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Jan. 13th, 2010 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSometimes, people have inexplicably terrible taste.
Sometimes, um . . . sometimes those people are me.
This story starts - as so many regrettable stories do - at tvtropes.org, where I was wandering idly a few weeks ago and stumbled over the page for Terry Brooks' Shannara series. Of course I read it. I read the whole thing. And suddenly I found myself on NOSTALGIA ALERT.
For those of you unfamiliar: the Shannara series begins with The Sword of Shannara, which has the distinction of being the most unabashed Lord of the Rings ripoff ever to make it onto the New York Times Bestseller list. (Our plucky band ofhobbits Valemen, elves, dwarves, dispossessed princes, and one mysterious wizard Druid travel through marshes and mountains and halls of the dead while chased by wraiths! Seriously, you can compare the plots point-by-point, and it is hilarious.) At age 11, I found this enormous tome buried somewhere in a pile of my dad's old sff novels from the seventies, ate the whole thing up with a spoon, and went looking for more. There are two slightly more original sequels in the first trilogy; the books I really loved, however, were the Heritage of Shannara series. These were set three hundred years after the original book and followed some super-distant descendants of our original Plucky Valeman, as they all simultaneously went out on quests for Magical MacGuffins to save the land from the evils of democracy the evil subjugating and magic-suppressing Federation. I loved these books so much I tried to write myself into them. You are probably thinking "Mary Sues!" here, but no, no; I was not yet that fannishly far advanced. My version was much simpler: I just sat down at a computer and started retyping it out with myself inserted. "They had arrived in Varfleet two weeks earlier, Coll and Par and Becca." IT WAS VERY SATISFYING. (I WAS TWELVE. STOP JUDGING ME. ;_;)
ANYWAY. I am now twice the age I was then and had not thought about Terry Brooks in many years . . . until that fateful day on TVTropes, when all of a sudden I found myself thinking about the Heritage of Shannara books, and craving a reread. I knew it was ill-advised! I managed to quell these urges for several weeks! And then last weekend I found myself with a long subway ride ahead of me, and I had finished the book I brought with me, and the library was right there, and the Heritage of Shannara omnibus containing volumes one and two of the quartet was also right there, and I said, "you know what, it will at least entertain me for the ride home." I was expecting that they would be awful and shatter my childhood love! I was prepared for that! I was not prepared for what happened, which is: guys, I totally still love these books. I devoured the omnibus over the past few days and I need the rest. It is not that they are good! It is not that AT ALL. They are standard Eurofantasy, everyone's descendent acts almost exactly like their ancestor did, the politics make no sense, 3/4 of the female characters exist to be Designated Love Interests, at one point a woman is literally created out of flower petals and unicorn hair . . . you get the idea. AND YET.
Honestly, I think what gets me is that, flaws aside, all of Terry Brooks' magic is extremely ominous. All of the magic in his books takes some kind of terrible toll, and I still find that really interesting - and I don't know if it's actually due to Brooks' talent at all or just pure nostalgia, but I still get that thoroughly creeped-out-in-a-good-way feeling from his books, the same feeling I got from the Mines of Moria sequence in Lord of the Rings, exactly the same as I did when I was twelve.
The omnibus that I read contains The Scions of Shannara and The Druid of Shannara. Scions of Shannara goes pretty much like this:
GHOST DRUID: Okay, descendents of Shannara, THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! I have given you prophetic creepy dreams! Here are some impossible tasks and some magical MacGuffins to look for, go go go!
WALKER BOH: I am the angsty and cynical one! AND I WILL CUT OFF MY RIGHT ARM BEFORE I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE USED TO FIND A MAGICAL MACGUFFIN. In no way do I see this phrase coming back to haunt me ironically later.
WREN OHMSFORD: I am the free-spirited one, and am actually pretty well-adjusted! So I'll ask around after my MacGuffin. I hope you enjoyed this brief appearance of a non-love-interest woman; you won't be seeing one again until the book completely dedicated to my adventures. Spoiler: IT'S AWESOME.
PAR OHMSFORD: I am the young excitable one! Dude, I'm a DESTINED HERO, this is awesome! Magical MacGuffin, go go go!
COLL OHMSFORD: I have no magic and am Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Prophecy, and, as such, I suspect this is going to go even worse for me than it is for the rest of you.
PAR: Don't worry, bro! This is Terry Brooks, so all that means is that you are the Sam Gamgee.
COLL: Valid point! On the other hand, this is Terry Brooks, Darker And Edgier, so when things turn out poorly, I'm just letting you know now, it will be I Told You So time.
(Unsurprisingly, Coll is my favorite.)
The Druid of Shannara then focuses on Walker Boh, who I actually identify with way more than I did when I was younger. Possibly this is because he's the grown-up, and I actually appreciate his conflicted feelings about the standard book plots; he is the closest Terry Brooks gets to a genre-savvy character. It also features a creepy creepy deserted stone city, haunted by the creepy creepy creepy Maw Grint. Let me tell you: it is a bad idea to have nightmares about a creature called the Maw Grint when you live ten minutes away from the town of Bryn Mawr. For years I could not shake the association!
