Friday, September 14, 2012

Terry Brooks Shannara books are getting a t.v. series

I love staring at fantasy maps. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because
my mind fills in all the possibilities for adventure that lurks in places.
Or maybe it just has to do with the fact that I played too much
Dungeons and Dragons growing up.
Stout defenders of Terry Brooks will probably disagree with me when I say that The Sword of Shannara is a point for point ripoff of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. And I've made that argument more than once, so I don't want to make it again. If you are curious about what I'm saying, you can Google it, or read the books back to back and note that, verbatim, the plot and the number of characters and even the physical size of the characters are repeated.

What I'm talking about in THIS post is that Brooks' Shannara books are getting a t.v. series. You can read about it at the VARIETY LINK HERE. And I'm excited about it. Yes, I am :) Does that surprise you?

See, I read The Sword of Shannara as a teenager right after finishing my first read of The Lord of the Rings. Did I notice the startling similarity? Yes, I did. Was I upset by it? A little, but not enough to stop reading. Let's face it, I was a nut for fantasy. I didn't care, and I particularly don't care as much now. I wanted to see monsters and wizards. Sure Allanon was just Gandalf and a druid instead of a wizard, but he could throw fire from his hands. In other words...he was a more "kickass" version of Gandalf.

And here's the thing, once Brooks moves past the first book, the series really starts to carve its own niche. Elfstones still had some similarities to Tolkien, but I loved the two witches that fight to the death. And the reaper made for some chilling scenes.

And then of course we get Wishsong, which started a whole new trend of cool abilities and places to go.

One of the strongest things I've seen is Brooks' ability to reinvent himself with Shannara. Just when things get stale, more map unfolds. Just when you think he doesn't have another villain, he recreates one from the ashes of the witches and puts that in a later book. He gives us flying ships with parse tubes and strange glowing crystals and entire islands made from computers. And really badass creatures as big as barns crawling through places like Japanese Kaiju.

I really liked in the later books how he even explores the other side of the Forbidding (a thing only hinted at in the Elfstones book).

Casting for the series is going to have to be redone with every new book. I think that's another hidden strength. Because characters featured in one rarely turn up in another. That means nothing ever gets stale, and new actors have the chance to get jobs.

So yeah, I'm excited about this series, despite my misgivings at how the very first one got published. In retrospect, I'm glad it DID get published, because I think Brooks is one of the greatest fantasy authors who has ever lived. Maybe he just needed Tolkien to get started. Everyone needs a place to start, right? I forgave Brooks a long time ago. And, I still buy his books.

Hopefully, this series doesn't run congruent with "A Game of Thrones." I want my fantasy fix all year long.

Have a great weekend.

33 comments:

  1. I have the opposite feeling about these books than you. I loved the first one the most and it's not even close, and I don't really care about the plot points ripped from Tolkien. The books just got worse from there until I gave up even bothering to read them. I want more Tolkienesque fantasy, not less.

    I don't think Tolkienesque fantasy means that plot points must be taken from LOTR, but the truth is that Tolkien covered so much in his books that almost anything one does in a high fantasy can be pointed at as being a ripoff from Tolkien even if the author had no such thing in mind. I had several such things happen in my fantasy novel, where Tolkien didn't enter my mind at all, but readers said the scenes were too Tolkien. I can see their point, but if you are going to have elves and dwarves and such moving around on a map, you pretty much can't avoid having people make comparisons, even if unfair.

    I assume this tv series will be awful, but that's what show-makers do. For each Harry Potter or LOTR done properly, you then get an Eregon or Percy Jackson done horribly. Since Game of Thrones is done right, it means this one is almost surely going to be done wrong.

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  2. I think it will be interesting to have a fantasy story with actual fantasy in it, something Game of Thrones is quite stingy about. Although what kind of production values the show has will be a big thing for me. Cheap looking sfx like Legend of the Seeker or Xena won't really be very attractive.

    mood

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  3. You know how I feel about the books!
    I linked to the same article in my post today. Read several things Wednesday about the upcoming series, but the Variety article yesterday was the most informative.
    And they are starting with Elfstones since it predates Sword.

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  4. I haven't read the books...YET...but I'm kind of excited for the series. Love seeing all these epic novels getting made into television series.

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  5. So the books ripped of LOTR and now the TV series can rip off Game of Thrones.

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  6. Just read about this too on Alex's blog. I'm probably the only person on the planet who hasn't heard of this series. But it does look like it would make for a fun TV series.

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  7. I love fantasy maps too! I'm such a visual person, so that helps me envision things... Fun post, Michael. :)

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  8. Like I said on Alex's blog today, it looks like Game of Thrones has opened the door to give epic fantasy the screen time it deserves (since you can do more for a doorstopper through TV than through the cinema). :)

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  9. @Ted: Okay, Brooks DID come clean and so did the editor of RandomHouse in saying, "I copied Tolkien." So, there you have it. But in Brooks miniscule defense, he did admit that it was done as an homage. Random House when rebuked by the Tolkien estate by pitching Sword as a "sequel" to LOTR told him to edit it even more, change names, and then publish it.

    So essentially, you can't argue with those facts. "Sword" is a ripoff of Tolkien and was published to specifically appeal to those who wanted more LOTR.

