Is the Sword of Shannara worth reading?

[Artless]

Ermmmmm Do you really want me to?
Cause, you know, I can think of a few of the top of my head...
Like, say, the series you mention in your signature?
Or G.R.R.M, or Katherine Kerr, or the rest of my bookshelf that isn't Shannara?

 

[Poppa Weelee]

Yeah, after I posted that I thought of, like 12 series, but for obvious reasons I couldn't retract my statement. This is the Internet for cat's sake! But I stand by my statement that Shannara gets better after Sword.

 

[Donny Bruso]

! But I stand by my statement that Shannara gets better after Sword.

Well when you start off with a novel that is a shameless example of plagiarism and write it with a crayon on construction paper you really have nowhere to go but up...

 

[Poppa Weelee]

I mean "interested enough to have kept me reading for the last decade or so." I read First King almost exactly ten years ago, and I'm still eating his Shannara novels up like candy. Anxiously awaiting Bearers of the Black Staff Book 2.

 

[Edgemaker]

For me after Reading the Lord of the Rings, and then hearing about the Sword of Shannara, personally it was like having a gourmet feast and then being offered a candy bar.

 

[Kaellpae]

I heard about this series after I posted here about a world I was wanting to create. Very similar and both in the Northwest U.S. so I looked a bit into it. I will definitely read it and I won't have anything to compare it to as I haven't read Tolkien. I plan to fix that, but when I was in 4th grade I tried reading a copy of The Hobbit and couldn't get past the first few chapters.

Definitely going to be giving them all a second chance though, now that I'm solidly into fantasy and old enough to know better.

 

[Dante Sawyer]

Well when you start off with a novel that is a shameless example of plagiarism and write it with a crayon on construction paper you really have nowhere to go but up...

Hahah, so true. SoS really isn't good. Not only is it a ripoff of LotR, but even if the idea was original the writing isn't very good. I read this last year for a lit class and it's not something I would recommend. I don't even really think Brooks is that great in his later works. He's better, but just as lacking as in SoS. Read Mistborn or The Dark Tower. Much better choices.

 

[Kaellpae]

I agree with Dante for The Dark Tower. Definitely worth your time.

 

[myrddin173]

I've never read the Dark Tower. When I first read Sword I didn't think it was reminicent of Tolkien, then again I hadn't read LotR yet. Although I am an avid Tolkien fan, the Shannara books hold a place near and dear to my heart; they are the reason I got into Fantasy so I will always defend their merits.

 

[Angharad]

I read the Sword of Shannara when I was a teenager, many years ago, and I loved it. I haven't revisited it since, so I don't know how I would feel about it now. I tried to read The Dark Tower recently and it was so boring I couldn't get through it.

 

[Thistlefizz]

I read it when I was about 10 and I loved it. I recently tried to re-read it and was... disappointed. I am glad that I read it before I had read Lord of the Rings, because I was able to read it without knowing that it was so derivative of LotR. At the time, I really enjoyed the story and it was one of the first fantasy books that I ever read. After reading The Sword of Shannara I couldn't get enough of fantasy books. So I'm glad the book is out there because without it, there's a chance that I might not have given fantasy a real chance. But, I do wish that I hadn't tried to re-read it as an adult. A bit of my childhood innocence died when I realized that Shannara didn't live up to my memory of it.

Would I recommend against reading it? No. But I would counsel people to keep in mind that it's not the best pieces of fantasy out there. And if they have a deep and abiding loyalty to Tolkein they might want to stay away from it to avoid getting headaches from how angry they might get.

 

[Anomander]

I read like a couple of pages, and upon seeing Gandalf (with another name), and the same plot already given, I stopped reading. I guess it's a complete ripoff. And I imagine he's made a lot of money on this ripoff...