4 Decades of Terry Brooks
Posted by rudyhernandezSo back when I was in college in the early 90s I had a friend who had an extensive fantasy book collection. One of the books my friend lent me was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. He first began writing the book in 1967 and was eventually published in 1977 as the first book of Ballantine Books new imprint called Del Rey. It was even the first fantasy paperback that made it to the New York Times best seller list. More successful books followed and Brooks even wrote other books that didn’t take place in the Shannara world, but there are so many fans and there’s always been something that seems to keep pulling him back to the world of Ohmsfords, Elves, Druids and magic.
In 2008, over 40 years after he started his first Shannara book, Terry Brooks helped create the first graphic novel to take place in this world with Dark Wraith of Shannara. It was illustrated by Edwin David and adapted to graphic novel format by Robert Place Napton. Now I love the Shannara books and have read more of these than any other fantasy series. Having said that I was a little worried as to how one of these would translate to graphic novel format. Especially when I heard it was going to be black and white, I thought being a Del Rey book it would end up looking more like manga. I’m also a big manga fan, but I don’t think manga is the right venue for Shannara.
Turns out I was wrong on all counts. The art style does look very manga and the story, which is an original story that I believe takes place after The Wishsong of Shannara. You get to see the familiar characters Jair and Brin Ohmsford as well as a few others familiar to the series. The books it kinda short, but other than that it’s really like reading one of the Shannara books. The characters are there, the worlds are there and it almost feels like Terry Brooks wrote the graphic novel. I’m not sure that Del Rey has any more of these planned, but I for one hope they do. If you’re a fan of the Shannara series or good fantasy in general, pick this book up and also read those old Shannara books. You’ll be glad you did.
