The Sword of Shannara

by Terry Brooks

Paperback, 1983

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Del Rey (1983), Edition: Reprint, 736 pages

Description

Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. Thriller. HTML:The Sword of Shannara is the first volume of the classic series that has becomeone of the most popular fantasy tales of all time. Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil ruined the world. In peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knows little of such troubles. But the supposedly dead Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy everything in his wake.The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness is the Sword of Shannara, which can be used only by a trueheir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline,rests the hope of all the races. Thus begins the enthralling Shannara epic,a spellbinding tale of adventure, magic, and myth . .

User reviews

LibraryThing member aethercowboy
If you've read The Lord of the Rings, then congratulations, you don't need to read this book. Terry Brook, in the later additions to his Shannara series, has drifted away from the heavy Tolkienoid style apparent in this first novel.

Reading SoS left me with the impression that I had read a Lord of
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the Rings, only whoever was taking the manuscript to the publisher dropped the pages on the floor, and managed to scoop them back up in a different sort of order. Each character in SoS is practically a direct match for one in LotR. The protagonist, Shea, is clearly a Frodo. His loving and faithful stepbrother/sidekick Flick is an obvious Sam. They mysterious Allanon is a clear Gandalf, the swarthy dwarf Hendel is a Gimli, and Brona, the Warlock Lord, could be any combination of Sauron, Saruman, and the chief Nazgul, to name a few. The titular sword, of course, could arguably be the One Ring.

Though this book was effectively a rehash of Tolkien, as is much of the post-Tolkien fantasy, with the exception of the Sword & Sorcery buffs, and the emerging Urban Fantasy front, it was not horrible. At times, yes, I was cringing at the similarities between Brooks and Tolkien, and wondering how he could write such a book with a clean conscience. In the end, though, I didn't despise it enough to send it to Half Price Books, so that means that it does have some redeemable qualities, or at least enough redeemable qualities to take up as much shelf space as it does and not be converted into a fraction of a dollar.

You might enjoy it if LotR was "too hard" for you. You might enjoy it if you don't want a challenge, but want to look smart by reading a thick book. You won't enjoy it if you hold Tolkien sacrosanct, and especially if you even eschew the books edited by Christopher Tolkien. Congratulations, you're a purist, and this book is most definitely not for you.
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LibraryThing member Stewartry
I loved this when I was thirteen.

I loved it when I was sixteen. And probably at least once in between there.

When I was thirty-six I picked it up, made it about a chapter and a half in, and threw it against the wall.

Literally.

It left a dent.

This book was written before fan-fic was quite so
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mainstream. There were no fic websites out there then – there were no websites then. There was still fan-fic, printed in little fanzines and passed around among friends and such. And then there was this sort of thing, perpetrated on a public that had been introduced to wonder in the form of elves and wizards and quests. I've read here and there that bad as this one is, the rest of the series improves – it couldn't get much worse, I have to say. But this: this is shameful.
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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
I've heard this book compared to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--it's comparable all right, and it's not in Sword of Shannara's favor. I've read the book was the first fantasy to make it on the New York Times bestseller list. I can only speculate it was a matter of timing--that in the late seventies
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the fantasy reading public was hungry for an epic fantasy along Lord of the Rings lines--and here we have a quest, a Dark Lord and a group of heroes traveling together in almost a one to one correspondence with the Fellowship of the Ring including a wizard, a dwarf, more than one elf and more than one Prince of the blood. It's far too easy to match up the Tolkien characters with their Brooks counterparts: Gandalf (Allanon), Sam (Flick), Frodo (Shea), Sauron (Brona), Aragorn (Balinor), Boromir (Menion), Gimli (Hendel), Legolas (Durin and Dayel--brothers who are indistinguishable and interchangeable), Gollum (Orl Fane) and the Nazgûl (Skull Bearers). Even places and matters of plot can be matched point for point. I can't recall ever reading such a blatant rip-off.

Except that compared to a Gandolf or Frodo, these characters come across as stock, the plot and themes as shallow as a video game, and unlike Tolkien, who has memorable scenes and lines, the writing here isn't even workmanlike, with a shoddy omniscient point of view and a style that hits every branch on the clunker tree out of guides of how not to write.

