Book Review: Wards of Faerie - The Dark Legacy of Shannara

Wards of Faerie: The Dark Legacy of Shannara, by Terry Brooks

Source: Amazon.com

From the book’s cover:

Seven years after the conclusion of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks at last revisits one of the most popular eras in the legendary epic fantasy series that has spellbound readers for more than three decades.

When the world was young, and its name was Faerie, the power of magic ruled—and the Elfstones warded the race of Elves and their lands, keeping evil at bay. But when an Elven girl fell hopelessly in love with a Darkling boy of the Void, he carried away more than her heart.

Thousands of years later, tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. Elves have distanced their society from the other races. The dwindling Druid order and its teachings are threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl’s heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous—as Aphenglow quickly learns when she’s set upon by assassins.

Yet there can be no turning back from the road to which fate has steered her. For whoever captures the Elfstones and their untold powers will surely hold the advantage in the devastating clash to come. But Aphenglow and her allies—Druids, Elves, and humans alike—remember the monstrous history of the Demon War, and they know that the Four Lands will never survive another reign of darkness. But whether they themselves can survive the attempt to stem that tide is another question entirely.

The review:

This is going to be one of those reviews, just to warn up front.  The ones where I say something like "oh Mr. Brooks, why have you stopped being such an engaging writer and turned into a recycler of your own materials?"  Let's get that statement out in the open right off and be done with it.  Then, after having considered what that means exactly (for those of you who are not long time readers of Brooks' work), I'll turn to the more appealing aspects of Wards of Faerie.  So stay tuned.

Back to that opening statement.  You see, I am guilty of being able to say that I've been reading Terry Brooks' stuff my whole remembered life.  When I was...  in my early teens, possibly twelve years old, I recall my mom getting me/us the first three books of the Shannara series in a box set.  If I recall correctly, she said she went to the book store (yes, they still had those back then) and asked what was good in the "Fantasy/Adventure" genre.  Basically Tolkien without the laborious narration.  I'm putting words in her mouth there, but you get the idea.  "Tolkien-lite," I suppose you'd call it.

The author, Terry Brooks. / Source: starwars.wikia.com

 

Well the clerk suggested the Shannara series, and also the Wheel of Time books.  You know, come to think of it, I think it was actually a family friend who recommended the Shannara books, and this story I am relating is not about the Shannara trilogy (back then it was just the Shannara trilogy) and more about other fantasy books I've read in my life.  So hey - you got to stroll down amnesia lane with me!  How fun was that?

The point to all this rambling?  The first three books of the Shannara series were really good.  Even today, I still look back on them fondly, and remember reading each multiple times in my young adult years.  And this is saying something.  Back then, I didn't read that much.  Not like I do as an adult.  But I'll not go into why that is so just now.  I've already belabored this review enough as it is.

So the original Shannara trilogy was great.  I read it now-a-days with a touch of nostalgia and a growing sense of "why did I think this was so great back then?," but this just means my tastes have evolved, I suppose. And they - the first three books - are still pretty good, in my older eyes.

An image from the very first book in the Shannara series, titled The Sword of Shannara.  The druid Allanon is expounding all the bad things that are gonna happen to brothers Flick and Shea Ohmsford, their family and friends, complete strangers, and the whole world of the Four Lands, should they fail to heed his call and go on the quest to regain the novel's titular sword.  Laying it on rather thick too, if the image is to be believed.  To tell the truth, I actually prefer Allanon as a character over Tolkien's Gandalf.  Perhaps its just personal bias, as Allanon was in my literary life before I ever picked up Tolkien. / Source: spiderwebart.com

Then the next set came out.  I remember waiting in great anticipation for each book in that series, as they were released in hardcover.  We'd look and see them at the book store in the mall, prominently displayed on a front table.  Mom always bought a copy right away.  She could read through them fast, and then turned each in turn over to me. I read a bit slower than my loved ones.  My wife says it is because I like to re-read and really absorb what I'm reading.  That's her polite way of saying I think slower.  And its true.  But again, I digress.

So the next four books (not a trilogy, which I appreciate now-a-days as trilogies are done to death) were a mixed bag.  But in the end, the second Shannara series was pretty good.  And it all could have been just fine at that moment, if Brooks' hadn't decided, "heck, I'm doing so good, I might as well keep the ball rolling..." 

So then came another series of books.  This one introduced the airships and the quest to go across the western seas and discover new lands.  Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, I think it was.  It seems that the setting of the Four Lands, as they are known in Brooks' Shannara books, didn't hold enough interesting places anymore to keep our attention.  Personally I disagree, seeing as the lands of the far North always seemed under-represented to me. I mean, Brooks made this big deal in the very first book, The Sword of Shannara, about how the lands surrounding the big bad guy's home ("Sauron-esque," he is) were such inhospitable places.  "Let's go back there then!" I want to shout.  But no, we gotta come up with something new!

