So now that Shannara is officially greenlit you'll finally be able to pronounce it correctly.

MTV has ordered Shannara, based on the fantasy novels by Terry Brooks. The first season is going to be ten episodes and is based on the Elfstones of Shannara. The pilot is being written by Miles Millar and Alfred Gough. You might recognize those credentials from the tv show, Smallville. The first two episodes are to be directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). I'm not particularly crazy about that option, but at least he's directed action scenes.

I am interested in whom they cast for the villains: Dagda Mor, the Changeling, and the witch sisters Morag and Mallenroh. The Dagda Mor is a complete badass. Basically he's the mightiest of all the demons trapped behind this wall called "The Forbidding," which you normally can't see. It's where the elves stuck the demons after they won the war and basically shunted them off to this alternate dimension where they could have their own government and stuff. Anyway, the Dagda Mor was a ruthless and cunning sorcerer/demon and he had mighty spells. He's also not as stupid as Voldemort who kept using the same killing curse on Harry Potter probably thinking it "HAS TO WORK THIS TIME" and then it "surprise!" doesn't work.

I vaguely remember a part of Elfstones when the Reaper breaks into one of the witch sister's towers. She has a battle with it flinging emerald green fire from her fingertips (or something like that). She starts one of her twig soldiers on fire and burns to death in the resulting inferno. That should be fun. I'm also interested in who they get to play Eritrea, Wil, and Amberle. The Reaper (of course) will be all CGI (which is probably where their budget will go...that and to the various colored lightning that Terry Brooks is fond of). The elfstones produce blue fire, the Dagda Mor produces red fire, the witch sisters make green fire...fantasy fiction is all about the rainbow.

So now that Shannara has been confirmed, what fantasy fiction adaptation are you hungering for? My vote is on Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake. Let's all chant "Anita Blake! Anita Blake! Anita Blake!" How can you go wrong with titles like Guilty Pleasures, Circus of the Damned, Burnt Offerings, and Obsidian Butterfly? You can't really. HBO should produce it though. That way Anita can go full on slut. Seriously, I love that bitch. Ma petite anyone?

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.