I only stayed beyond page 50 of this because I wanted to give what I know some see as a beloved book a fair chance. Then I pushed beyond 200 pages out of curiosity if a female would get a speaking part--because at that point, were it not for a brief scene with a female monster that almost traps one character and a mention by another character he had a sweetie at home (and that the central character once had a mother) I might have thought they only had one gender in this fantasy world. Even Tolkien, who I thought slighted female characters, did much, much better than that. (Even books set on ships at sea and monasteries tend to do better than that). Finally, a female character did show up--on page 456 of 726--naturally to be rescued. I gave up. I will not be reading more Terry Brooks.
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LibraryThing member Joseph700
I forced my way through this book, because Terry Brooks is prolific and has made a name for himself. But to my way of thinking, the language was cardboard, and the story did not redeem it. I may try one of his later books to see if he evolved from these more than humble beginnings.
LibraryThing member crackberrybooks
it’s a good old fashioned classic fantasy tale, but bloody hell, it doesn’t half drag on when you read it. There’s a vast amount of repetition all the way through, and a serious degree of ‘waffle’ that’s no use to man nor beast. The story though, when you can finally get to it, is great
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stuff, well worth the effort.

Evil Warlock – check
Bad gnomes – check
Hardy dwarves -check
Honourable elves – check
Simple country folk on an epic quest – check.
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LibraryThing member Sammelsurium
This book wears its influence on its sleeve. If you're looking for something Tolkien-esque, there are certainly direct analogues to Frodo, Gandalf, Sauron, Gollum, the one ring, the Nazgul, and the evil hordes of The Lord of the Rings; but the prose and the worldbuilding aren't nearly up to the
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same standard. There's not much original material (at least, little that receives any narrative focus), with one exception: Brooks' depiction of fantasy race is somewhat more complex than Tolkien's (admittedly a low bar). While the good race/evil race dichotomy is preserved, there are exceptions to the rule for both of the "evil" races, include one character who is an important part of the plot and treated as generally heroic. Not exactly groundbreaking or even progressive stuff, but certainly an improvement.
One of the odd things about this book is that the obstacles the characters face are almost always solved in uninteresting ways: the characters notice something they didn't before, or are rescued by someone else, or make an unremarkable plan to distract the enemy. The obstacles themselves usually come from the characters failing to notice something, or being deceived by their enemies. There is no character arc or thematically cohesive plot--just a series of fights, puzzles, and traps that eventually leads to getting the artifact and defeating the dark lord. In other words, it reads exactly like someone transcribed their Dungeons & Dragons campaign and turned it into a book. Originating as a role-playing game would certainly explain why the plot is so episodic, and the characters are so flat and archetypal--what's interesting to players of a game is completely different from what's interesting to readers of a book. I would say that modern Tolkien-esque fantasy tabletop games, if not directly influencing (or being influenced by) the Shannara books, at the very least come from a similar emotional place: the desire to live in Tolkien's world and experience an epic, world-changing quest of one's own. In satisfying that kind of desire, originality and cohesiveness are less important than a sense of nostalgia and identification with the characters. I understand why some people might like it; but ultimately, I just don't think a book is the best medium for this kind of story.
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LibraryThing member ragwaine
Terrible writing, way too long, false buildups really lame. Overall the story was good just the way he did it was bad. Characters were good. Most of story ripped off from LotRs.
LibraryThing member Redthing
Many compare this novel to the novels of LOTR, and I quite agree. They are similar, in more ways than one. But if you think about it, many of these similarities are concepts widely used in fantasy today. It's like comparing windows to Macintosh. Yes, they both have desktops, and icons on those
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desktops. And oh dear, Firefox and Internet Explorer both have tabbed browsing?

