The Sword of Shannara

This article is about the fantasy novel. For the fictional sword, see Sword of Shannara.

The Sword of Shannara

First hardcover edition (Random House)
Author	Terry Brooks
Illustrator	The Brothers Hildebrandt
Cover artist	The Brothers Hildebrandt
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Original Shannara Trilogy
Genre	Epic fantasy
Publisher	Ballantine/Del Rey, Random House
Publication date	1977
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	726 pp.
ISBN	[[Special:BookSources/ISBN+0-345-24804-X+%28Ballantine%2FDel+Rey%29+%3Cbr%3EISBN+0-394-41333-4+%28Random+House%29 |ISBN 0-345-24804-X (Ballantine/Del Rey) ISBN 0-394-41333-4 (Random House)]]
Preceded by	First King of Shannara
Followed by	The Elfstones of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara is a 1977 epic fantasy novel by Terry Brooks. It is the first of three books that are a part of the Original Shannara Trilogy, with the other two being The Elfstones of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara. Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and historical adventure fiction, Brooks began writing the novel in 1967. He finished it seven years later; after being accepted for publication by Ballantine Books, it was used to launch the company's Del Rey Books imprint. Upon its release, The Sword of Shannara was a major success, becoming the first fantasy paperback to appear on the New York Times bestseller list. Its success provided a major boost to the commercial expansion of the fantasy genre.

The Sword of Shannara interweaves two major plots in its storyline. One follows the protagonist Shea Ohmsford on his quest to find the Sword of Shannara and confront the Warlock Lord with it; the other shadows Prince Balinor Buckhannah's attempt to oust his insane brother Palance from the throne of Callahorn while Callahorn and its capital, Tyrsis, come under attack by the armies of the Warlock Lord. Throughout the novel, underlying themes of mundane heroism and nuclear holocaust appear.

The novel has received much critical derision for being overly derivative of The Lord of the Rings, with some critics accusing him of lifting the entire plot and all of the characters from Lord of the Rings; others have said that every new fantasy writer, including Brooks, follows in Tolkien's footsteps.

Background

Brooks began writing The Sword of Shannara in 1967. He started to write the novel as a way to fight what he called an "increasingly rapid descent into terminal boredom" brought on by his entrance into law school, and as a result of being caught up in "the Tolkien tradition":

A writer since high school, [Brooks] wrote many stories within the genres of science fiction, western, fiction, and non-fiction, until one semester early in his college years he was given The Lord of the Rings to read. That moment changed [his] life forever, because in Tolkien's great work he found all the elements needed to fully explore his writing combined in one genre.

He then wrote The Sword of Shannara, the seven year grand result retaining sanity while studying at Washington & Lee University and practicing law.

Apart from The Lord of the Rings, Brooks has also cited adventure fiction such as Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company and Walter Scott's Ivanhoe as major narrative influences for his novel. In a preface for The Sword of Shannara printed in The Sword of Shannara Trilogy, Brooks explained his thought process:

I had read The Lord of the Rings two years earlier. What if Tolkien's magic and fairy creatures were made part of the worlds of Walter Scott and Dumas? What if the story took place somewhere timeless and placeless, a somewhere that nevertheless hinted strongly of our own world in the future? What if our present knowledge had been lost, and science had been replaced by magic? [...] That was how Sword began.

Different from those works, Brooks decided not to use historical settings, but he instead followed and modified Tolkien's use of a fantasy setting instead:

I would set my adventure story in an imaginary world, a vast, sprawling, mythical world like that of Tolkien, filled with magic that had replaced science and races that had evolved from Man. But I was not Tolkien and did not share his background in academia or his interest in cultural study. So I would eliminate the poetry and songs, the digressions on the ways and habits of types of characters, and the appendices of language and backstory that characterized and informed Tolkien's work. I would write the sort of straightforward adventure story that barreled ahead, picking up speed as it went, compelling a turning of pages until there were no more pages to be turned.

