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frasersimons 's review for:
The Sword of Shannara
by Terry Brooks
This book gets a lot of hate from Tolkien fans, and I can see why it would irk people that it be maybe the most blatant use of LotR tropes. But it does feel pretty distinct apart from them to me. Plenty of fantasy books predating Tolkien and afterward have a similar setup. And after which it grows quite distinct in every respect.
I really liked that sign language was incorporated into trolls, and that they’re intelligent and knowledgeable and go completely against type. I also quite liked that the two brothers are foster brothers and have a pretty healthy relationship, also going against type for foster children. The sword itself and the relationship to the Warlock king is completely different than Sauron, and far more satisfying. It’s a bit more gritty and realistic of a young adult book in contrast to Tolkien, but retains some of the soft masculinity in some of the characters that is the main draw of the fellowship, for me.
What is pretty undeniable though, is the writing quality is far less literary and stylistically disparate. There is a lot of exposition and large issues with Show Don’t Tell. The pacing is a bit laborious at some points as well. It’s a huge book, and it does feel like a lot happens, but the interiority of the characters, while present, still feels like it’s only helping the plot feel like it’s spinning wheels. I think a large part of it is the expectations of young adult readers, possibly. Some publishers and writers don’t trust readers in the demographic to pick up on things, and so make everything blatant. And this puffs the piece up substantially because it’s constantly reiterating. Clearly it worked for most readers though, as it was/is extremely popular.
I do think it’s more accessible and sometimes more engaging than Tolkien. Not quite commercial fiction but leaning there. It was pretty readable to me, and I enjoyed most of it; primarily after the setup, which is almost perfunctory for epic fantasy at this point. Though it does predate the figurative avalanche of Tolkien clones somewhat at ‘77. Some pleasant surprises saved this for me and made it enjoyable. I’ll read the next one at some point.
I really liked that sign language was incorporated into trolls, and that they’re intelligent and knowledgeable and go completely against type. I also quite liked that the two brothers are foster brothers and have a pretty healthy relationship, also going against type for foster children. The sword itself and the relationship to the Warlock king is completely different than Sauron, and far more satisfying. It’s a bit more gritty and realistic of a young adult book in contrast to Tolkien, but retains some of the soft masculinity in some of the characters that is the main draw of the fellowship, for me.
What is pretty undeniable though, is the writing quality is far less literary and stylistically disparate. There is a lot of exposition and large issues with Show Don’t Tell. The pacing is a bit laborious at some points as well. It’s a huge book, and it does feel like a lot happens, but the interiority of the characters, while present, still feels like it’s only helping the plot feel like it’s spinning wheels. I think a large part of it is the expectations of young adult readers, possibly. Some publishers and writers don’t trust readers in the demographic to pick up on things, and so make everything blatant. And this puffs the piece up substantially because it’s constantly reiterating. Clearly it worked for most readers though, as it was/is extremely popular.
I do think it’s more accessible and sometimes more engaging than Tolkien. Not quite commercial fiction but leaning there. It was pretty readable to me, and I enjoyed most of it; primarily after the setup, which is almost perfunctory for epic fantasy at this point. Though it does predate the figurative avalanche of Tolkien clones somewhat at ‘77. Some pleasant surprises saved this for me and made it enjoyable. I’ll read the next one at some point.