Nerdy comparisons and similarities aside, I think it's a wonderful novel. The story is well written, the character development is excellent, and the world that Brooks creates is amazing! In fact, if you asked me, I'd prefer the Sword of Shannara to LOTR any day. I think Brooks is a better author (not to say Tolkien isn't good! They're both great.). His storylines are smooth, and not so much time is spent on petty details.
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LibraryThing member iansales
The Sword of Shannara was also the first of the high fantasy best-sellers, and since I’m in the middle of a (partial) reread of the Wheel of Time series, I thought it might be worth seeing what this novel was like. I shouldn’t have bothered. It’s fucking dreadful. A “Valeman” on his way
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home one night is scared by some giant flappy thing in the sky, and then waylaid by a scary man over seven foot tall with a goatee. Except the scary man is well-known to the Valemen (they live in a vale, see), although he is very mysterious. Cue info-dump. The Valeman’s adopted brother is half-elvish, and is actually the only surviving relative of an ancient elvish king. Because of this, he’s the only person who can wield the Sword of Shannara, an ancient, er, sword, and defeat the Warlock Lord, an evil sorcerer who is about to invade the Four Lands and kill everyone. Or maybe just enslave them. It’s not clear. There’s the good guys – one of which is a dwarf, and another is Boromir in all but name – and they have to make their way to Druid’s Keep to retrieve the sword before the evil gnome army. But the gnomes get there first, and Shea (the naming is absolutely terrible in this book), the half-elf half-not-a-hobbit-honestly, is separated from the others and ends up travelling into absolutely-not-Mordor chasing after the titular sword. Meanwhile, the others are involved in defending Tyrsis – which is definitely not Minas Tirith – against a huge army of gnomes and rock trolls… This was the first of the big-selling Tolkien rip-offs, and I can’t honestly see what its appeal is. Did people just want another LotR with the serial numbers filed off? And were they so desperate for it, they’d accept this sub-literate crap? Even now, fantasy fans still recommend this book – and then they do that thing, which is absolutely fucking stupid, of explaining that the first few books are not very good but “it gets a lot better around book four or five”. Seriously, fuck off. I’m not going to read half a dozen shit 700-page novels to reach one which is “better”, especially since as a fan of the series, the person recommending it clearly has no idea what a good book actually is. Books like this should no longer be in print. They do the genre a disservice, they do its readers a disservice.
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LibraryThing member wkelly42
One of the first fantasy books I ever read. Got this one shortly after reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and never have regretted it.

Yes, there are similarities with Tolkien. And no, nobody has ever done it better than Tolkien. But Brooks's series has become a must read in my house, and I plan
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on introducing my kids to Shannara. Deep plots, lush descriptions, and characters who don't always fall into the "good/bad" dichotomy right away (and when they do, it's often on the side you didn't expect!). The Sword is where the whole thing begins, and I don't think I can recommend it more.
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LibraryThing member TadAD
Blech!!!

A blatant rip-off of the Lord of the Rings, including characters and plot. The only thing that wasn't lifted was the ability to write convincing dialog or create sympathetic characters.

I have no idea if Brooks was merely an unimaginative and incompetent writer, or if he was just cynically
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cashing in on a successful formula as one of the first to publish epic fantasy post-Tolkien, but this book is not worth the time you'll spend reading it.
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LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
When I was but an impressionable teen, my crush gave me this book for my birthday. He had teeth like little baby pearls and could quote from The Princess Bride, so I was pretty far gone on him. This book was so bad that it effectively cured me of that crush. Despite being a
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plot-point-for-plot-point, character-for-character rip-off of the Lord of the Rings, it's pretty boring. In fact, the only surprise in this novel is that despite such blatant plagiarism, none of the beauty of Tolkein's descriptions or rich history of his peoples translates over. I don't know how Brooks managed to strip Tolkein's tales of everything wonderful and beautiful, but he did it somehow.
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LibraryThing member Imshi
I unfortunately read this *right* after reading and falling in love with The Lord of the Rings, so that might color my impression a bit but...

I found it be be far too similar to be enjoyable. It follows the characters and plot of LOTR very closely, and while I still would have enjoyed that if the
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writing had been spectacular, it wasn't good enough to make up for the blatant copying. I read to a little more than halfway through and wasn't able to finish.
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LibraryThing member EJAYS17
The list continues!

Back in 1977 a new publishing group called Ballantine, owned by Lester Del Rey, brought out an epic fantasy called The Sword of Shannara. At the time the genre we now call epic or heroic fantasy consisted largely of JRR Tolkien's masterpiece The Lord of the Rings and...nothing
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else really.

The Sword of Shannara sold quite well and author Terry Brooks was widely hailed as the successor to Professor Tolkien.

Today if you admit to having read The Sword of Shannara and even worse actually enjoying it then you're met with a curled lip and a scornful 'That Lord of the Rings rip off!'

It is true that some of the major events and characters in The Sword of Shannara are Tolkienesque, but I found most of the similarities were superficial (Tolkien used wizards, dwarves and elves, so did Brooks) and the story is still entertaining. If you want to look hard enough, yes you'll become convinced that Terry Brooks rewrote The Lord of the Rings and retitled it The Sword of Shannara, although I don't know how you'd find the character of Panamon Creel in The Lord of the Rings as he was based on The Prisoner of Zenda's Rupert of Hentzau.