A piece of fanart depicting a shade rising from the Hadeshorn.  As I have said, you can't do anything important in a Shannara novel without consulting some old dead person at this lake of darkness. / Source: francescoderosa.net

 

OK, so that third series wasn't the best.  It was OK, but in it we - the readers - start to see Brooks's penchant for recycling his stuff.  The characters all feel really familiar.  We have the stoic wizard-type.  We have the youngsters who are full of angst.  We have the fearless borderlander.  The bad guys seem pretty predictable.  Even the plots themselves got a bit repetitive.  There is the love tangle.  The turmoil over magic and its usage.  The horrors of some particularly nasty evil thing Brooks dreams up or pulls from some other place (but then some of the things used in Fantasy/Sci Fi are so ubiquitous that it is hard now to see where they started from).  And in the end, some important character dies, and their is much grief over great sacrifices.  The stories all seem to end with the same morale.  I can't sum it up succinctly, but trust me, there are specific motifs going on here, and Brooks never fails to deviate much from them.

But what about the rest of Brooks's Shannara-based works since then, you ask?  Well next came another series, which was somewhat forgettable to me.  Something about a big war between Elves and Men, and our female protagonist getting locked away in a shadow version of the Four Lands.  Some good ideas, to be sure, but it was feeling so well-trod by now that I honestly can't say I remember much about it.

And now we have this latest series by Brooks.  As you can tell by my long rant, this first book in this latest series goes back over previous ground covered, making sure to fill in all the Brooks plot points.  We have the young Ohmsford kids (half-blood descendants of the elven Shannara family, who wielded magic a long time ago in defense of... well, everybody who is good and of noble heart!) who are nervously but still willingly dragged from their lives into a grand quest.  We have the intrepid and unflappable borderlander, who in this case is female, but could be just about anything since they are always cut from the same cloth.  We have the old wizard, with the trappings of such (again, female in this case, but still of the same pattern).  We even have a very stereotypical dwarven warrior.  Just once, I'd like to see Brooks write more about the dwarves and less about those damn fancy-smancy elves!

By the time I am adding the photos to this review, the details of Wards of Faerie have thinned significantly from my mind.  Honestly, I Googled "Wards of Faerie" and this image came up.  I suppose these are two of the novel's characters, being escorted by what I can only assume are trolls.  It is a fine bit of imagery, for what that is worth. / Source: aidanmoher.com

 

Where was I?  Oh yes.  We have the same bad guys... especially the evil prime minister-type, which seems to be a familiar trapping of the later Shannara books, and makes me wonder if Brooks is trying to satirize some aspect of the government he sees in his own daily life.  And the smarter-than-the-boss henchman, of course.  And the scene where we are presented with little monsters, followed by the slightly worse monsters, followed by the bigger and meaner monsters...  all in scaling progression of terror-inducing ability.  It could be drawn from a video game road map, if you've ever played one (especially a role-playing, swords and sorcery game).  Oh, and to top it all off, the visit to the place where the dead rest, to ask for advice.  Just once I'd like to see our heroes take off on a quest without asking some old dead person what they think!

Basically, you can take characters and even a lot of the settings from previous Shannara books and drop them in, quite nicely, into the roles placed here for them.  And they'd fit just fine.  You could even mis-type and put the wrong name in for a character in these books, and nobody would notice.  They are type-casts!  Almost cardboard cut-outs!  I say "almost," because here is the saving grace of Wards of Faerie.  And here too is where my negative rant ends (having made myself very clear on the weaknesses of the Shannara series as a whole, and you can bet I'll refer to this argument again in future Shannara book reviews), and my positive side comes out.

The story for Wards of Faerie, though it does follow such familiar ground, does have some nice touches.  I liked that so many more of the main characters were female.  The dynamic of a feminine perspective is good, though I am sure it could use some embellishment.  After all, it is hard for a man to write from a woman's perspective.  I feel certain Brooks had help to do the points of view, but the fact that his novels are re-telling themselves - with only slight alterations to the main plot - makes me worry that he is writing more and more in a bubble.  The help he got from any female sources to write this novel might have been expanded to give him a fresher approach to the whole plot.  But perhaps he is stuck in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality.  Based on the reviews I see in Amazon.com for The Wards of Faeire, I can only assume most people are happy with that mentality too.