Brooks' also made decisions about his novel's characterization and use of magic when composing his work:

[It] couldn't be magic that was dependable or simply good or bad. And the right and wrong of things couldn't be clear-cut because life simply didn't work that way. And the central figure needed to be someone readers could identify with, a person very much like themselves, caught up in events not of his own making, a person simply trying to muddle through.

The novel took seven years to complete because of his 'other job' with his law practice. According to Brooks, he initially submitted his manuscript to DAW Books, whose editor Donald A. Wollheim rejected it and recommended submission to Judy-Lynn del Rey at Ballantine Books instead. Ballantine Books eventually accepted The Sword of Shannara for publication. Brooks' editor was Lester del Rey, who used the book to launch Ballantine's Del Rey Books imprint. Del Rey chose it because he felt that it was "the first long epic fantasy adventure which had any chance of meeting the demands of Tolkien readers for similar pleasures".

In 1977, The Sword of Shannara was simultaneously released as a trade paperback by Ballantine Books and hardback by Random House. They featured illustrations by the Brothers Hildebrandt. Upon publication, the novel was a commercial success. It became the first fantasy paperback novel to appear on the New York Times bestseller list.

Plot summary

History

Distant Past

The Sword of Shannara takes place in the fictional world of the Four Lands. Before the novel’s events, possibly near the present time, as nuclear weapons are mentioned, mankind gained technological advances and mishandled its power ending into power struggles of apocalyptic battles, known as the Great Wars. It rearranged the land’s structure and most life was wiped out. Mankind split into distinct races: Men, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Trolls. Once hidden for centuries, the distinct, pre-existing Elves revealed themselves. In this futuristic return to the past, the natural world once again flourished, and magic appeared from the remains of technology.

850 years before

In the First War of the Races, the Druid Brona convinced Men to attack the other races and almost succeeded in seizing rule of the Four Lands. This war ended with his defeat and disappearance, and with the Druids' partition of the Four Lands between the races to reduce interracial tension. Shamed by their own member's betrayal, the Druids became reclusive, withdrawing to Paranor and guarding their knowledge there.

500 years before

Centuries later, Brona and his followers, seemingly immortal, returned as the Warlock Lord, now with Skull Bearers as his servants. Chronicled in the prequel novel First King of Shannara, the Second War of the Races began with the Druid Order's destruction. One of the few survivors, Bremen, forged a magical talisman to be used against the Warlock Lord and gave it to the Elven King, Jerle Shannara. Taking the form of a blade, it was named the Sword of Shannara. It banished the Warlock Lord, though it did not kill him, while his army of Trolls, Gnomes and creatures from the spirit world was defeated by combined Elven and Dwarven armies. Yet peace came at a high price, as interracial tension was renewed and the Druid Order had seemingly vanished from the land.

Present

From Shady Vale to Culhaven

File:Allanon and Flick.jpg

A digital painting by Andy Simmons of Allanon and Flick's first meeting.

About five centuries later, the Ohmsford family of Shady Vale in the Southland was surprised by a half-elven baby left on their doorstep. They named the foundling Shea and raised him as a brother to the family's son Flick. Becoming inseparable, the brothers helped to run the family inn.

About twenty years after Shea's appearance, from which the novel opens up at, the mysterious Allanon arrived in the Vale. Tall and dark, his face perpetually shadowed under his hood, he was the last of the Druids. Allanon warned the Ohmsford brothers that the Warlock Lord had returned to the Skull Kingdom in the Northland and was pursuing Shea, as he was the last descendant of Jerle Shannara, and therefore the only one capable of wielding the Sword of Shannara against the Warlock Lord.

Giving Shea three blue stones for protection, Allanon departed, bidding Shea to leave the Vale immediately. With a Skull Bearer on their heels, Shea and Flick eventually took refuge in the nearby city of Leah and met Shea's friend Menion, the lazy son of the city's lord. Menion guided them to the Eastland, where they met Allanon at the Dwarf capital of Culhaven.

