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Bearers Of The Black Staff (2010)

by Terry Brooks(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0345484177 (ISBN13: 9780345484178)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Del Rey

series

Legends of Shannara

review 1: This was good, but not great. I'm disappointed that Brooks far too often makes really great characters only to kill them off. I'm also disappointed that he is far too casual about destroying really great stuff, especially one-of-a-kind, never to be seen again artifacts. For someone who is naturally a conserver and hoarder, this makes the story painful to read, since I would have done things very differently.Brooks misses out on showing us, rather than telling us, about the great survival skills that his main characters have. He also passes up many opportunities to flesh out the societies that he has created, which is very disappointing. I have an ongoing complaint with Brooks that he relies too much on something incredible being available at just the right time that magica... morelly solves a problem, rather than having characters solve problems. A minor example is the way food is just available at so many points, rather than having characters struggle to get it, or the way the only surviving solar-powered Attack Vehicle just happens to be in the story (along with equally antique guns); it really stretches credulity to have these still be in working condition after 400 years, especially when their owner is said to have just found them, rather than having them carefully handed down to him.
review 2: It is quite a ways from the modern day world to the fantasy realm of Shannara. Through the Word and Void, Genesis of Shannara and Legends of Shannara series Terry Brooks attempts to relate how one led to the other throughout a series of events. Legends of Shannara is the last of the prequel series, and I am sorry to say it is not as good as the first two prequel series. The characters in it are less rounded, and the plot seems less well thought through. Terry Brooks has the tendency to write "the boy and the girl" did this and that, or walked here and there, and once I noticed it, I could not stop. In some passages it is used so many times that the characters lose depth by not being names somehow. Perhaps I am nitpicking here, but it annoyed me. The story in the other two prequels seemed believable and possible, which is part of what makes them so good. This series does not quite manage to go the distance in bridging between the two worlds though, which is a shame. less

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