Shannara: what is it about?

[Circus Cranium]

I don't recall Shea and Flick Olmsford being short. In fact I think Flick was describled as kind of big.


The rest of the stuff you can find common in themes of dozens of fantasy novels. Most have a quest, an evil protagonist, why hell, the gathering of a fellowship in order to face an ultimate evil waiting at a threatening abode was even in Wizard of Oz.

[Boaz]

I remembered the Valemen as being smaller than their neighbors. But it's been twenty some years since I read TSOS.

[GOLLUM]

Dito boaz and YEH read Sword about 20 years ago. Then again I've read everything by Brooks and pretty sure the valemen are not as short as Hobbits but still shorter than other human groups in this world.

[shandril]

The valemen were what you would call normal in comparrison to the boardermen which gave of the impression of being taller and broarder....

what you have to remember thou is that Wil...even as he was called a vale man was part elf like most of the descendants of the Ohmsford's line

*head spins trying to remember the connections*

[GOLLUM]

Hey Shandril have I mentioned you rock!! yet...

C'mon you're an Aussie which means you're never phased....

[shandril]

no gollum but feel free i wont object..*laughs*

[GOLLUM]

OHHH.... that's tempting but I shall refrain for the moment at least....

Know what you mean with remembering all those different conenctions. I read that book (Sword Of Shannara) over 20 years ago now LOL!! so its hard to remember stuff like that..

[shandril]

yeah every so often i get out the books and sit down and read them all over again......as the years pass i forget endings till im about two pages away but im so hooked all over again i have to read it all the way through...love the shannara books:P

[Boaz]

Quick post to the OP, I, Brian:

Obviously, some have found TSOS entertaining and enjoyable. So, I guess you'll have to make up your own mind and let us know.

[Balinor]

Jeez, you're all goin on at brooks for ripping off tolkien but if you had never read tolkein and you read brooks would you care?

TSOS is a great series with great characters and it is also vastly different to tolkein in the fact that it seems to be set in a wierd kind of future

[Boaz]

Originally Posted by Balinor

Jeez, you're all goin on at brooks for ripping off tolkien but if you had never read tolkein and you read brooks would you care?

If I had not read Tolkien, no I don't think I would. But since I know that Brooks' storyline is plagiarized, I can't ignore it. Just because the crime was not committed against me should I ignore it?

For example, say I am the president of XYZ Publishing House (the largest publisher in the world) and you submit a fantasy novel, The Winter Unicorn and the Tiger Princess, for review. You have worked for twenty years on the novel and you know it is a masterpiece... in fact you know it will still be hailed in a thousand years as pure genius. But my senior editor (an evil gnome), Mr. Brooks, reads your manuscript and immediately recognizes it's brilliance. He goes home, calls in sick the next day, and works for 36 straight hours to change the names and a few scenes... and then comes back to work with his version of The Winter Unicorn and the Tiger Princess, but now it's called Snow Pegasus and Catgirl. Upon his recommendation, I read Snow Pegasus and Catgirl, and I don't even know that The Winter Unicorn and the Tiger Princess even exists. I publish Snow Pegasus and Catgirl and it outsells Harry Potter, The Purpose Driven Life, and The DaVinci Code combined. Mr. Brooks quickly becomes a gajillionaire while you continue eating Ramen Noodles.

When you complain to me, I say "I've never read you, but I've read Brooks, so I don't care."

[Balinor]

lol, fair enough, but the shannara series hasn't and never will outsell tolkein so i woudn't be too worried

[I, Brian]

Was just reading an interview with Charles N Brown of Locus:
http://www.locusmag.com/2002/Issue09/Brown.html

when I came across this interesting section:

“By the late ’60s, The Lord of the Rings was popular. So-called high fantasy didn’t start until the ’70s, and that was commercial fantasy, started by Lester del Rey. He said: We’ve got this very strange Tolkien rip-off manuscript, I can make this a bestseller — and he did. That was Terry Brooks; he was the first. Del Rey promoted him as a Tolkien clone, and did a big Tolkien-type promotion on it. It sold a lot of copies, and this was the start of the commercial fantasy field.

[Allanon]

ive just signed up to these forums and i am in the middle of reading the elfstones of shannara, its really good. i read tsos aswell, very good. i think allanon is amazing!

if anyone can get me a better avatat that looks more like him i'd appreciate it, i'd find one but im kind of computer illiterate.
cheers

[Parsimony]

Originally Posted by Allanon

ive just signed up to these forums and i am in the middle of reading the elfstones of shannara, its really good. i read tsos aswell, very good. i think allanon is amazing!

if anyone can get me a better avatat that looks more like him i'd appreciate it, i'd find one but im kind of computer illiterate.
cheers

Do you still want one?

Shannara can't really be described in a paragraph - it started off as a LOTR copy-off, but has evolved into something much different. Brooks has taken Shannara from straight up Tolkien fantasy and turned it into a mix of fantasy and futuristic fiction. The storyline is quite complicated as it relates to the world in which the characters live.