If you want an old fashioned quest adventure story then Shannara fits the bill. The plot is fairly basic, along the lines of a young idealistic protagonist (Shea Ohmsford) in a sleepy backwater (Shady Vale) is told by a mysterious stranger (Allanon) that he holds great power, and is the only person who can stop an evil overlord (Brona) from taking over the world by wielding a magical artifact (The Sword of Shannara). To save the world and protect his friends and family the young protagonist sets off on a journey to retrieve the magical artifact and is joined by a band of diverse allies (Flick Ohmsford, Menion Leah, Hendel, Balinor, Durin and Dayel). Together they will overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, not all of them will survive, and either singly or in groups, they will learn things about themselves that they were previously unaware of. Some of them will find love, and ultimately their effort will save the word and defeat the evil overlord.

I last read The Sword of Shannara over 20 years ago, when I was still a teenager. It didn't hold up that badly. As long as you approach it in the right frame of mind it's an entertaining piece of fun. Brooks' prose is a bit overdone and I'm surprised that his publisher, editor and mentor Lester Del Rey let through a few minor continuity errors, but it's far from the only first novel to make that mistake. I'd recommend the book to readers in their early teens or someone who's new to epic fantasy and wants to find out what the genre is about.

The Sword of Shannara is no great work of literature, but it did show publishers that there was a market for epic fantasy out there and for that lovers of the sub genre owe it a debt of gratitude, no matter how derivative of JRR Tolkien they think it is.

I would advise reading The Lord of the Rings after reading Shannara and if you enjoy Brooks, he wrote a number of sequels and prequels to his first tale of the post apocalyptic world of Shannara. Along the same lines are Tad Williams trilogy Memory, Sorrow and Thorn and David and Leigh Eddings 5 volume epic The Belgariad.
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LibraryThing member rocalisa
Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil had ruined the world and forced mankind to compete with many other races--gnomes, trolls, dwarfs, and elves. But in peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knew little of such troubles.

Then came the giant, forbidding Allanon, possessed of strange Druidic
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powers, to reveal that the supposedly dead Warlock Lord was plotting to destroy the world. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness was the Sword of Shannara, which could be used only by a true heir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline, rested the hope of all the races.

Soon a Skull Bearer, dread minion of Evil, flew into the Vale, seeking to destroy Shea. To save the Vale, Shea fled, drawing the Skull Bearer after him . . .

I first read this many, many years ago and it left a good impression on me. On checking the copyright date, I see that it is for 1977, which startled me. I thought the book was about 20 years old, not 30, but I guess this is proof, more than anything of the fact that I'm getting older. I suspect I read this a bit over 20 years ago as a teenager and lately I'd found myself wanting to reread it. I think it is Brooks' new books, linking the modern world to the Shannara world that did it, but being a bit anal (something I believe I've said before) I wanted to start at the beginning, so went back to this one.

I'm very sad to say that it was a mistake. This is a book that has most emphatically not stood the test of time. What possibly made it new and interesting all those years ago all counts against it now. I recognise that this was an important book in that it is one of the ones that helped open up the field of fantasy into the wonderful variety of opportunities it is today, but...

The book is wordy in the extreme - it doesn't need to be anywhere near as long as it is - and most of those words describe the action. There is very little dialogue, so that you never really feel a part of the action. The manner of the prose puts a distance been the action and the reader, to the book's detriment. There are pages and pages of characters walking and walking (and yet I really felt that the amount of time it took them to walk the distances shown on the map was much too short, or certainly not quite right) thought plains and swamps and forests and mountains and on and on and on, and even when some action happened, that distance between events and reader remained.

There are virtually no female characters in this book at all. We finally meet a woman (or more of a girl really) about 2/3 through and she's only there to be rescued and then become the chaste love interest of a main character (both of whom are deeply in love after about 2 days). I know strong women is a major trend in books at the moment, but it isn't like we only recently popped into being in the last few years. Or that older books don't have them. However, this one doesn't.

The characters have all these shocking encounters with troubles and monsters and they often think one or other of the company is dead, but in the end not one of them dies. They just improbably pop up again later, having caught up with the rest of the party (who were forced to leave them behind) by walking steadily through those marshes, forests and/or mountains all on their own. Sorry, but no. Doesn't work for me.

