nachtfalke's review against another edition
5.0
By Hextor, this is excellent! I am a long-time follower of the series, though not always a fan; this one, though, takes me back to the glory that Shannara was during the 90s. :) Wonderful book, and quite possibly the introduction to a last, strong circle of stories! :)
disneydamsel1's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
weaselweader's review against another edition
5.0
“Always there had been the threat that magic, like science, might be misused.”
It simply has to be said! As the Shannara universe enters its fifth decade and the series novel count approaches 40, it is difficult to believe that Terry Brooks writing remains as compelling, as imaginative, as thrilling, as provocative, as evocative and as exciting as the day I first drooled over The Sword of Shannara. It is no small matter of personal pride for me that I can say I was one of those lucky fantasy lovers who stumbled upon the epic Shannara fantasy when it was actually first published and that I have been an ardent fan ever since I first encountered it in the late 1970s. To say that I was enchanted by Shea Ohmsford and Allanon, not to mention the magnificent illustrations of the Brothers Hildebrandt would be a masterpiece of understatement. As the Ringwraiths did in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Brooks’ imagining of the Skullbearers simply gave me goosebumps. A first edition illustrated trade paperback copy sits with no small pride in a valued place on my bookshelves.
In The Fall of Shannara, recently deposed and exiled High Druid Drisker Arc faces assassins and an unknown enemy force. This new and terrifying foe, already endowed with powerful and hitherto unknown magic, would seek to destroy the entire High Druid Council, to pulverize Paranor, the Druid’s secluded and magically protected fortress, and to add to their own power with the dangerous and almost unlimited power of the Black Elfstone. It rests only with Drisker Arc, Darcon Leah, the Blade and sworn guardian of the Ard Rhys and the Druid Council and young Tarsha Kaynin, an untested enchantress who has inherited the Ohmsford family Wishsong magic, to protect the Four Lands from domination by this evil. Tarsha Kaynin faces the additional problem of rescuing her brother from the madness and self-destruction that seems to be consuming him as a result of the same Wishsong bequest blocking his efforts to control it.
The theme is the time-tested chestnut, “good versus evil”, but in the hands of Terry Brooks, every book seems to be new and thrilling. There’s nothing stale here and every page begs to be turned so a reader can get on with this absorbing new tale of Shannara and the dangers facing the Four Lands. I am looking forward with considerable relish to the sequel, The Skaar Invasion.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
It simply has to be said! As the Shannara universe enters its fifth decade and the series novel count approaches 40, it is difficult to believe that Terry Brooks writing remains as compelling, as imaginative, as thrilling, as provocative, as evocative and as exciting as the day I first drooled over The Sword of Shannara. It is no small matter of personal pride for me that I can say I was one of those lucky fantasy lovers who stumbled upon the epic Shannara fantasy when it was actually first published and that I have been an ardent fan ever since I first encountered it in the late 1970s. To say that I was enchanted by Shea Ohmsford and Allanon, not to mention the magnificent illustrations of the Brothers Hildebrandt would be a masterpiece of understatement. As the Ringwraiths did in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Brooks’ imagining of the Skullbearers simply gave me goosebumps. A first edition illustrated trade paperback copy sits with no small pride in a valued place on my bookshelves.
In The Fall of Shannara, recently deposed and exiled High Druid Drisker Arc faces assassins and an unknown enemy force. This new and terrifying foe, already endowed with powerful and hitherto unknown magic, would seek to destroy the entire High Druid Council, to pulverize Paranor, the Druid’s secluded and magically protected fortress, and to add to their own power with the dangerous and almost unlimited power of the Black Elfstone. It rests only with Drisker Arc, Darcon Leah, the Blade and sworn guardian of the Ard Rhys and the Druid Council and young Tarsha Kaynin, an untested enchantress who has inherited the Ohmsford family Wishsong magic, to protect the Four Lands from domination by this evil. Tarsha Kaynin faces the additional problem of rescuing her brother from the madness and self-destruction that seems to be consuming him as a result of the same Wishsong bequest blocking his efforts to control it.
The theme is the time-tested chestnut, “good versus evil”, but in the hands of Terry Brooks, every book seems to be new and thrilling. There’s nothing stale here and every page begs to be turned so a reader can get on with this absorbing new tale of Shannara and the dangers facing the Four Lands. I am looking forward with considerable relish to the sequel, The Skaar Invasion.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
ruskie's review against another edition
3.0
Un passo avanti rispetto agli ultimi libri della saga, sembra più "compatto" e le premesse per una bella storia ci sono.
