In this first book of the "final" Shannara series, a young gifted woman leaves her home in search of the powerful, exiled druid who could teach her about her magic -- so she can help her unstable, also-gifted brother.

Turns out, she and her brother have inherited the fabled Wishsong, and while she just wants to find a way to keep her brother sane, other forces in the Four Lands have far more sinister plans. Like assassinating her new teacher.

She joins him on the hunt to find out who hired the assassins out to get him, and along the way, they start to learn about a threat forming against all the land.

An invasion is coming.

And for some reason, they and a few others are the only ones who are concerned about it.

But the girl feels she has been away from her brother for too long and heads home, leaving the druid and his Blade to face the threat alone.

Despite their efforts, they can't stop the invaders from getting the upper hand, and the only bastion that could have stopped the invaders is destroyed.

And the druid, tricked and betrayed, is trapped "elsewhere."

Longtime fans of the Shannara universe, and fantasy in general.

Although I was a fan of Shannara for the longest time, I've been rather jaded about the newer books -- I don't think they're on par with some of the earlier books. That said, I do think this book shows an improvement over the ones preceding it, though it doesn't rise nearly as high as The Heritage of Shannara series.

What does this lack? Well, though THOS was a four-book series, each book had a very clear, almost self-contained plot-goal that added to the larger plot and resulted in a very epic storyline. This one does not. In fact, this book's namesake doesn't have any relevance to the plot until the end.

On the other hand, it is better than some of the preceding books because at least it is trying to be epic without pandering to a YA crowd.

As a side note, this happens to be one of the more graphically violent Shannara books I've ever read -- the girl's brother is murderously insane, and his deeds are shared with the reader mostly in his viewpoint, if sometimes after the fact.

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Created Jan 18, 2020 at 2:39pm • Submit your own review...