It was my first real foray into fantasy after Tolkien. I first discovered Brooks as a boy in the mid-’90s, just finishing up elementary school. There’s something familiar about this fellowship. What The Sword of Shannara is lambasted for today-being a Lord of the Rings ripoff and a paint-by-numbers epic fantasy-was on its publication a foreshadowing of what was coming to for the genre. Brooks has stated on multiple occasions that del Rey’s entire motivation was to create a more marketable version of Tolkien’s story, and to reinvigorate reader interest in secondary world fantasy. It’s impossible to ignore the similarities between the two novels. Power-hungry, fallen angel-type who wants to take over the world and cover it in sadness and despair for some reason. A quiet youth plucked out of his idyllic home by a tall, mysterious and grumpy magic-user.It was also, by all intents and purposes of its editor, a shameless ripoff of Lord of the Rings. Donaldson’s subversive Thomas Covenant series - it saved epic fantasy. The writer’s name was Terry Brooks, his novel was called The Sword of Shannara, and - alongside Stephen R. That is, until Lester del Rey, famed science fiction author and editor, plucked a young upstart writer out of law school and published his debut novel.
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