From Culhaven to Paranor

In Culhaven, Allanon called a council to discuss the Warlock Lord. They decided to send a small party to Paranor, the Sword of Shannara's final resting place, and acquire this weapon so that it could be used against the Warlock Lord. This party consisted of Allanon, Shea, Flick, Menion, Prince Balinor Buckhannah of Callahorn, the Dwarf Hendel, and the Elven brothers Dayel and Durin Elessedil from the Westland.

The party journeyed through the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn, and under the Dragon's Teeth mountains through the Hall of Kings. Along the way, Shea was lost after falling off a cliff into a river. Reaching Paranor, the remaining party found it overrun with the Warlock Lord's Gnome soldiers and the Sword missing, as it had already been taken north to the Skull Kingdom.

In the Southland

Disguised by Allanon, Flick infiltrated the enemy camp and rescued the captive Elven King, Eventine Elessedil; in Kern, Menion saved a redheaded woman named Shirl Ravenlock and immediately fell in love with her. Together, they organized an evacuation of Kern before the Northland army reached the city.

Upon his return to Callahorn, in order to activate the Border Legion, only to find it disbanded. Balinor was then imprisoned by his brother Palance Buckhannah, who had taken control of Callahorn's rule and whom the evil advisor Stenmin controlled in turn. Balinor escaped and confronted Palance and Stenmin; Stenmin murdered Palance and fled.

Commanded by Balinor, Callahorn's Border Legion, banded again, initially engaged the Northland army at the Mermiddon River, killing many Northlanders before being forced to pull back; the Border Legion used the time gained to retreat to Tyrsis and make preparations for defense. After about three days, the Border Legion was finally beaten back from the Outer Wall of Tyrsis as a result of treachery -- the wall fell when the traitors kept the main gate open by jamming its crossbar. At the defenders' last stand on the Bridge of Sendic, the Northlanders abruptly broke and ran.

In the Northland

After being captured out of the river by Gnomes, Shea had been saved by the one-handed thief Panamon Creel and his mute Troll companion Keltset. Journeying to the Northland, they reached the Skull Kingdom, where the insane Gnome deserter Orl Fane had carried the Sword of Shannara in his madness.

Infiltrating the Warlock Lord's fortress in the Skull Mountain, Shea reached the sword and unsheathed it. He finally learned about its true power -- its ability to confront those whom it touched with the truth about their lives. The Warlock Lord materialized and tried to destroy Shea, but the youth stood his ground and confronted his enemy with the sword. Although immune to physical weapons, the Warlock Lord vanished after being forced to confront the truth about himself as a dead man living out an undead lie.

Keltset sacrificed himself to save his companions during the Skull Kingdom's destruction. In the south, the Northland army retreated after the Warlock Lord's downfall. Allanon saved Shea's life and revealed himself as Bremen's centuries-old son, before disappearing to sleep. Peace returned to the Four Lands. Balinor took up his country's rule, while Dayel and Durin returned to the Westland, and Menion returned to Leah with Shirl. Reuniting, Shea and Flick returned to Shady Vale.

Characters

Main characters

Depiction of the quest party by The Brothers Hildebrandt.
Left to right: Menion, Dayel and Durin, Hendel (foreground),
Balinor (background), Allanon (background), Shea, Flick.

