Customer Reviews

The Sword of Shannara: In the Shadow of the Warlock Lord

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Terry Brooks jump-started the realm of derivative fantasy with "Sword of Shannara," an unoriginal but pleasant fantasy adventure with your basic elves, dwarves, druids gnomes and medieval humans. While the book itself is fairly enjoyable, there's a not-so-pleasant surprise in store for fans who purchase "In the Shadow of the Warlock Lord."

Shea Ohmsford is not like the other inhabitants of Shady Vale -- he's part Elf. Despite this, he's always been one of the boys in his sheltered village with his adopted family, until the day the Druid Allanon arrives to tell him of his destiny; he's the descendant of the legendary Jerle Shannara, and the one who can use the Sword of Shannara against the Warlock Lord. Dark forces are clustering around Shady Vale, and soon Shea is forced to leave with his brother Flick, on a quest to find the sword.

The problem with this book is... it's not a new book. It's not even a complete book; rather, it appears to be half of the preexisting "Sword of Shannara" novel. In the manner of the split Robert Jordan novel, the first book of the Shannara series has been cut into parts and is being sold as separate volumes. Aside from this detail, those intimidated by the size of the complete novel may prefer this book. Others may be severely disappointed by the lack of conclusion in this book.

... His writing is descriptive, a bit overblown, but not too badly. His characters, while not earth-shattering, are pleasant and likable, such as the reluctant hero Shea and his more suspicious brother Flick.

While the concept of repackaging the Shannara books for kids and young adults is an interesting one, there is little warning that this is not a new story, but merely a preexisting one split into parts. Give it a miss if you already have it.

To me this book was an almost unbelievable rip off of the Lord of the Rings series... reading about Terry Brooks he even says that he was influenced by Tolkien in his younger days. That being said, if you can tough it out through this book, ALL of the other Shannara books and series are well worth reading. There are some direct parallels and some original ideas, it wasn't quite all a copy of Lord of the Rings... The writing is good, though maybe a bit unoriginal. This was my least favorite Shannara series book just because it seemed to be such a ripoff of Tolkien. I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it, just be warned that it is similar to LOTR. It does set the stage for the other books in this series and the other Shannara series books, and is worth reading just for that. None of those are anything like Lord of the Rings and Terry Brooks' creativity shines through in those. I also went on to read the Magic Kingdom of Landover series which are also good.

As somebody else noted - this is the same Sword of Shannara broken down into a number of parts and sold separately presumably to fool people into spending more.

The story is good and I would not hesitate recommending it to any fantasy fan but I'd rather have them read the original single book.

Instead of writing a typical review like I normally do, I will instead attempt to educate you, internet user who picked to worst review to read (I'm not kidding, read the others) on what makes a person gullible. Ready? Good. Okay, late 70's Sword of Shannara first published and it sells. Dude writes sequals, they sell, and so on. As I write this Amozon sells this book new for $7.99 or used for as low as a penny. But his review isn't about Sword of Shannara, it's about Sword of Shannara : In the Shadow of the Warlock Lord aka what happens if a six year old manages to rip a book in thirds. This sells for $6.99, as do the second and third, which makes the grand total $20.97 a difference of $12.98, as compared to buying the actual book. QUIZ TIME! finish this famous quote, "a fool and his money are ... "