The next book up is Wren's book, Elf Queen of Shannara. I am way excited for it because I remember Wren being legit awesome! Also, that it is the only book in the series that passes the Bechdel Test.
And now, a poll, because as always I am curious about other people's formative childhood influences:
[Poll #1511148]
Sometimes, um . . . sometimes those people are me.
This story starts - as so many regrettable stories do - at tvtropes.org, where I was wandering idly a few weeks ago and stumbled over the page for Terry Brooks' Shannara series. Of course I read it. I read the whole thing. And suddenly I found myself on NOSTALGIA ALERT.
For those of you unfamiliar: the Shannara series begins with The Sword of Shannara, which has the distinction of being the most unabashed Lord of the Rings ripoff ever to make it onto the New York Times Bestseller list. (Our plucky band of
ANYWAY. I am now twice the age I was then and had not thought about Terry Brooks in many years . . . until that fateful day on TVTropes, when all of a sudden I found myself thinking about the Heritage of Shannara books, and craving a reread. I knew it was ill-advised! I managed to quell these urges for several weeks! And then last weekend I found myself with a long subway ride ahead of me, and I had finished the book I brought with me, and the library was right there, and the Heritage of Shannara omnibus containing volumes one and two of the quartet was also right there, and I said, "you know what, it will at least entertain me for the ride home." I was expecting that they would be awful and shatter my childhood love! I was prepared for that! I was not prepared for what happened, which is: guys, I totally still love these books. I devoured the omnibus over the past few days and I need the rest. It is not that they are good! It is not that AT ALL. They are standard Eurofantasy, everyone's descendent acts almost exactly like their ancestor did, the politics make no sense, 3/4 of the female characters exist to be Designated Love Interests, at one point a woman is literally created out of flower petals and unicorn hair . . . you get the idea. AND YET.
Honestly, I think what gets me is that, flaws aside, all of Terry Brooks' magic is extremely ominous. All of the magic in his books takes some kind of terrible toll, and I still find that really interesting - and I don't know if it's actually due to Brooks' talent at all or just pure nostalgia, but I still get that thoroughly creeped-out-in-a-good-way feeling from his books, the same feeling I got from the Mines of Moria sequence in Lord of the Rings, exactly the same as I did when I was twelve.
The omnibus that I read contains The Scions of Shannara and The Druid of Shannara. Scions of Shannara goes pretty much like this:
GHOST DRUID: Okay, descendents of Shannara, THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! I have given you prophetic creepy dreams! Here are some impossible tasks and some magical MacGuffins to look for, go go go!
WALKER BOH: I am the angsty and cynical one! AND I WILL CUT OFF MY RIGHT ARM BEFORE I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE USED TO FIND A MAGICAL MACGUFFIN. In no way do I see this phrase coming back to haunt me ironically later.
WREN OHMSFORD: I am the free-spirited one, and am actually pretty well-adjusted! So I'll ask around after my MacGuffin. I hope you enjoyed this brief appearance of a non-love-interest woman; you won't be seeing one again until the book completely dedicated to my adventures. Spoiler: IT'S AWESOME.
PAR OHMSFORD: I am the young excitable one! Dude, I'm a DESTINED HERO, this is awesome! Magical MacGuffin, go go go!
COLL OHMSFORD: I have no magic and am Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Prophecy, and, as such, I suspect this is going to go even worse for me than it is for the rest of you.
PAR: Don't worry, bro! This is Terry Brooks, so all that means is that you are the Sam Gamgee.
COLL: Valid point! On the other hand, this is Terry Brooks, Darker And Edgier, so when things turn out poorly, I'm just letting you know now, it will be I Told You So time.
(Unsurprisingly, Coll is my favorite.)
The Druid of Shannara then focuses on Walker Boh, who I actually identify with way more than I did when I was younger. Possibly this is because he's the grown-up, and I actually appreciate his conflicted feelings about the standard book plots; he is the closest Terry Brooks gets to a genre-savvy character. It also features a creepy creepy deserted stone city, haunted by the creepy creepy creepy Maw Grint. Let me tell you: it is a bad idea to have nightmares about a creature called the Maw Grint when you live ten minutes away from the town of Bryn Mawr. For years I could not shake the association!
The next book up is Wren's book, Elf Queen of Shannara. I am way excited for it because I remember Wren being legit awesome! Also, that it is the only book in the series that passes the Bechdel Test.
And now, a poll, because as always I am curious about other people's formative childhood influences:
[Poll #1511148]
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Date: 2010-01-13 07:31 pm (UTC)This! A friend gave me Interview as a HS grad present, and I managed to slog through it. "Don't worry! The second book is better!" I was told. I... um. Didn't bother with the second.