Literary Significance and Reception
The Sword of Shannara received mixed reviews following its publication, most of which remarked on its similarity to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Choice stated that the novel was "exceptionally well-written, very readable...entrance into the genre... will be accepted by most teenagers." Marshall Tymn also thought it contained quality prose, but while Tymn believed that Sword followed Lord of the Rings too closely, he also cited some of the differences, such as the use of a postholocaust setting with the races that sprung from that, and the "entertaining conartist, Panamon Creel, ... and ... an unexpected ending springing from the nature of the sword." In her 1998 book, Presenting Young Adult Fantasy Fiction, Cathi Dunn MacRae assessed all of Brooks' works. On The Sword of Shannara, she thought this:
In this postholocaust world of our future, Brooks parallels the mystic arts ... with science, two powers that are not good or evil but become either by the way we use them. Evil is a corruption of truth, erupting from the selfish use of power for one's own ends. Good arises from the insistence on truth, allowing us to realize our indelible bonds with others of all races, and our connection with nature and earth. Anything unnatural is evil, such as the Warlock Lord's immortality, which recalls similar abuse of nature by Le Guin's Cob and by Barbara Hambly's wizard Suraklin. One of Brooks' strengths is his plot's momentum, maintained through cliffhangers, unexpected twists of fortune, and the dance of many characters' constant movements. This brisk pace alters when characters pause to ruminate, which draws out suspense and reveals motivation. However, first novelist Brooks as puppet master is not always in control of the strings. With no single point of view centered in one character, his focus is diffused, and the anxieties and realizations of each character beg to sound the same, blurring their identities with repetition.Read more about this topic: Flick Ohmsford
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