The Sword of Shannara

Ugh, what a slog! This book was so derivative of Lord of the Rings that I couldn't help myself from comparing the two through the whole read. It was very overdramatic with almost no comic relief. And while LOTR at least had three women characters, Shannara only had one, with a smaller role than Arwen. I only liked three characters, a heroic and selfless dwarf, a rock troll, and a thief modeled after a character from The Prisoner of Zenda (per Wikipedia). The book appears on a couple of "Best of..." lists. My guess is because it was one of the first epic fantasy novels since LOTR to hit the mainstream, feeding the new generation of LOTR fans hungry for more of the same. If I read it back when it was published in '77, I might have liked it more. But nearly fifty years later, it simply feels like sloppy fan fiction.

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