This is the map of the Four Lands as I remember it from childhood.  Brooks spends lots of his time in the Westland, cavorting with those damn elves.  And there is plenty of intrigue in the latter books about the Southland.  And there is even a book or two where you go to the Eastland, though the time spent with the dwarven people, if balanced on a scale against the time spent with those damn elves, would come up wanting in a major way.  But how much time does Brooks really put in the Northland?  Not enough, by my estimation.  Sure, we go off map to the northeast in one book from the second series, but I always wanted to revisit the Skull Kingdom and its surroundings properly.  It's like Mordo... err- Skull Kingdom gets its bit of limelight, and once the plot is satisfied, it is conveniently swept under the proverbial rug! / Source: shannara.wikia.com

 

The story has some nuances to it that seem to raise it above the level of his other latest works.  Sure, the plot is a re-tread, but it does feel more vibrant than the last series did.  To me at least.  You mileage may vary.  The addition of more sexual references was both surprising, and a little annoying.  On the one hand, it is nice to see the author mature in his usage of themes, but on the other, is this Shannara going... let me see...  Melrose Place (yes, I know that is WAY old, but it was the easiest sex-driven prime-time soap opera I could think of) on us?

The violence is up a notch too.  Seems like Brooks has discovered that his audience is alright with more mature themes.  Too bad he doesn't actually give that in the plot, but just in the specifics of it.  Like a surprise! - the rule about killing kids gets broken.  Most Western audiences expect that if a child character is introduced, they won't be harmed seriously in the product.  But that is breaking down some these days.  This is a good thing is some ways, as it promotes a more accurate view on life, but is also bad because... well there was a reason for the taboo of killing kids in your work of fiction.  It is distasteful, if not handled well.  In this case, the semi-kid who dies is... well I won't spoil it.  But it was done in an OK way.  Does that make sense?  You'd have to read the book to see.  No, I'm not a monster.  Read it for yourself, and see that I'm not!  I swear!

Also, there is enough mystery left in the plot that it seems necessary to find out what happens in book two.  Some of Brooks's recent novels give away everything in the first novel, and then the other two sequels are just rounding out the inevitable.  In this one, I am honestly left guessing at who the other traitor is who went and... oh wait, that'd be a spoiler too.  I'll leave it for you to read.

Speaking of the Hadeshorn...  When you Google for images of that word, this also comes up.  If the rocks were black instead of brown, and there was less dirt involved (the books describe the valley as being made up of sharp, flat stones), this might do. / Source: goldengatephoto.com

 

Of course, there is the stereotypical attack of this monster or that monster, and the pains of taking up the quest, and the person who loses one love but will surely find love again with someone right at hand (maybe my memory is fuzzy and this is not well-trod ground for Brooks, but the motifs are so transparent as to feel well-trod).  But they weren't so blatantly offensive in execution as in previous iterations of Brooks's works.

So in the end, I'd say Wards of Faerie was actually an improvement for Brooks.  I don't necessarily recommend Wards of Faerie outright.  If you've read lots of Brooks before and you feel he is slacking off, this one may change your mind somewhat.  Or at least feel like there is hope.  If you are a die-hard Brooks fan and think my review above is blasphemy, then you'd read it anyway and probably gloss over all the things I've taken careful time to note.  But if you are on the fence, I'd say this one is worth reading if you are happy knowing what you are getting.  This is so often the case in my reviews.  If my words have made sense and you think the book still sounds good, then by all means, give it a try.  But if you think a book that in any way fails to break truly fresh ground and relies too heavily on used up cliches would be a waste of your time, then stay away. 

There.  How's that for equivocating?  Read it if you like, and don't if you don't.  I could have summed up the whole review in just that sentence.  But you took the time to slog through, and I applaud your patience.  

Learn more about Wards of Faerie: The Dark Legacy of Shannara, by Terry Brooks, on Amazon.com

 

The parting comment:



Source: pintrest

Terry Brooks was doing post-apocalyptic before post-apocalyptic was so vogue.  Of course, it's hard to see under the veneer of magic and fantasy that the early books use, or the...  well...  how to put it politely?  The stuff the later books cover themselves in.

 

Want another opinion on the cause and effect of our current love affair with Dystopian life?  The author featured in the story linked below has an interesting thing to say about the subject, which mirrors something I've been thinking myself for some time. 

“This boom in cli-fi literature is exciting, but I think it can become dangerous if it isn’t seen as a warning, but just seen as inevitable. I think Margaret Atwood—not to be too Canadian about it—but I think Margaret Atwood’s In the Year of the Flood and that whole trilogy, that whole climate trilogy, is an example of the kind of narrative that really does serve as clarion warning, as opposed to just sort of hopeless ‘we’re on this road, we can’t get off.’ And it’s hard to define what makes something more of a warning than just affirming that sense of the inevitable. I loved Ursula Le Guin‘s acceptance speech at the Booker awards this year. I’m a huge Ursula Le Guin fan, and I think she’s one of the few science fiction writers that has pulled off utopian fiction well. She’s done both. But when she accepted the award she sort of accepted on behalf of the genre, and talked about how important it is to have and nurture voices from people who can imagine different worlds.”

Dystopian Fiction’s Popularity Is a Warning Sign for the Future

Or my own version, which puts it in a nutshell: "Can't anybody come up with something better than End-of-the-World-As-We-Know-It?"