Book Review; Genesis of Shannara: The Elves of Cintra by Terry Brooks
For those of you who have yet to be introduced to the epic fantasy land of Shannara… you really shouldn’t have read this book. In fact, unless you were weaned on the epic tales of Allanon and the Ohmsfords, you shouldn’t have even considered purchasing this book at all.
I myself have been a fan of Terry Brooks for quiet some time. I have read all nineteen of his Shannara books (counting the Word and the Void, as we kind of have to now). I will probably read the twentieth book when it comes out, and watch the movie in 2010. I have, on the up and up, enjoyed Mr. Brook’s contribution to the world of words.
As a brief review of the World of Shannara (The Four Lands), In about two hundred years, humans, at the bidding of malevolent beings known as Demons, destroy… everything. In a holocaust of energy and fire, civilization comes to an end in an event known as the Great Wars. Thousands of years later, humans have recovered and are now sharing the world with their mutated cousins who have transformed into beings resembling fairy-tale creatures of old. Elves, who have always been since the time of Faerie, magic, and the creation of the world, have also come into the open. The five races (Man, Elf, Troll, Dwarf, and Gnome) struggle for control. Eventually, the Druids, a multi-racial counsel, are founded to mediate the disputes and try to rediscover the science of Man, and, by accident, the magic of Faerie. Most of the series details the struggle of the Druids and the descendants of the Elven house of Shannara as they try to keep the Four Lands stable and fight the corrupting evils of that arise from Magic (except when its used by Druids… most of the time).
The Elves of Cintra is part of the new Genesis of Shannara series, this one linking Terry Brooks’s Word and Void series with Shannara proper. The Word and the Void is a trilogy of contemporary dark fantasy that centers on the struggles of Nest Freemark, a human magic user and olympic runner who, along with John Ross, a Knight of the Word, struggle against the malevolent agents of the Void, a force of chaos and destruction set in anathema to the Word, the cosmic force of creation and order. The Void seeks to unseat order by using its agents, former humans who have been granted powers and sometimes new bodies, becoming Demons, to sow fear and distrust in society in hopes of speeding its imminent entropic collapse. To illustrate-there was probably a Demon in one of those planes on 9/11. The Word has its agents, Knights of the Word, try and stop the Demons. While in the Word and the Void trilogy, Nest and John manage to defeat their Demon antagonists, with no small cost I might add, it all ends up adding up to near null. In the end, the Demons win.
Shannara Genesis takes place a hundred and fifty years after the Word and the Void ends. By this point, all semblance of civilization has come crashing down. People either brave the irradiated and corrupted wastes and ruins of the world, or shut themselves up in armed compounds, and simply twiddle their thumbs until the Demons and once-men find them. The Demons, long since having toppled order, now seek to stamp out life itself. In the first book, we learn that they are apparently working on some grand conflagration which will, ultimately, wipe the Earth of life, thus achieving the ultimate triumph of the Void over the Word.
The first book introduces you to the cast. Two Knights of the Word, each working on separate projects engineered to save what is left of order and life from the final fire and the literal end of life itself. One journeys to find the Elves and help them, while another look for Nest Freemark’s virgin born half-Faerie son who is destined to save Human-(And Elven, and Dwarven, and Troll…en?, and Gnomish)-kind from annihilation. His name is Jesus… I mean Hawk. His name is Hawk. Hawk was once Gypsy Morph, a creature of wild magic who is destined to do something great. At the end of the last Word and Void book, he joins with Nest to become her son. He is put, as is learned, in stasis after Nest gives birth to him for a time when it becomes apparent that there is no recourse but to use his power, or die at the hands of the Demons.
The second book, The Elves of Cintra, begins to go deeper into plot. Angel Perez, a female Knight, goes to the Elves (of Cintra) to try and help them recover the lost artifacts of the Elf-stones and the Loden. (Longtime Brooks fans should be more than familiar with these items) The Loden is an elfstone meant to be used to protect the Ellcrys. The Ellcrys is a magical and sentient tree which was constructed to hold back evil Faerie creatures known as Demons, it is of note though that Word and Void’s Demons are of a different breed, but possibly similar origin to the Demons of the Forbidding which is the evil twin world where the Demons, the Faerie Demons… Yeah, you really should read the other books.
