One of the most unique aspects of Terry Brooks’ Shannara series is its unerring dedication to following the Ohmsford and Leah family lines as each new generation finds trouble for themselves in the Four Lands (and beyond, in some cases.) Since I first discovered Brooks, the Ohmsfords and the Leahs have held a special place in my heart, and the hearts of many fantasy readers like me. So, it makes perfect sense that Orbit Books, Brooks’ UK publisher, would create such a loving family tree to illustrate the labyrinthine connections between the two families.
You find a high resolution (like, really high resolution) version of the family tree on Orbit’s Facebook page, where you can also enter to win a gorgeous print by voting for your favourite Shannara generation. Fun stuff, great series.
“I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”
-Sara Crewe in A Little Princess
I had loved reading fantasy as a child, but even as an older teen I struggled to find speculative fiction that challenged me without making me feel unwelcome and unvalued.
In the early oughts, I nearly gave up on epic fantasy altogether. Until I stumbled across a copy of The Dragonbone Chair at a used bookstore. I can’t quite remember why I decided to give it a chance, but I’m incredibly glad that I did. My love for Tad William’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn isn’t unconditional, but it did a lot to restore my faith that I could find fantasy stories that I would enjoy as an adult. I had loved reading fantasy as a child, but even as an older teen I struggled to find speculative fiction that challenged me without making me feel unwelcome and unvalued. After all, Terry Brooks may have given me Brin Ohmsford, but he also turned Amberle into a tree. It wasn’t just that the lives of the girls and women in these novels seemed to revolve around men. What bothered me more was that they rarely acted in ways that seemed logical, consistent, or grounded in anything resembling human behavior. My problem was not that Amberle sacrificed herself, but that I was never convinced it was in character for her to do so, especially as described in the book. And we won’t speak of Piers Anthony, and what it was like to read his novels, which came highly recommended, while also trying to deal with grown men yelling things about my body at me while I walked home from the library. Read More »
For the past year or so, Terry Brooks has been teasing his fans with hints of a conclusion to his long-running Shannara series. Since some of its earliest volumes, the Shannara series has explored the results of growing science in a world once dominated by magic. Brooks has mentioned several times now that within the next several years he will be writing a trilogy that will tie-up this ongoing tug o’ war, calling the trilogy and “end” for Shannara. But, would Brooks, and his publishers, really be willing to step away from the long-standing (and reliable revenue generating) series? The answer, it appears, is no.
The the most recent instalment of “Ask Terry,” a monthly feature on Brooks’ website where the author answer fan questions, Gina Miller asked, “When I finished Measure of the Magic, it felt incomplete. We left everyone divided and leaderless, and it was an incomplete transition to the Shannara world. Will there be a bridge to make the transition complete?”
To which Brooks replied:
Yes, there will be a finish to the set. Just not for awhile. Probably not for as along as five years. I intend to write the end of the Shannara series first, then go back to the pre-history. Obviously, if I intend to keep my promise to all of you, I have to write from Measure up to the First Council of Druids. Let’s hope I live that long.
Colour me unsurprised (and a happy Shannara fan). While Shannara might receive a trilogy that concludes the war between science and magic, there are many more stories to tell in the world, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Brooks turning to more standalone novels, similar to his upcoming novel, The High Druid’s Blade, set at various points along Shannara‘s lengthy timeline.
In addition to these upcoming novels, Brooks has also said that he has a new book (or series) planned that is entirely unrelated to his previous works.
Terry Brooks’ next novel, The High Druid’s Blade, isn’t even out yet, but the cover for the follow-up novel, The Darkling Child, is already loosed on the world. (See what I did there? It’s like a demon from the Forbidding.) And, it’s just as pretty as the previous cover. I really like the rough, impressionistic quality of the painting they’ve used.
The Darkling Child is the second in The Defenders of Shannara, a loose trilogy of standalone Shannara novels that follow the events of Witch Wraith, Brooks’ most recently published novel. The High Druid’s Blade and The Darkling Child will be released in 2014.
Publisher: Del Rey -
Pages: 432 -
Buy: Book/eBook
To begin this review of Witch Wraith I feel like I must dig into my past as not only a Terry Brooks fan, but also as a fan of Fantasy fiction, because the two are so inextricably intertwined that it is impossible to discuss one part of my fandom without crossing over into the other. It is not unusual for a Fantasy fan to cite Tolkien as the genesis of their fandom, as he certainly was for me, but it was ultimately Brooks, and then R.A. Salvatore, that cemented my love and created of it a lifelong obsession.
I first discovered Brooks after devouring The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings during my early adolescence. Eager, no, desperate for more Fantasy, I read any book my mom, the requisite Fantasy fan in my life, put in my hands. The most impressionable of these was Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara. It’s a novel that now, 35+ years after its first release, fights against its own beginnings as a Tolkien-inspired Fantasy that was crafted by its author and legendary editor Lester Del Rey to provide life and wind to the post-Tolkien doldrums that the genre fell into during the seventies. Where Stephen R. Donaldson, who published alongside Brooks, and was also edited by Lester Del Rey, chose to subvert Tolkien’s methods and themes, challenging the idea that Fantasy is myth and exploring its escapist nature — by casting a bitter adult, skeptical of the existence of the Fantasy world even as he walks through it — Brooks chose to emulate Tolkien by casting two plucky youths, a mysterious mentor, a world to save, and a keenness for adventure. Both stories feature a dark lord, but the their defeats come at the end of roads as different as those travelled by Samwise Gamgee and Meriadoc Brandybuck. Read More »
