This post is brought to you by Bearshirt #5 The Beacon House and Other Stories by G. W. Thomas. This story collection follows four novels and offers six tales of Arthan the Bear-man when he was only a youth of seventeen. He faces off against some pretty wicked monsters, including a giant worm, a bat creature, tentacles from the sky, prehistoric birds, tree men and a race of evil scientists and their cyborg killers. This is a book for anyone who loves a good old-fashioned Sword & Sorcery tale with plenty of monsters and action.
I just re-re-read The Sword of Shannara for the fourth time. My first was back in 1978 when the paperbacks was new. I quite liked it in 1978, being about fifteen and finding The Lord of the Rings too hard a read. Shannara is much easier. The second time was a decade later, The Lord of the Rings now conquered. I hated Shannara the second time around because all the parallels were obvious to me now. The third time was last year, where I threw it against the wall about half way. Then I read the introduction by Brooks for the Shannara Trilogy edition and something changed. In that intro Brooks tells how he was influenced by Tolkien (of course) but also by adventure writers like Alexandre Dumas and Sir Walter Scott. This fourth try, only less than a year later, from the beginning again, was quite enjoyable. I had failed to see the adventure angle before and it made all the difference.
This go-round done, I turned to the critics at the time of the book’s initial release and later. (Mostly here.) I knew there were some vehement haters out there, but I also learned there were fans as well.
On the plus side, Choice (July–August 1977) said the book was “exceptionally well-written, very readable” and “will be accepted by most teenagers.” Marshall F. Tymn in Fantasy Literature, 55 acknowledged Brooks’ post-apocalyptic setting and Cathi Dunn MacRae in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction, 77 looked to Brooks’ driving prose were also positive. In most cases, these reviewers seem to see the book as a Young Adult piece, and subject to different rules. (True?) Other champions include Gene Wolfe in “The Best Introduction to the Mountains”, Interzone # 174 (December 2001) and Frank Herbert in “Some Author, Some Tolkien”, The New York Times Book Review, April 10, 1977) who acknowledge the imitation but aren’t repelled by it. They focus on Brooks’ ability to tell a good story and the need for good imitations.
The con list is much longer with, ironically, Lin Carter leading the charge.The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 4 (1978): had “…the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read”. I say ironic because, besides the Ballantine Fantasy Series, Lin made his living cold-bloodly ripping off Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and Leigh Brackett. That’s a little tongue-in-cheek, because I quite like Lin Carter and his balls-to-walls fanboyism. But it seems he couldn’t see others in the same way… (I don’t recall so many people getting upset about Robert E. Howard imitations, though Lin, John Jakes and others did take some flak.)
Roger C. Schlobin in The Literature of Fantasy: A Comprehensive, Annotated Bibliography of Modern Fantasy Fiction (1979) notes the similarities to The Lord of the Rings, as do most reviewers. Tom Shippey in J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (2000) goes the whole way listing a point-for-point imitation. These are all correct, of course, but does he list the things that aren’t the same? These will surprise you because there are many more of them than you think. John Batchelor in “Tolkien Again: Lord Foul and Friends Infest a Morbid but Moneyed Land”, The Village Voice (October 10, 1977) saw The Sword of Shannara as the poorest of a new trend. Stephen R. Donaldson’s first book might be better than Brooks’ first but who was cutting trail? Without Brooks, derivative Epic Fantasy might never have happened.
I think one of the best document on The Sword of Shannara is Peter S. Beagle’s The Secret History of Fantasy (2010) where Beagle tells of his conversation with Lester Del Rey. Beagle felt the book was a sham and should not be published. Del Rey, thinking as publisher not critic, defended the sale as exactly what Tolkien readers want now that they have read all the Tolkien. And he wasn’t wrong. Readers wanted more orcs (call them gnomes if you like), more magic swords and dark lords, more armies crashing together is battle. The Sword of Shannara did this, warts and all. It sold like hot cakes, of course.
Conclusion
The bottom line here is that both pro and con camps are right. It really depends on what you expect. If you are a lover of new and exciting Fantasy that pushes the envelope, The Sword of Shannara is not for you. (If you are a younger reader and finding Tolkien a little steep, Brooks is a nice hand-up. I found H. P. Lovecraft did the exact same thing for me with Edgar Allan Poe.) If you a consumer of BFFs (Big, Fat Fantasy) series then the Shannara franchise is for you with twenty-four volumes. That’s at least three times all of Tolkien’s output if you judge things by the word.
I can only speak for myself. I will no longer be slagging Terry Brooks. (I have and I regret it now.) I can acknowledge Sword of Shannara as a publishing phenomenon, as a heart-felt homage to Tolkien, even as “the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read”. All these things are true to some degree. But without Frank Frazetta you don’t get Boris Vallejo, Ken Kelly, Tom Grindberg, and many other painters I love. As well as a number of writers too. We all imitate. And I think, having started on The Elfstones of Shannara (1982) that Terry was done with his apprentice writing and had struck out on his own at this point. Imagine what that twenty-fourth book will be like.
I think we can also acknowledge that Brooks set a pattern for those who followed. (Beware of that pitfall. I fell in there! Really bad character names come to mind.) Brooks even does a thing or two that is original-ish. As Shea, Panamon and Keltset are headed north to the bad guy’s lair they have to cross a belt of dark mist that tries to suck the life out of them. The Elfstones save them but I immediately thought of the Black Wind in The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan. (Did RJ read The Sword of Shannara?) The sword also destroys the bad guy using truth. It is a sword of truth. (Where have I heard that before? Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth series?) Are you catching what I am laying down here? Terry did it first but his TV show skipped the first novel and went straight onto The Elfstones of Shannara. Jordan and Goodkind’s shows started at the beginning, though none of them are rigorously close to the originals. TV is another beast altogether…
It will be fifty years next year that The Sword of Shannara came into the world. In five decades, its reputation hasn’t changed much. But Epic Fantasy has changed immensely. Bestsellers, racks of fat volumes (I like to call them “word bricks”) to enjoy on a hot summer’s afternoon. Just like I did with The Sword of Shannara back in 1978. The authors change but the comfort remains.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
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