• Shea Ohmsford, the protagonist, Flick's adopted brother and the descendant of Jerle Shannara. Shea must find an ancient magical sword, the Sword of Shannara, and use it to destroy the antagonist, the Warlock Lord.
• Flick Ohmsford, Shea's brother. He helps Shea escape Shady Vale and 'tags along' with the group that goes to recover the Sword. He rescues Eventine after Allanon disguises him as a Gnome.
• Menion Leah, a friend of Shea and the Prince of the small country of Leah. He guides Shea and Flick to Culhaven after their escape of Shady Vale and the Skull Bearer.
• Allanon, a Druid who has been alive for around 400 years through the use of Druid Sleep. He guides and mentors the group on their quest to find the Sword.
• Balinor Buckhannah, the Crown Prince of the country of Callahorn. He left the capital, Tyrsis, after a fight with his insane brother, Palance; upon returning, he was thrown into a dungeon by him.
• Hendel, a Dwarf warrior. He first appears in the novel when he saves Menion Leah from a Siren, and was part of the company that went to find the Sword.
• Durin Elessedil, the younger brother of Durin and cousin to King Eventine. He was part of the company that went to find the Sword.
• Dayel Elessedil, the older brother of Dayel and cousin to King Eventine. He was part of the company that went to find the Sword
• Eventine Elessedil, the King of the Elves. He was captured by forces of the Warlock lord, thus paralyzing the Elves and preventing them from aiding Callahorn--until he was freed.
• Stenmin, a traitor to Callahorn now working for the Warlock Lord. He poisoned both Palance and Ruhl Buckhannah, the King of Callahorn, eventually killing Ruhl and driving Palance insane.
• Palance Buckhannah, the brother of Balinor Buckhannah and a prince of Callahorn. He was driven insane as a result of drugs fed to him by Stenmin, and at his urging, took control of Callahorn when his father 'took ill'.
• Panamon Creel, a one-handed wanderer whose left hand is now a pike. He saved Shea from a patrol of Gnomes.
• Keltset Mallicos, Panamon's mute companion. He is mute as a result of the Warlock Lord. He saves Panamon and Shea after they were captured by Trolls--he was awarded the Black Irix, the highest honor any Troll can receive, and therefore is considered incapable of treachery. The Trolls then helped them get to Skull Mountain so that Shea could confront the Warlock Lord.
• Brona a.k.a. the Warlock Lord, the former Druid and antagonist of the novel. In days long ago, Brona was a Druid before he was subverted by dark magic. He believes that he is immortal, and so he still lives. When he was confronted with the power of the Sword, "truth", he was forced to see that he was really dead, and immediately disappeared.
• Orl Fane, a Gnome who was also a thief. He stole the Sword and forced Panamon, Keltset and Shea to track him down. He driven insane and killed by the Warlock Lord after he took control of his mind and forced him to try to take the Sword.
• Shirl Ravenlock, the daughter of the ruler of Kern. She was kidnapped by Stenmin to prevent her from reaching Palance, who thinks that he is in love with her. As such, she is the only person who can get through his drug-induced craziness. She eventually falls in love with Menion Leah.

Minor characters

• Acton, one of four Legion commanders. He was locked up by Palance for disputing the Legion's disbandment; after being freed by Balinor, he commanded the cavalry and the left flank until he was killed by a stray arrow.
• Breen Elessedil, the brother to King Eventine. After Eventine was freed, Breen was sent to Arborlon in Eventine's place to mobilize the army to go to the aid of Callahorn.
• Curzad Ohmsford, the father of Flick.
• Fandrez, the second of the four Legion commanders. He helped Janus Senpre recapture Tyrsis from Palance's control. Later, during the battle for Tyrsis, he shared command of the left flank with Acton until Acton's death; a day later, he was slain as well.
• Fandwick, a Legion veteran. He aided in planning the evacuation of Kern.
• Ginnisson, the third of four Legion commanders. Like Fandrez, he helped Janus Senpre recapture Tyrsis from Palance's forces; he was slain on the third day of the battle for Tyrsis by Rock Trolls.
• Janus Senpre, a lieutenant commander of the Legion who was stationed in Kern. After helping to plan the evacuation of Kern, he journeyed to Tyrsis, where he found Fandwick and Ginnisson. They reassembled key elements of the Legion and seized the gates and army barracks. He was placed in charge of the defense of Tyrsis for his achievements.
• Jon Lin Sandor, Eventine's personal advisor. He was searching for Eventine after he disappeared (not knowing that he had been captured). After being found by Eventine's rescuer, Flick, they watched the battle for Tyrsis and destroyed a siege machine.
• King of the Silver River, an ancient Faerie creature who has been around for all time. He saved Shea and Flick from a Skull Bearer that had been hunting them near the Black Oaks,
• Lynliss, Dayel's fiancee. She does not appear in the novel, but is talked about by Dayel.
• Messaline, the last of the four Legion commanders. He was also locked up by Palance for protesting the disbandment of the Legion; after being freed by Balinor, he commanded part of the defense. He was severely wounded in the fighting, but he was also the only one of the four commanders to survive.
• Pahn, a Dwarf soldier.
• Ruhl Buckhannah, the King of Callahorn. He was poisoned to death by Stenmin.
• Shade of Bremen, once a Druid. He had died many years before, but his 'ghost' or 'presence' had been kept in the Hadeshorn.
• Sheelon, a captain in the Border Legion. Sheelon had not protested the disbandment as much, so he wasn't locked up until he was approached by Balinor. After being freed, he defended the gatehouse until he was slain by traitors loyal to Stenmin, who then proceed to jam the gate's crossbar 'open'.