    @Moody: I'm not sure what you are talking about? George breaks out with just about anything in his books and those will be in the show. They just don't happen often. SPOILER ALERT: He has undead, dragons, huge walls, sorcery (the necromancers of Quarth teleporting), magic swords (Valirian steel), even resurrection (which happens with Bran's mom). So, that's a lot of magic. Not sure what else you are wanting. I'm sure the destruction of cities by dragons is coming.

    @Alex: I know you love them. Did you read Tanequil? And I never got the impression that Elfstones predated Sword? Are you sure about that? Color me shocked.

    @L.G.: Honestly, they aren't "must read" books. I don't recommend them over David Eddings or Martin. They are simply really fun when you want to immerse yourself in some high fantasy. So basically, if you say, "Mike I want to read some fantasy where demons die, there's lots of fireworks going on, and weird monsters getting killed," I'd throw you one of the Shannara books. They have a certain "charm" and a very Tolkien flavor.

    @P.T.: Yeah pmuch

    @Liz: It's not that well known of a series. I think it's readership is heavily male and those males who are older (from mine and maybe Alex's generation)? So a few million readers probably? It's no Twilight.

    @Morgan: I just like staring at them. It's one of the most enjoyable aspects of a fantasy book.

    @DPK: Game of Thrones has opened a lot of doors. Agreed.

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  10. Not read any of this series. Your comment to L.G. has me even more interested. Thanks for the info.

    Has the second season of Game of Thrones ended, was it good? I just finished seeing the first on DVD, now I'll have to wait about another year for the second.

    Oh, the anticipation.

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  11. yay!! i love fantasy & brooks, too! and maps!!
    you made excellent points & i am with you. i hope they dont overlap. cant wait for game of thrones!!

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  12. From what you say about the history of that first book it sounds like that time's 50 Shades of Grey, only not as popular.

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  13. I liked Sword right up until the end. I hated the ending. I felt cheated. I think it's Elfstones that's a complete ripoff of Donaldson's Covenant series, so I had huge issues with that one. I read Wishsong but can't even remember what it's about (unless that's the one that ripped on Donaldson). I never read more of them. I did like the Magic Kingdom books fairly well, though.

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  14. I hadn't heard, but I'll give it a chance.

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  15. Sounds great. Looks like another series I'd be interested in.

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  16. I didn't read anything beyond The Sword. I thought it was a ripoff too. Maybe I should give Elfstones a try.

    I'm starting Slipstream this weekend! Finally!!!! So very excited.

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  17. I read Terry Brooks' first book but haven't finished the Shannara trilogy yet; the similarities to LOTR struck me a short way into the book and it put me off the sequels a bit. I've read in several places that the books progressively become more original, so I do plan on reading them eventually.

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  18. I've read all the LOTR books but never the Shannara ones. I would be interested in the tv series based on those.

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  19. I hope the show's producers spend some coin on the FX. I love fantasy on TV, but not if it's cheaply made.

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  20. I know some kids at the school I used to work at that will be crazy happy about this. Brooks was a little after my time- I was out of my fantasy phase by the time they were published but it's cool that they're reaching back into some classics for TV fare. Cheers, Michael!

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  21. Such a long wait until Game of Thrones returns. Too long a wait. I need my Imp fix.

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  22. I've not read any of the Brooks books, so I'll be going into this pretty fresh. Looking forward to it :)


    Jamie @ Mithril Wisdom

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  23. I wasn't arguing that Sword didn't rip off Tolkien; I was saying that it didn't bother me at all and that I still liked that one the best. My favorite type of fantasy is Tolkienesque fantasy, so books like The Iron Tower trilogy by McKiernan are favorites of mine even though they clearly rip off Tolkien. I was also saying that I think one can do Tolkienesque fantasy without having to rip off Tolkien's plot points, which is what I was trying to do with my fantasy novel.

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  24. Wow, hats off to anyone who can emulate Tolkien!

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  25. i remember the shaannara books, but can't recall the stories, it was that long ago...

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  26. Man, I loved the Shannara books when I was a teen. I used to dream about the characters. I can totally see the similarity between them and LOTR, but LOTR has inspired a lot of fantasy.
    Coolness that they're making the TV series. The success of LOTR films were proof that there are a ton of fantasy nuts out here.

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  27. Funny how these things go. If GoT hadn't been such a huge success, I wonder if Shannara would have gotten the green light?

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  28. Rip off of LOTR, eh? Hmm, maybe I'd better read them anyway. I love looking at maps too!

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  29. Totally. Going. To. Be. Watching.

    I started reading the Shannara books in elementary school so I didn't exactly read them in order and can't remember which ones I read and which ones I just read the back of a million times. I've been trying to collect all of them so I can then read them all in order. Making pretty good headway.

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  30. I'll admit I've never read these books, but it's interesting to see so many different opinions on it. If it's becoming a TV series, I might pick it up and have a read.

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  31. Sounds like something that would make a cool series (rip-off book one or not) I've felt that way about books before--they seem very, very familiar--but if it's a genre I love, then I don't really mind--kind of like you saying you didn't care too much because you were such a fantasy fan. Anyway, looks like a good series, and I hope you'll post some reviews for those of us who might miss it!

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  32. I've never heard of them before, but they sound pretty cool.

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