Tanequil by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the 26th book I read from the chronological order of Shannara, and it is part of a project to read all the Shannara books in our home library.

Tanequil does the job of a second book of a trilogy: it continues the original quest and it raises the stakes and urgency for the quest's completion.

I recommend it for fans of the series. I recommend new readers start elsewhere, at least start with Jarka Ruus, the beginning of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy.

View all my reviews

Jarka Ruus by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A current reading project is reading all the Shannara books my husband has collected for our home library. Jarka Ruus begins the "High Druid of Shannara" trilogy.

Once again, a Dwarf, an Ohmsford, and two Elessedils set off on a journey. This time the goal is to find the magic necessary to rescue a Druid from the Forbidding. Brooks does a great job with the pacing so that the reader continues to turn pages and read his descriptions of the Shannara world as our group trudges through it.

I recommend it to fans of the Shannara world.

View all my reviews

Morgawr by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Morgawr is the twenty-fourth book I read in my quest to read the Shannara books in our home in their chronological list order.

This book includes good, descriptive battles that had to be resolved from conflicts that started in the first two books of "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" trilogy. My three-star rating may indicate a weariness with this project.

I recommend this book to fans of the series. First time readers of the Shannara books by Terry Brooks are recommended to start elsewhere.

View all my reviews

Antrax by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Antrax is the twenty-third book I read in my project of reading the Shannara books in their chronological order. My number count is different from the chronological list in Goodreads because I included three new short ebooks.

Our group of explorers search for ancient books of magic which are protected by Antrax. While I read the book, I wondered what Brooks might be thinking about e-books vs. hardcover books, about digital storage in our libraries, and about artificial intelligence.

This is the second book of "The Voyage of Jerle Shannara," and I recommend it for fans of the series.

View all my reviews

Ilse Witch by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ilse Witch is the twenty-second book I read as a part of my quest to read the Shannara books in their chronological order. It has been on our home library shelf for thirteen years, puchased by my husband who prefers to wait to read the books of a series once the author completes the series.

The last book I read, Talismans of Shannara only received a three-star rating from me, and I was in no hurry to start the next trilogy. This book is back up to four-stars for I liked this generation of characters and the airship battles.

Ilse Witch is a good start of a Shannara trilogy for a first time reader and an enjoyable read for fans of the Shannara world.

View all my reviews

The Talismans of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Talismans of Shannara is the 21st book I read in my quest to read the Shannara books in chronological order.

This is the fourth book of The Heritage of Shannara; and so, a conclusion to the quests of Walker Boh, Wren Elessedil, Par Ohmsford, and Coll Ohmsford is to be expected. I dropped my rating from the usual 4 stars because the last two chapters seemed to be rapid responses to possible questions the readers may still have.

I recommend it to fans of the series, rather than a first-time reader.

View all my reviews

Paladins of Shannara: The Black Irix by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes I have to backtrack from my project of reading the Shannara books in chronological order in order to read a new release.
This is a short story about Shea and Flick Ohmsford and Panamon Creel, and the additional excerpt from the newest novel is a marketing tool with which to interest Shannara fans.
I recommend it for fans of the series.

View all my reviews

The Elf Queen of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the 19th book of the Shannara series I have read, as I make my way through this series in its chronological order.
I liked this book for its main story concerns Wren Ohmsford whose charge from the shade of Allanon is to find the Elves and restore them to the Four Lands. Wren had good supporting characters such as Garth, a Splinterscat, Tiger Ty, and Aurin Striate. I made a note of Aruin Striate's speech,

“Let me tell you something you haven’t learned yet, something you learn only by living awhile. As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events—they all conspire against you to steal away your energy, to erode your confidence, to make you question things you wouldn’t have given a second thought to when you were young. It happens gradually, a chipping away that you don’t even notice at first, and then one day it’s there. You wake up and you just don’t have the fire anymore.
He smiled faintly. "Then you have a choice. You can either give in to what you're feeling, just say 'okay, enough is enough' and be done with it, or you can fight it. You can accept that every day you're alive you're going to have to face it down, that you're going to have to say to yourself that you don't care what you feel, that it doesn't matter what happens to you because sooner or later it is going to happen anyway, that you're going to do what you have to because otherwise you're defeated and life doesn't have any real purpose left. When you can do that, little Wren, when you can accept the wearing down and the eroding, then you can do anything. How did I manage to keep going out nights? I just told myself I didn’t matter all that much—that those in here mattered more. You know something? It’s not so hard really. You just have to get past the fear.

I recommend this book for fans of the series. It is Book Three of "The Heritage of Shannara."

View all my reviews

The Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished another Shannara book in my quest to read them all in their chronological order. The Druid of Shannara is book 2 of the four part "Heritage of Shannara." I recommend it for fans of the series.