To come back on topic, the Elves will soon suffer the same fate as humanity (with probably more dire consequences if the Ellcrys is destroyed). Angel helps several young Elves from the last book try to find the Elfstones and Loden while avoiding Elven persecutors under the influence of a changeling demon and a second wolf-like demon who has been hunting Angel.
On the other side of the post-apocalyptic United States, another Knight, Logan Tom, ferries Hawk’s tribe of children and companions away from Seattle (which is now overrun with once-men hunting for Hawk), and attempts to find Hawk. Hawk himself is under the care of a powerful Faerie being named the King of the Silver River (another Brooks necessity). Hawk learns more of his powers and is sent out into the world to fulfill his Destiny which is pretty well summed up in Exodus, only with more nukes and Trolls. Meanwhile, Findo Gask, one of the coolest villains from the Word of the Void, prepares to hunt down and kill Hawk once and for all as a final vengeance against Nest, the only human to ever beat him.
The Elves of Cintra, it should be noted, is something of a transitory novel. While Armageddon’s Children introduced us, Cintra simply sets all of the pieces into play for The Gypsy Morph to come this fall. As such… it suffers. There is some resolution, but all of it incomplete. Most of it sets up for the final bout. Most of the characters, with some notable exceptions, have gaseous personalities. Their lack solid convictions or defining characteristic, it is the worst for the Elven protagonists. It is also true of Hawk’s tribe, the Ghosts. Despite having read the preceding book only three months ago, it wasn’t until the end of Cintra that I could sort out who each one was by name, with, once again, some exceptions. I was also disappointed with Findo Gask. In Angel Fire East Findo was a charismatic, dark, manipulative, and utterly evil character without becoming cliched or sympathetic. His first appearance sent chills down my spine. The new Findo… is lacking. His personality has also become gaseous. This Findo is a sodden old man who has grown tired and is only driven by his hatred of Nest Freemark. He’s not driven enough though for the hatred to become meaningful. Findo has lost his focus. Unfortunately, most of the book focuses on the least interesting characters.
On thing Cintra has done that better than its predecessor is that it manages to synthesize the Word and Void’s dark contemporary fantasy with the high fantasy of Shannara more coherently. In Armageddon’s Children you had to suffer disorienting ad palatable shifts in quality and style when the setting shifted from Ghosts to Elves and back again. In this one, the problem is that while there is no disparaging shifts, the problem was done by subsuming the more edgy and superiorly written Word and Void material to the less stylistically focused and softer Shannara material. In Armageddon’s Children I longed to get past Elf sequences just so I could get back to the more gripping and satisfying Ghost sequences. In Cintra, they all feel the same, and, unfortunately, this is not a good thing. The prose does not create a strong sense of immersion and lacks focus and drive.
This book manages not to feel like classic Brooks-rehash as far as plot goes (I enjoyed the rehashes better though). Some of the characters are good, and the action scenes are rendered competently. I suppose, ultimately, that my disappointment with this book is not that it was bad, but that it was mediocre, at least when your Terry Brooks. I’ve come to expect and certain level of competence (along with sappy esoteric romance scenes and recycled plot elements) from Mr. Brooks. Elves of the Cintra does not fail to deliver, per se, but I have seen Mr. Brooks do better. Much better. I still plan to buy The Gypsy Morph in the fall, and will probably buy the next book Mr. Brooks writes after that, but not if he keeps producing stuff like this. Its not what I read him for.
If your a long time Brooks fan… I would get this piece only because Armageddon’s Children was enjoyable and for the sake of completion. If you have yet to read Brook’s for yourself… go read the other nineteen first. Trust me.
Final Rating; 2 out of 5
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