Major themes

"Ordinary men placed in extraordinary circumstances" is a major theme in The Sword of Shannara. Brooks credits Tolkien with introducing this theme of mundane heroism into fantasy literature and influencing his own fiction:

...my protagonists are cut from the same bolt of cloth as Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. It was Tolkien's genius to reinvent the traditional epic fantasy by making the central character neither God nor hero, but a simple man in search of a way to do the right thing. [...] I was impressed enough by how it had changed the face of epic fantasy that I never gave a second thought to not using it as the cornerstone of my own writing."

Brooks has also commented on the prevalent theme of nuclear holocaust that appears in The Sword of Shannara:

...it does worry me that not only are we capable of [nuclear holocaust], but [we also] flirt with the idea periodically. One mistake, after all . . . Anyway, I used the background in [The] Sword of Shannara more in a cautionary vein than as a prophecy. Also, it was necessary to destroy civilization in order to take a look at what it would mean to have to build it back up again using magic. A civilization once destroyed by misuse of power is a bit wary the second time out about what new power can do.

Literary significance and reception

The Sword of Shannara has drawn extensive criticism for being overly derivative of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Following its publication, the influential fantasy editor Lin Carter denounced The Sword of Shannara as "the single most cold-blooded, complete rip-off of another book that I have ever read". Elaborating on his disapproval of the book, Carter wrote that "Terry Brooks wasn't trying to imitate Tolkien's prose, just steal his story line and complete cast of characters, and [Brooks] did it with such clumsiness and so heavy-handedly, that he virtually rubbed your nose in it." In a 1980 book on American fantasy, the critic Brian Attebery similarly accused The Sword of Shannara of being "undigested Tolkien", finding it "especially blatant in its point-for-point correspondence" to The Lord of the Rings. In a 1999 educational article on writing, the author Orson Scott Card cited The Sword of Shannara as a cautionary example of overly-derivative writing, finding the work "artistically displeasing" for this reason.

Assessing The Sword of Shannara decades after its publication, the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey found it distinctive for "the dogged way in which it follows Tolkien point for point". Within Brooks' novel, Shippey located "analogues" for Tolkien characters such as Sauron (Brona), Gandalf (Allanon), the Hobbits (Shea and Flick), Aragorn (Menion), Boromir (Balinor), Gimli (Hendel), Legolas (Durin and Dayel), Gollum (Orl Fane), the Barrow-wight (Mist Wraith) and the Nazgûl (Skull Bearers), among others. He also found plot similarities to events in The Lord of the Rings such as the Fellowship of the Ring's formation and adventures, the journeys to Rivendell (Culhaven) and Lothlórien (Storlock), Gandalf's fall in Moria and subsequent reappearance, and the Rohirrim's arrival at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, among others. Avoiding direct commentary on the book's quality, Shippey attributed the book's success to the post-Tolkienian advent of the fantasy genre: "What The Sword of Shannara seems to show is that many readers had developed the taste [...] for heroic fantasy so strongly that if they could not get the real thing they would take any substitute, no matter how diluted."