The Sword of Shannara has been described as heavily influenced by Tolkien and this does show, especially in the above points. However, despite my personal issues with rereading The Lord of the Rings (I read it all when younger, but have never managed to reread even The Fellowship of the Ring, getting less and less read each time I try - first time I got to Rivendell, then to Tom Bombadil, third time the hobbits never even got out of the Shire and I gave up trying) I have to say that Tolkien did it a whole lot better.

I started off reading the book, then skimming, then skipping and finally I just read the end and called it finished. I think I've been cured of my urge to reread Brooks, although I remain fascinated by the Word and Void concept and the tie up with the history of the Four Lands - someone tell me, should I try those ones or just give up completely?

The Sword of Shannara
Terry Brooks
5/10
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LibraryThing member fuzzi
I read this book when it first came out, late 1970s. At the time I belonged to the Literary Guild book club, so I got this book 'hot off the press' in a hardcover edition.

Boy was I disappointed.

The more I read, the more I kept saying "What a ripoff!" referring to "The Lord of the Rings". The
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entire book seemed nothing but a cheap and not well disguised copy of Tolkien's work.

I finished reading it, but gave it away soon afterwards. I have not read any other of Terry Brooks' works, having been soured on his ability to create by the mediocrity of this book.
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LibraryThing member Karlstar
While some deride this as too similar to LOTR, this book has its own good qualities.
The characters are interesting and hold your attention, and Brook's world has many attractions. If you like Tolkien but want something similar that stands on its own, this is worth reading. One of the more
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interesting things is that the ongoing hero of the books is the druid Allanon, the distrusted manipulator of the other heroes.
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LibraryThing member Homechicken
I can't remember if I read this book growing up or not. I do, however, remember reading the Elfstones book. In any case, this book was okay, but not the best fantasy I've ever delved in to. The writing was all right but not spectacular, the characters good but not great, the story okay but not
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epic. It's quite long for not being terrific, too. It seemed just a bit predictable to me.
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LibraryThing member GoofyOcean110
I remember reading this book while happening to be learning about the heroic outline at the same time and realizing that the outline summarized in 1 page what this book took 700 to say. There were no real twists or turns or deviations from this outline as far as I could see, and I was in middle
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school. It was compelling enough to finish, but it may also have been that I just wanted to say I'd read a book that long. There really wasn't anything new or different from Tolkein in this series. It may be classic fantasy, but at this point the book is cliche.
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LibraryThing member tjsjohanna
I couldn't help but be reminded of 'The Lord of the Rings' as I read this tale. There are many similar character types (Valemen vs. Shire Hobbits), similar plot devices (group of dissimilar men united to help the weakest among them accomplish the task that will save them all), and a similar story
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arc. Still, the writing is different and the characters are somehow more accessible than Tolkien's. An enjoyable fantasy tale. Can't wait to see how the follow-up volumes in the series are.
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LibraryThing member ceric41
I read this as a kid and loved every second of the experience. Read it before I even knew Tolkien existed. Yes it's very derivative of LOTR - but I didn't know that then so I wasn't automatically hostile...ignorance was bliss. Anyhow, derivative or not, this is much better written than LOTR...which
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is downright rushed and sloppy in the later books.
Remember trying to read the sequel to this (Elfstones) but it was not good...
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LibraryThing member Darla
Finally finished reading this one with the boys. It does have a LOT of similarities to LOTR, but it's more readable.
LibraryThing member www.snigel.nu
I liked Terry Brooks mainly because of the mystical and magical feeling of his world. I probably would not like him if I stumbled upon his books today.
LibraryThing member Neale
Its hard to review this book. As many others have said it has many similarities with Lord Of The Rings - I kept reading reading and ignored the similarities and the ending was worth the read. I will probably read the next instalment on the basis that its already taken many ot LOTR stuff so
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hopefully it will be more original throughout.
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LibraryThing member SlySionnach
The first of Brooks Shannara series. A classic sword and sorcery type of tale, it has hints of Lord of the Rings inside of its pages (but what fantasy book doesn't, after all). I loved this book and thought it was a great beginning to an amazing series.

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1977

Physical description

736 p.; 4.2 inches

ISBN

0345314255 / 9780345314253

Barcode

1546
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