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Brooks, The Talismans of Shannara 4

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The forth and final installment in "The Heritage of Shannara" quartet, preceded by the "Scions", "Druid" and "Elf Queen" of Shannara. The premise is that the Four Lands are dying under both the totalitarian Federation and the... See more » The forth and final installment in "The Heritage of Shannara" quartet, preceded by the "Scions", "Druid" and "Elf Queen" of Shannara. The premise is that the Four Lands are dying under both the totalitarian Federation and the sinister Shadowen, and the shade of the Druid of Allanon has called together three scions who can put an end to the entropy. Par is sent in search of the Sword of Shannara, Walker to bring back the Druid Keep of Paranor, and Wren to discover the missing race of Elves and restore them to the Four Lands. As the story starts, all these tasks have been completed, though with a heavy toll. Walker is trapped in Paranor by four Shadowen assuming the shape of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; Wren is now the untested Queen of the Elves, facing an approaching army; and Par still believes he is responsible for the death of his brother, unaware that Coll is alive and well, but under the control of the Federation-leader and Shadowen Rimmer Dall. Now our heroes are gradually reunited (sometimes in rather ingenious ways, such as Morgan and Wren's serendipitous meeting ) in order to join forces against the Shadowen once and for all. There is a strange power growing in the undergrounds of the Federation Tower that may be the key to their undoing. Slowly the pieces of the puzzle fit together as the Four Lands gradually unite under the Scions. The problem is, there is a lot of exposition and action leading up to this main event. The characters have to be re-established and to meet up with each other and in this regard Brooks is in danger of running out of ideas. This volume in particular suffers from an excess of main characters getting captured by the bad guys and the need for elaborate escape plans to be drawn up by those who've managed to escape the authorites: there's five examples of this throughout the book (count `em: Damson, Par, Coll, Padishar and Wren all managed to get kidnapped throughout the course of the book). Apart from getting repetitive, it also holds off the climatic ending, causing it to seem somewhat rushed by comparison. There is one other major problem, that in hindsight, stretches over the entire series: the nature and purpose of the Shadowen. In my opinion, they make for weak antagonists. Admittedly, some are genuinely scary. Others, not so much. None of them - not even Rimmer Dall - become three-dimensional characters. Their origins (explained in "Elf Queen" and elaborated on here) are not particularly original, interesting or properly explained. Although there is a half-hearted attempt to explain why there are so many different types of Shadowen, it ultimately rings false. The weirdest example of this is when Walker is held captive in Paranor by four Shadowen who take on the form of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Read carefully; they are not the Biblical Horsemen, but simply Shadowen taking on their form. If this is the case, then why only send four? Why not a whole army? Why don't all Shadowen take this form and by doing so imbue themselves with the power of the Four Horsemen? My point is that the Shadowen come across as too arbitrary, too random. Brooks gives himself the power to make them whatever he wants them to be, whether humanoid, animalistic, or mythological and they only as powerful as they need to be to defeat/be defeated by the protagonists - whatever the story calls for at that particular moment. Furthermore, the origins of the Shadowen is painfully plagiaristic of Tolkien (something I had hoped the Heritage series was drawing away from) as well as reminiscent of his own work in the original Shannara trilogy. But for all of this, "Talismans" is a satisfying end to the story that was started way back in "Scions". All the major plot threads are wrapped up and all the questions answered (though some better than others). By now the characters are established enough for their personalities and actions to really shine, and the reader is fully invested in their fate. Par, Coll, Walker, Wren, Damson, and newcomer Matty are nice, normal people who do extraordinary things, a concept See less »

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From the list : books I own by snow_hime

(Heritage of Shannara (Paperback))

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Brooks, The Talismans of Shannara 4

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