Help! Stop Me before I Read Terry Brooks, Again.

What Terry Brooks Does Well

Crisis averted. I started but could not finish Wards of Faerie.

Shannara is comfort fantasy. Aw shucks heroes. “Little companies” on the inevitable reluctant journey to save the world stopping for rest and to eat dried fruit and cheese “hungrily.” The use of elf stones comes with a price. And the recovery of a MacGuffin to win the fight against the unbeatable Durth Durthbad or whatever the villain’s name is this time.

Brooks, to his credit, writes smooth prose. His stories, though, are populated with flat Mary Sue and Harry Sue characters like Aphenglow Elessedil in Wards of Faerie. She’s a Druid. A tracker. An expert pilot of air skiffs. And oh yeah, trained in hand-to-hand combat.

The Four Lands is a familiar place. The use of magic is rare, and usually frowned upon. Books by Brooks are quick reads and don’t demand much from the reader. I confess. I count myself a fan.

But plots are formulaic. Pages are filled with internal monologues of characters second guessing what should be done only to finally decide to take the heroic path because it must be done. Brooks leans heavily on this trope over and over again in an attempt to build tension and elevate the moment. Instead, it feels like filler.

Every Shannara novel leaves me with the same reaction: why do I keep reading Brooks?

One book by Terry Brooks stands apart: The Druid of Shannara. The second book in the Heritage of Shannara quartet, The Druid of Shannara can be read alone. There is love. Loss. Betrayal. And a truly horrific evil. Brooks goes gray in this one. Joining his latest version of the “little company,” is an assassin who schemes to kill Quickening, a beautiful faerie whose doom is inevitable. The future post-apocalyptic fantasy world takes form as more details of its past – our world – are revealed. Best of all, the story’s characters have a rich complexity missing in other Shannara books.

Everyone is smitten with Quickening, daughter of the King of the Silver River. Her death, her sacrifice can restore the broken Sword of Leah and break an evil curse. Her tragic fate is not known by companions Morgan Leah and Walker Boh, at least not until the very end. Pe Ell the assassin must kill her. But he is torn because he has fallen in love with her. As has Morgan Leah. It is Ell’s blade that kills Quickening, fulfilling her destiny. But her death breaks him. And breaks the heart of Morgan.

The Druid of Shannara, I think, is one of Fantasy’s best novels. It is certainly the best book written by Terry Brooks. In his other books, there are characters in love. Brooks avoids spice and sex, and that’s fine with me. But none of his other romance plots come close to this book’s passion, love, and tragic loss.

I have not read the newest Shannara releases. Before I do, I’ll probably read The Druid of Shannara again.

Don’t stop me.