I listened to The Elves of Cintra audiobook, brilliantly narrated by Phil Gigante.

I have fond memories of the Shannara books. I *think* it was recommended to me by a school friend back in the late 80s and I had a copy of The Sword of Shannara from the library at the Army Apprentices’ College in Harrogate when I had my accident in 1989. In those days I read fantasy pretty much exclusively and the derivative nature of Sword didn’t bother me at all.

I also have a memory of lying in my bunk at the apprentices’ college reading the Scions of Shannara when midnight struck into my 19th birthday and then I continued through that quadrilogy during the next phase of surgeries on my leg.

I’m not sure why I didn’t follow up when Terry Brooks wrote more and more Shannara books at the time, but I’m making up for it now and going right back to the beginning of the Word and the Void series.

The Word and the Void

The Genesis of Shannara trilogy follows on from the Word and the Void trilogy, so we’re now still in the real world, but after the apocalypse.

What apocolypse?

Exactly!

There are demons and mutated humans out to kill everyone, humans and elves both — but where the fuck did the elves come from if we’re supposed to be in the real world? I don’t feel like that is ever really explained. Maybe they were always there. Maybe they still are!

And why do the demons want to kill everyone? Just because that’s what demons do? What would they do if there was no one left to kill? Just chill I suppose.

And how the the demons that are in the Forbidding get put there? And when? In between the two trilogies? It’s never mentioned in the Word and the Void, so I’m guessing so?

I’d like to have more of the tale of what happened between the two trilogies. Maybe that comes in the Gypsy Morph? The old King of the Silver River pulls that old Allanon trick of not revealing everything to the young hero because it would be too much or some pish like that, and I found that kind of annoying. Very Terry Brooksy as tropes go. Just give the hero all the info and he might just win the battle a little easier? Hmmm.

What happened to Nest Freemark?

What happened to the fucking world?

And those feeders, what are they all about? They’re always there but they don’t serve the story at all.

And the elves? Where did they come from? Oh, wait, I already asked that, didn’t I?

How does Candle have foresight? What’s the deal with the lady from the Welsh valleys that hands out Knight of the Word staffs?

The characters are pretty wooden and tropey, but they serve the story well enough and the lack of detail into their motivations keeps the story moving along pretty fast I suppose.

I tell you what though, if all these loose ends aren’t wrapped up in the Gypsy Morph, I’ll… I’ll …

… probably keep reading the next books anyway. Who am I kidding?