Classic... mid-80s tosh (Wishsong of Shannara - Terry Brooks)

Member Name: calypte

Product:	Wishsong of Shannara - Terry Brooks
Date:	19/04/04 (621 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: turn your brain off and it's kind of fun

Disadvantages: at this point author still needs to mature

"The sciences of the old world were gone, lost in the holocaust of the Great Wars. In their place was reborn the magic of a world older still, a world in which only faerie creatures had existed."

Such is the premise behind Terry Brooks' bestselling Shannara series. Of course, it might have been nice to learn that a little quicker, but there you go. Here I am at book three and I found that quote - and all of a sudden things seem a lot more interesting. Now, I just have to wait for the stories to catch up with the background!

The problem, as I see it, is that the links with a world like our own are in the far and distant past. I still hope the series continues to play with these ideas, but in the meantime what we have here is pretty bog-standard fantasy. It's great to know that dwarves, trolls, et al are all descended from the survivors of the Great Wars, adapted over the centuries to suit the harsh environments, and naming themselves after ancient myths. However, pick up a Shannara book and mainly what you'll see is: dwarves, trolls, elves... no differentiation from 99% of fantasy fiction.

Perhaps I'm being just a touch unfair - I want to take a step back here. I didn't not enjoy reading Wishsong - at the time, it was easy enough to switch off my brain and get caught up in the whole 'what happens next?' that comes from Brooks' writing style, full of cliff-hangers at the end of chapters. However, after finishing the novel and sitting down to gather my thoughts for a review, I don't seem to be able to find much to recommend it - especially as it's a writing style that seems to confuse yoda-style syntax and mystic utterings for something sounding more 'authentic' to the genre.

I suppose I'd better get on with telling you about the story. First off, let me repeat that this is the third in a series. The first two are Sword of Shannara and Elfstones of Shannara. Further, there are four books in the Heritage of Shannara set, a prequel to it all, another trilogy and a few more books just out/coming... phew! So it must be a huge story, right? Urm... well, three books in and so far it's pretty much one story. Three times. So if you haven't caught the first two books in the original Shannara series - don't panic!

We'll start back at the beginning with The Sword of Shannara. In the first of the trilogy, we meet Shea Ohmsford. Shea's world is a Shire-esque pre-industrial kind of a place - and with a name like Shady Vale you can almost smell the apples and hay at times. It's one of these sleepy little villages with one inn and a lot of hard work going on.

Into this idyll one day comes a dark and shadowy figure. S'okay, though - it's only the last druid, Allanon! (sorry, must maintain gravity of the situation!) The character is built up to be The Good Guy, but somewhat menacing in his secrecy. His is the burden of saving the world, you sense, and he feels it's his duty to use other people, pawn-like, as he sees necessary. It turns out that Shea is (remotely) descended from elvish royalty - and more, that with his bloodline comes power to wield certain artefacts. Of course, two and two together dictates that Allanon has need of young Shea to... save the world. Didn't I say that already?

Now it might seem that I've spent a bit going on about the first book, when I should be talking about the third. Fear not! You see, book two begins with the mysterious Allanon reappearing in Shady Vale, this time to drag Shea's grandson Wil off on a quest. So all of the above applies - not only to Wil, but to yet another generation, when the mysterious Allanon (it's mandatory, y'know!) reappears once again to whisk young Brin, Wil's daughter, off on a dangerous quest.

Are we getting a small sense of repetition here?

I'm trying hard not to sound too harsh - after all, 90% of fantasy fiction involves a combination of the ele
ments presented here. That there is a continuation in Brooks' work is... less tedious than it could be. My interest flagged on the second book, but two things rescued 'Wishsong' for me just a little: (1) I left a large gap after reading the previous instalment, and (2) the end of the trilogy is definitely the most interesting.

Not only has the author settled into his work a little better, but by recycling the basic structure he is more free to concentrate on subtleties and characterisation (well, relatively!). Allanon is more human and rounded than before - we see elements of doubt and weakness creep into his character. Brin is also a likeable heroine, and the focus on sibling bonds is strong enough to carry a lot of things.

Like her predecessors, Brin is a reluctant participant on the quest ? this time, it is to destroy the Ildatch. That is, the book at the heart of all evilness in the world. Since history began, the Ildatch has corrupted those around it; from the skull bearers and Warlock Lord (a former druid who was totally corrupted to the dark side? urm, sorry!), no being has been able to wield the power of the book without it using them. This time round, the Mord Wraiths are out to destroy mankind.

Mord Wraith? Black-hooded, pure evil, stalk the land like a pestilence? Hello there, Mr Tolkien! Sorry, but... y'know! I'm all for a bit of Tolkien-esque-ness creeping in - hard not to - but sometimes it's unsettlingly 'Let's do exactly the same but call it Mord-instead-of-Ring Wraiths'. Maybe I wouldn't mind so much, but as characters they are rather... crap.

This was a bit of a common theme for me with this book. While I was doing my darnedest to switch off and just enjoy the plot, little elements kept creeping up to smack me in the face with their lameness. Although Brin is central to the book, it is Jair we spend a great deal of time following, and he winds up in a little company of mixed origins - one dwarf, one elf, a couple of men... oh, but a goblin. That's alright, then - totally different! And like the Wraith comment above, what I really objected to was not the blatant lack of originality, but that these are completely one-dimensional characters: that one dimension being 'padding'. In other words, they were needed for the plot, but let's not make the book too long by making them anything like interesting.

Paradoxically, although I was very much left with the feeling that the book was curtailed (and let's fact it - there is plenty of room for books that don't run in to thousands of pages!), it was less involving than it could have been had an extra hundred pages, perhaps, been added. Even Garet Jax, the weapons master with more of a back-story than the rest, was defined rather too starkly to be entirely interesting.

It's a shame, it really is - Brin and Jair are not bad fantasy characters, and Allanon is very much fleshed out and humanised in this final volume (final of the original series, that is). The world the author has created has a wealth of interesting background to be explored - tantalising hints of the world before a cataclysm wiped it back to basics, intriguing blends of magic and science, which are explored more than ever here. Brooks manages to present Brin and Jair's gifts as more than just the 'deus ex' of most fantasy, so it's doubly disappointing when the quest is guided by the same old prophecy-driven know-it-all get-out.


To be fair, I think this book would appeal more to a slightly younger audience who isn't determined to pick holes in everything! I wasn't trying to, and I must apologise for the rather mixed message in my review. At the end of it all, I like my fantasy escapism and while I wouldn't recommend this to a general audience, there would definitely be a market for it. Mainly, though, I started reading Voyage of Jerle Shannara previously and was impressed enough to want to read the back story. With this in mind, then, I still intend to read on with the follow-up series to see if Mr Brooks can continue to improve.

Ultimately, however, the book just doesn't stand as being that great on its own as far as I'm concerned. A good example is the short story, Indomitable, included in the Legends II anthology. Picking up the story a few years after Wishsong, there are a few loose ends tied up - and I don't think a published book should have need of that kind of treatment. Interestingly, too, in the recently-written Indomitale, the Mord Wraiths are only referred to by the alternate name of 'Shadowen'. Hmm.

All that said, I'm still giving this three stars and a guarded recommendation for a mindless enjoyment value. Sword of Shannara would have received three stars, Elfstones perhaps only two for being repetitive. Wishsong introduces perhaps just enough new elements to be labelling 'cyclical' instead, so I'll bring it back up to three - but you have been warned!



Price: £6.39 at Amazon

Alternatively, the Sword of Shannara Trilogy is available in one volume for just £10.49

Summary: Rather repetative volume in an escapist series that improves in later installments