusing around the regular cast of characters, this book focuses more on Ben & Willow's daughter, Mistaya.

The plotline follows Mistaya as she's suspended from her school in the ordinary world of her father's. Rather than stay & try to reason with the headmistress, she returns back to Landover & discovers that her parents are less than pleased with her. Her father's response is that she either has to help reorganize the royal library at Libris. Naturally, she doesn't want to do either. The biggest affront to her is when one of the Lords of the Greenswald, the loathsome Laipfrog comes calling for her hand in marriage. Mistakenly believing that her father is actually entertaining the idea of marrying her off, Mistaya runs away from home only to eventually end up at the very place she was trying to avoid- Libris.

I did enjoy this book, but I have to admit... it wasn't really the same thing I'd enjoyed previously. If anything, this read like it was written as more of a teen book than an adult one. That doesn't mean that it's a bad read- it's just different from what has come before it. One other reviewer said that the characters of Willow & Ben are pretty much cardboard standups of their previous selves & that's pretty much true. If you're hoping for good old Ben action, you'll be disappointed. The book predominantly follows Mistaya & Ben is resigned to a worrying & demanding parent. Luckily for me, Libris was an interesting mystery for me to read about & was much more interesting than Mistaya's worries. (For someone with a mental age of 22 she didn't seem to act like it most of the time.) The big revelations at the end really aren't that surprising & there's a bit of a cliffhanger that gives us the possibility for a future book. I just hope that the future book is better in including Ben & Willow rather than turning it into the Mistaya show.

As a standalone book I rather liked it & would give it 4 stars. As a Landover book & the first one we've had in years, I'd only give it about 3 stars.

I've waited 14 years for a new 'Magic Kingdom of Landover' novel! This book is fantastic from beginning to end. The daughter is a great new character and I love how she is so strong-willed and intelligent at age 15. It is a bit creepy that that landowner wants to marry her, but it just show what a despicable cretin that guy is. Brooks is able to make his fantasy characters seem like real people with real emotions, something that is hard to do in a fantasy novel. Can't wait for the next installment! I thought it was hilarious the way Brooks copied 'The Wizard of Oz' when Mysteria arrived at the library!
It was obvious that it was done out of respect and tongue in cheek. I hope he writes another 'Knight of the Word' novel also. The 'Shannara' series got old for me years ago. This is a novel that can be read as a stand alone book, but i recommend that you get all the 'Landover' novels and read them.

I have read many of the other books in the series and this is without a doubt the worst. It seems to take 200+ pages for anything of interest to happen, and the book is less than 300 pages long. There really is neither interesting action nor development. I am surprised I actually finished this book.

I am a huge Terry Brooks fan and I tried to like this book (the fact that I finished it is a testament to my committment). I kept waiting and hoping the payoff was coming, but it just drudged along. This may have been the most boring book I've ever experienced. I was shocked. I kept waiting for an explanation or any reason why the fairies were so interested in her. She was extremely unlikable and not very impressive. Terry did nothing to elaborate on why she was important and why we should care. I wonder if he just had a contractual obligation to write a Landover book and whipped it out. Absolutely aweful and boring.

This is Mistaya's story. The familiar denizens of Landover all make cameo appearances, but are peripheral to the main storyline, Mistaya's search for independence. I kept thinking, Holden Caulfield goes to Landover. Not quite. The book is even paced, too even. There is not as much action or suspense as in the other books. The story is well written. There is enough background exposition to allow someone new to the series to understand what is going on, although I would rather someone new to the series to start with the first book because it is a much better story. The other books in the series should not be read out of order.

Fans of the series waited many years for another book. While grateful for the continuation, I hope the next volume will continue the trend of increasingly complex storylines that was so evident in the first five books. Mr. Brooks has definitely left a setup for book seven.

I've been an avid fan of Terry Brooks for years, having read as many of his novels as I could get my hands on. His Shannara series captivated me, as did his Landover books. I could hardly wait to read the last Gypsy Morph book and was engrossed from the first page to the very end. I was terribly disappointed in his A Princess of Landover, however. The plot, such as it was, was flimsy and rather pointless; the "princess" was largely a disagreeable, spoiled teenager that I was unable to care about at all. Unlike his previous books, this one did little to develop princess Mistaya's character or to interest me in her undertakings. Frankly, I'm amazed and disappointed that Terry Brooks published such drivel; it certainly was WAY below the standard I've come to expect from him.