Continua la bruttissima abitudine degli ultimi libri, però, di non scrivere libri autoconclusivi. La storia non si conclude in questo libro, bisogna necessariamente leggere il prossimo, il che è una cosa che non apprezzo molto.
Continua la bruttissima abitudine degli ultimi libri, però, di non scrivere libri autoconclusivi. La storia non si conclude in questo libro, bisogna necessariamente leggere il prossimo, il che è una cosa che non apprezzo molto.
hskey's review against another edition
3.0
While it may not be the last Shannara series, the fact that it's the chronological end fills me with nostalgia, sadness and excitement. Shannara itself is not necessarily a fantasy series I'd recommend to just anybody, but anybody wanting to get into fantasy on the ground level would be wise to start here. While it obviously borrows a LOT from Lord of the Rings (Brooks admits this), that's not a bad thing. Some books in the series are outstanding (Elfstones, Ilse Witch, the entire Heritage series), most are just pretty good. I'm a sucker for maps, colorful characters, magic spells, tropey races that are suspicious of each other, invading evil forces, castles and medieval villages, airships. Shannara is pretty equitable to Final Fantasy, both in style and longevity. And I love both.
The Black Elfstone is pretty good, but I can't rate it any higher just yet. This is mostly a book for setup, the opening course if you will. And I still get excited to callbacks of Shannara lore, I still love Brooks' emphasis on pace, adventure and story twists. I can't help it. Fantasy is my favorite genre and I just can't dislike any book in the Shannara series, even if I tried.
Black Elfstone does what it's meant to do - get me pumped for the next book and put a smile on my face.
The Black Elfstone is pretty good, but I can't rate it any higher just yet. This is mostly a book for setup, the opening course if you will. And I still get excited to callbacks of Shannara lore, I still love Brooks' emphasis on pace, adventure and story twists. I can't help it. Fantasy is my favorite genre and I just can't dislike any book in the Shannara series, even if I tried.
Black Elfstone does what it's meant to do - get me pumped for the next book and put a smile on my face.
tarana's review against another edition
5.0
I'm much happier with the start of this tetrology than the last trilogy. Strong plot, some very interesting characters. Promising!
markyon's review against another edition
3.0
After forty years or so of being published and having over thirty books published about Shannara, The Black Elfstone is the beginning of the end for Terry Brooks' famous series. With Terry in his seventies, he’s decided that he will finish the series properly himself rather than have someone else do it for him.
And whilst the last quartet is set long after the first and most famous book of the lot, The Sword of Shannara, it’s not a bad place to start.
Honesty time – it’s been a little while since I’ve read a Shannara book. To be fair, it doesn’t matter too much – each set of books in the series tells enough to allow new readers to follow without difficulty – but I was wondering how things were going, and perhaps how things would end. The Black Elfstone is the first of a four-volume series to bring things to a close and is widely described as ‘the last’, although Terry may still go back and fill in occasional details afterwards.
My first thought is that how things have changed. Where the initial books were lighter in tone and style and these days would perhaps be regarded as more Young Adult, 400 years on from Shea Ohmsford and the events of The Sword of Shannara we have events happening on a much bigger scale. The Four Lands are in division geographically and politically. At Paranor, the city that is the centre for the magical Druids, their leader Drisker Arc has been replaced in a power struggle by Ober Balronen, an Ard Rhys who, unlike Drisker, seems to have surrounded himself with subservient lackeys and who seems to run the Druid’s Keep with secrets and paranoid subterfuge.
A number of events happen early in the book. The appearance of a new threat, a strange ghostly army on the borders of Paranor leads to Dar Leah, the Blade of the High Druid, being made surplus to requirements after a mission gone wrong against this new adversary.
A secondary plot involves Tarsha Kaynin and her brother Tavo in the village of Backing Fell. Tavo, who is clearly ill, is sent by their parents to live with his uncle. As she grows up, Tarsha, who has magic powers through the Wishsong, realises that to help her brother she must learn to use her magic effectively and so leaves Backing Fell to seek out Drisker, to ask him to be a mentor and so help her brother.
However, having stepped away from the politics and responsibility of the continuously squalling Druids and being content to live a simpler life in Emberen, Drusker is reluctant to do it all again, so to speak. He also has other pressing matters in that after years of living in seclusion, Drisker finds himself attacked not just once but twice by mystery assailants. When he eventually discovers that the attackers are part of an assassin’s guild, he has to travel to Varfleet to find out who they are being paid by and why.
All of these disparate plot threads eventually combine to a purpose, and this has consequences. The focus appears to be on the Black Elfstone, kept in the vaults of the Druid’s Keep in Paranor, which is where our characters end up at the end of the novel.