View all my reviews

The Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A current project of mine is to read the Shannara books in their chronological order; and while this is Book One of The Heritage of Shannara, it is the fifteenth book I read. It had been unread, on our household bookshelves, since Don purchased it when it was published in 1991. Don likes to own all the books in a series before he reads them. With yet another two books due to be published in 2013, I think he better finish the ones he owns before additional books have to be double-layered on the Shannara shelf.
Terry Brooks created the Shannara world and he does an excellent job of filling it with stories of the Ohmsford descendants who have quests to fulfill. Shannara has become its own niche in the fantasy genre.
I recommend it to fans of the series.

View all my reviews

Dark Wraith of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dark Wraith of Shannara is a graphic novel, in the chronological Shannara order after Indomitable. So far, I have read sixteen books in my project to read the Shannara books in their chronological order, with ten from our home library to go before I start buying any of the current Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy.

If I liked graphic novels better than I do, I might rate this story of Jair Ohmsford's third quest higher than the three stars. Character development is hard to accomplish in graphic novels, so the only new character introduced is the mercenary witch who works for the mwellrets. I wonder how many fans of graphic novels overcame their intimidation by long text to become readers of the series.

I recommend it for fans of graphic novels and fans of the Shannara series.

View all my reviews

Indomitable by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This eBook fits into the Shannara chronological order after The Wishsong of Shannara. It includes an excerpt from The Measure of Magic.

I recommend it to fans of the series.

View all my reviews

Paladins of Shannara: The Weapons Master's Choice by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 99-cent, 44-page ebook, set in the chronological Shannara series somewhere before The Wishsong of Shannara. Released last month, the timing was close to perfect in my own reading project, the Shannara series in chronological order.

Garet Jax had many stories to tell of his life before he joined Jair Ohmsford's quest in The Wishsong of Shannara, and this story of Lyriana and the warlock Kronswiff is one of them.

I recommend it to fans of the series.

View all my reviews

The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My two-year project is reading the Shannara books in chronological order. This is the thirteenth book I read, the third of the original trilogy which was published in 1985.
In this third book, Brook acknowledges the pattern: Allanon the Druid seeks the help of a member of the Ohmsford family to defeat the present Evil. Gnome, Drawf, Elf, and Bordermen join the quest. Brooks paces his novel well and he writes descriptive, action-filled fight scenes.
I recommend this book for readers of the series.

View all my reviews

Paladins of Shannara: Allanon's Quest by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an e-short story that helps promote Wards of the Fairie which was published in 2012. While I am not close to reading Wards of the Fairie in my quest to read the Shannara books in a chronological order, Allanon's Quest precedes The Sword of Shannara.
It may be a short story, but it explains the plot point of how Allanon knew to seek out Shea Ohmsford. Brooks is able to continue to build Shannara's world and to write another good fight scene. I wonder, since this is an ebook, will it be easier for Brooks to correct the continuity errors that Verity Brown mentions in her review on goodreads.com?
I recommend it for fans of the series.

View all my reviews

The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Elfstones of Shannara is the eleventh book I have read from the Shannara series as I work my way through the books collected by my husband.
For someone who is reading the books for the first time and in the chronological order of the series, there are large gaps of years between the books and whole different casts of characters so this sometimes confuses me. Fifty years passed between The Sword of Shannara and The Elfstones of Shannara, this time the protagonist Wil Ohmsford is the grandson of the last protagonist Shea Ohmsford. The Ellcrys was introduced about four or five books ago.
Brooks does an excellent job describing the world of Shannara during the journeys and he does an excellent job of describing exciting battle scenes.
I recommend this series for fans of fantasy.

View all my reviews

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was published 35 years ago, and a current project of mine is to read all 25 books of the Shannara series in the chronological order of their events.

This is the book that started the series, and it is the book that opened the publishing genre of fantasy when the publisher thought there might be a market for readers who enjoyed Tolkein and wanted more fantasy quests.
I enjoy the characters Brooks creates and Brooks does an excellent job of writing battle scenes.
I give it five stars for it can be enjoyed by multi-generational readers without feeling dated.

View all my reviews

First King of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book because I am reading all the Shannara books in the chronological order.
I enjoyed it, just not as much as I enjoyed the books with John Ross and Nest Freemark.
I recommend it to fans of the series.

View all my reviews

Angel Fire East by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Angel Fire East is the third book of the Word and the Void trilogy from the 24 Shannara books. Now that I have read this one, all of the first eight are finished by me, and I have four more to read before I catch up with the book Don is currently reading.
I enjoy the characters of Nest Freemark, Pick, and John Ross. The demon Findo Gask is scary.
I recommend it for fans of the series. For new readers, I recommend starting with Running with the Demon.

View all my reviews

A Knight of the Word by Terry Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second of The Word and the Void section of the 24-book Shannara series. The story of John Ross and Next Freemark continue in this book.
It is entertaining and page-turning. It is set in a pre-apocalype era with warnings to us readers that homelessness and domestic violence are problems where our society should provide assistance or don't be surprised that demons and feeders grow in power.
I recommend it to fans of the series.



View all my reviews