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Literature: The Greenbacks of Shannara
Fri, 22 Jul 2005

Do I plead the fifth or actually make this post? I debated this for a week, but in the name of bloganistic integrity.. here goes, and to heck with my reputation as sensible human being. I'm not really a literary elitist, but life is too short to read a lot of the bad and cheesie stuff out there IMHO, so I traditionally stick to known good authors or new (to me) authors recommended by friends. I wish I had more time and budget for just picking up random books (which is how I cam across so many great authors in the past, such as Steven Brust) but alas I do not. Still, sometimes you need to turn off your cynic and jump into some Robert Jordan or David Eddings and be done with (though usually its safer to just hit up some Phillip Jose Farmer instead :)

Anyhoo, Terry Brooks' Shannara series is undeniably one of the most popular (and profitable) series around. I believe I read some of it as a kid, but a couple months back I found myself in the mood for some so-called high fantasy (which I usually refer to as wank fantasy) - a term that seems to imply a high density of Tolkien-esque elements such as tall whispy elves who are friends to the forest and great in AD&D, short sturdy dwarves, a single world-saving artefact to be chased down and a great evil slowly sweeping across the playfield. Of course, Tolkien pretty much invented the modern fantasy genre and needs no description here, Terry Brooks series is essentially a formulaic knock-off. But thats okay, I knew that going in and so did manage to enjoy the first two volumes so far. (A note to my friends -- please keep talking to me ;)

The first Shannara volume (The Sword of Shannara) is weaker than the second, being presumably T.B.'s first work (or it seems like it), and is very much a summary of Lord of the Rings with different names. Still a pretty fun work, but not as good as The Belgariad by Eddings (another high fantasy series). The second volume (for these aren't thin novellas), The Elfstones of Shannara - is actually not too bad, though still a little on the juvenile side.

To his credit, Terry brooks does make for some fun large scale battles and does have a merry time describing each scene; perhaps the scenes themselves are not always original, at least they're usually great fun to be had... like playing through those first AD&D modules (Keep on the Borderlands, if memory serves) but without being interactive. (OKay, while I'm being elitist, I admit I did enjoy these books, but at the same time I know they're trashy novels so its a guilty pleasure. Like watching a B-Movie.)

Aside from the cliche characters (your main wizard wears all black, with a cowl hiding his face. Your dwarf is grumbly. Your wandering monsters come in at just the right regular intervals.), the one thing that bugs me about Terry brooks writing, is he has no sense of time scale. If a character can hop onto a horse and perform a crazed high speed race across 1/3rd of the known world in 2 days world-time, then the entire world is only a few hundred km across. Don't lets get into how long evolution takes when you base the world after modern man destroys it in WW3 2000 only years earlier..

Anyway, the series so far seems like innocent pointy-haired fun, scruples aside. Harry Potter is more innocent and fun with no pretentions, but if you can turn back the clock and enjoy the books for what they are - good fantasy romps where good will beat evil -- then these will please. And there are a lot of them, thats for sure, though at least T.B. knows how to finish a series.. unlike Mr. Jordan.

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