The Sword of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara follows a couple of storylines, the primary one being that of Shea Ohmsford, the half-elven orphan raised by his humble human family. Well, it turns out that elven half of his blood makes him the sole surviving descendant of the ancient king Jerle Shannara, whose sword was used to banish the Warlock Lord, in a long-ago war.

Now the Warlock Lord is back, and it falls to Shea to find the Sword and defeat the risen-again Warlock Lord, all with the help of his trusty companion, a wise-cracking best friend, a dwarf, some elves, a crown prince, and a somewhat volatile wizard. At least until the group is broken up and Shea's journey becomes a lonelier one. Meanwhile, in the second storyline, that crown prince I mentioned, along with the rest of the companions, they go to war with the Warlock Lord's armies, which are poised to sweep across the free lands of Men, Elves, and Dwarves. Leading the bad guys are the super-duper bad guys with wings, the Skullbearers (I've always thought that was a great name), who are incredibly powerful servants (slaves, really) of that Warlock Lord. Ultimately, the companions will rely on Shea's ultra-important mission, because they can't live as long as the Warlock Lord lives.

Now, does this all sound familiar? It should. The Sword of Shannara is often dismissed as a mere copy of The Lord of the Rings, and the comparison doesn't exactly fall flat. Brooks himself credits William Faulkner over Tolkien as the inspiration for the Sword of Shannara. And that may be the case on a conscious level, but if so, his unconscious self, which had been marinating in Tolkien for years, had a lot to say about the storyline.

The book does indeed start as almost a carbon copy of Tolkien. But somewhere along the line, it heads out on its own, much to its benefit. It's a lot of fun, which is a good thing, because this is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of fantasy literature.