The Elf Queen of Shannara

I finished my second read of "The Elf Queen of Shannara" by Terry Brooks around one in the morning last night. I had first read it when it came out, which would put me in the late middle school / early high school age range. At the time, and recently,

I didn't have high expectations for this entry largely due to my having much more interest in Walker Boh's story, which is not the focus of this novel. He's in the book, though, and has some meaningful character development and good scenes as well. Wren Ohmsford, the star of this show, is a pretty outstanding main character in her own right, though. This book increasingly grew on me as I read it both times.

I read "The Elf Queen of Shannara" from the "Heritage of Shannara" tome. It struck me that this overall work, the tetralogy of The Heritage of Shannara, is quite ambitious. Unlike the first trilogy, which includes "The Sword of Shannara," these four books are much more interwoven with one another and are contemporary to one another in the story's' timeline. Generational gaps separated the books from the first trilogy. The Heritage of Shannara works well, though, but its scope is rather tremendous due to its overall size for a single story. This model is later used by Brooks in several other entries in the Shannara series. It works well.

Heritage of Shannara Tome

"The Elf Queen of Shannara" is a blood bath. There is a lot of death in this novel. But Wren's quest to return the elves to the Four Lands is fraught with peril. Casualties are a natural result of the tremendous danger she and her companions face. To Brooks' credit, none of the deaths feel cheap or obligatory from a writing perspective. There was only one character that I can think of that got killed before we knew much of anything about him. For the most part, though, the deaths have consequences to the story, changing the dynamics of the quest and the protagonists. It keeps the pages turning.

The elves had used magic to move the city of Arborlon and all of its inhabitants, including the Ellcrys itself from "The Elfstones of Shannara" to a remote island called Morrowindl. It was a miniature paradise when they had first arrived, but thing turned ugly over the next hundred years or so and it became overrun with demons. Wren's quest is to use the same magic to restore the elves to the Four Lands and save them and, ultimately, the Four Lands as well.

Obligatory Map of Morrowindl

One minor criticism I have of the book is that I felt like it overemphasized some of the secrets that were being kept from Wren in advance of the reveals. That wasn't the case with all of them, but I felt like some of the reminders were unnecessary. A small complaint but, overall, the novel works really well.

I'm looking forward to continuing my read through of The Heritage of Shannara. "The Elf Queen of Shannara" stands the test of time and is worth of the time of any fans of fantasy books.