Terry Brooks has stated that Tolkien's works were a major influence in his writing. In a 2001 Interzone essay, the author Gene Wolfe defended Brooks' derivation of material from Tolkien: "Terry Brooks has often been disparaged for imitating Tolkien, particularly by those reviewers who find his books inferior to Tolkien's own. I can say only that I wish there were more imitators -- we need them -- and that all imitations of so great an original must necessarily be inferior."

In a commentary for The New York Times Book Review, Frank Herbert also defended Brooks, saying,

Don't fault Brooks for entering the world of letters through the Tolkien door. Every writer owes a similar debt to those who have come before. Some will admit it. Tolkien's debt was equally obvious. The classical myth structure is deeply embedded in Western society.

That's why you should not be surprised at finding these elements in The Sword of Shannara. Yes, you will find here the young prince in search of his grail; the secret (and not always benign) powers of nature; the magician; the wise old man; the witch mother; the malignant threat from a sorcerer; the holy talisman; the virgin queen; the fool (in the ancient tarot sense of the one who asks the disturbing questions) and all of the other Arthurian trappings.

What Brooks has done is to present a marvelous exposition of why the idea is not the story. Because of the popular assumption (which assumes mythic proportions of its own) that ideas form 99 percent of a story, writers are plagued by that foolish question, “Where do you get your ideas?” Brooks demonstrates that it doesn't matter where you get the idea; what matters is that you tell a rousing story.

Saying that "Brooks revert[ed] to his own style ... somewhere around Chapter 20", Herbert remarked upon what Brooks did not take from Tolkien:

In the last chapters, you get the Brooksian innovations—the Rock Troll [Keltset], who is deep and mute and whose actions, thus, are far more important than any words could be; the Grim Druid, who really changes character in the second half of the book, becoming far more complex and devious (the name Allanon should give you a clue); Balinor, the Prince of Callahorn, whose role breaks with myth tradition; the Warlock Lord, who pretty much fills the traditional role of evil—but that's what you expect of evil and it doesn't blight a good story.

Herbert also praised the characters of evil in the book: "Ah, the monsters in this book. Brooks creates distillations of horror that hark back to childhood's shadows, when the most important thing about a fearful creature was that you didn't know its exact shape and intent. You only knew that it wanted you. The black-winged skull bearer, for instance, is more than a euphemism for death. In a 2001 article for Seattle Weekly, David Massengill also commented upon Brooks' main characters, calling them "idiosyncratic adventurers."

Book impact

The Sword of Shannara sold about 125,000 copies in its first month in print. It was the first work of fiction to ever appear on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list, and it was there for over five months. The success of The Sword of Shannara provided a major boost to the fantasy genre; Louise J. Winters wrote that, "Until Shannara, no fantasy writer except J. R. R. Tolkien had made such an impression on the general public." The critic David Pringle credited Brooks for "demonstrat[ing] in 1977 that the commercial success of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings had not been a fluke, and that fantasy really did have the potential to become a mass-market genre". Together with Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, The Sword of Shannara ushered in "the era of the big commercial fantasy" and helped to make high fantasy the leading subgenre of fantasy.

Sources

• Brooks, Terry (2003). Sometimes The Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 0345465512.
• del Rey, Lester (1980). The World of Science Fiction: 1926-1976 - The History of a Subculture. New York and London: Garland. ISBN 0824014464.

External links

• Author's Note for The Sword of Shannara
• The Sword of Shannara - Chapter One (Official website)
• Artwork for early editions by The Brothers Hildebrandt