What impresses me most is how well this all fits together. Terry manages that skill of concentrating on telling a story that can be read by anyone, even someone new to Shannara. It involves all of the usual tropes of friendship, loyalty, responsibility and honour, but the characters are more than simple caricatures. I was surprised at how nuanced some of them were. In particular, Tavo is a complex personality that you feel both sympathy and horror for. There are things here that are quite violent and even nasty. We’ve come a long way since The Sword of Shannara.
To tell a dark tale means that the tone is often quite bleak. The end of the novel has a major event that threatens the entire world and puts our likeable protagonists in serious danger. Things are clearly changed forever through a combination of betrayal, poor decisions, indolent leadership, a lack of guidance and narrow vision, which the mysterious enemies take advantage of. The story ends with the reader not knowing who the antagonists are or why they need the Black Elfstone kept in Paramor. This, of course, means that the reader wants to pick up the next book quickly to read further. It is a tale only partly told, and you may find that you want to read further.
The Black Elfstone is the work of an author who knows what a story has to do and has the ability to tell it. It uses genre tropes to create a story that a reader wants to read, and like all good books, it draws the reader in, keeps their attention and leaves them wanting more. I look forward to reading the next in this series.
And whilst the last quartet is set long after the first and most famous book of the lot, The Sword of Shannara, it’s not a bad place to start.
Honesty time – it’s been a little while since I’ve read a Shannara book. To be fair, it doesn’t matter too much – each set of books in the series tells enough to allow new readers to follow without difficulty – but I was wondering how things were going, and perhaps how things would end. The Black Elfstone is the first of a four-volume series to bring things to a close and is widely described as ‘the last’, although Terry may still go back and fill in occasional details afterwards.
My first thought is that how things have changed. Where the initial books were lighter in tone and style and these days would perhaps be regarded as more Young Adult, 400 years on from Shea Ohmsford and the events of The Sword of Shannara we have events happening on a much bigger scale. The Four Lands are in division geographically and politically. At Paranor, the city that is the centre for the magical Druids, their leader Drisker Arc has been replaced in a power struggle by Ober Balronen, an Ard Rhys who, unlike Drisker, seems to have surrounded himself with subservient lackeys and who seems to run the Druid’s Keep with secrets and paranoid subterfuge.
A number of events happen early in the book. The appearance of a new threat, a strange ghostly army on the borders of Paranor leads to Dar Leah, the Blade of the High Druid, being made surplus to requirements after a mission gone wrong against this new adversary.
A secondary plot involves Tarsha Kaynin and her brother Tavo in the village of Backing Fell. Tavo, who is clearly ill, is sent by their parents to live with his uncle. As she grows up, Tarsha, who has magic powers through the Wishsong, realises that to help her brother she must learn to use her magic effectively and so leaves Backing Fell to seek out Drisker, to ask him to be a mentor and so help her brother.
However, having stepped away from the politics and responsibility of the continuously squalling Druids and being content to live a simpler life in Emberen, Drusker is reluctant to do it all again, so to speak. He also has other pressing matters in that after years of living in seclusion, Drisker finds himself attacked not just once but twice by mystery assailants. When he eventually discovers that the attackers are part of an assassin’s guild, he has to travel to Varfleet to find out who they are being paid by and why.
All of these disparate plot threads eventually combine to a purpose, and this has consequences. The focus appears to be on the Black Elfstone, kept in the vaults of the Druid’s Keep in Paranor, which is where our characters end up at the end of the novel.
What impresses me most is how well this all fits together. Terry manages that skill of concentrating on telling a story that can be read by anyone, even someone new to Shannara. It involves all of the usual tropes of friendship, loyalty, responsibility and honour, but the characters are more than simple caricatures. I was surprised at how nuanced some of them were. In particular, Tavo is a complex personality that you feel both sympathy and horror for. There are things here that are quite violent and even nasty. We’ve come a long way since The Sword of Shannara.
To tell a dark tale means that the tone is often quite bleak. The end of the novel has a major event that threatens the entire world and puts our likeable protagonists in serious danger. Things are clearly changed forever through a combination of betrayal, poor decisions, indolent leadership, a lack of guidance and narrow vision, which the mysterious enemies take advantage of. The story ends with the reader not knowing who the antagonists are or why they need the Black Elfstone kept in Paramor. This, of course, means that the reader wants to pick up the next book quickly to read further. It is a tale only partly told, and you may find that you want to read further.
The Black Elfstone is the work of an author who knows what a story has to do and has the ability to tell it. It uses genre tropes to create a story that a reader wants to read, and like all good books, it draws the reader in, keeps their attention and leaves them wanting more. I look forward to reading the next in this series.