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I have never read any of the Shannara books yet, but I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that really
love the series. I always remember never understanding why: the few excerpts that they showed me displayed a very stilted writing style, the sort that Kalessin complained about in the <strong>Are There Any Valid Criticisms? (aka Kalessin's Rant) </strong> thread. I also found those weaknesses in the Star Wars book
Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
An acquaintance who liked Shannara, in fact, actually criticized Tolkien's
The Hobbit and
The Fellowship of the Ring, part 1, because 'there was just too much detail; describing a mountain in two pages makes boring reading.' [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img] Yep, a Tolkien & Lewis fan like me can't take that sitting down (as revenge, I later immersed him so much in the Middle Earth mythos that he's now bewailing that he can't find a copy of Silmarillon; wait til he finds out it is even more 'boring' [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
However, I do have a theory why Shannara has so many fans. All my friends who like it, down to the last one, were first introduced to fantasy by
Dungeons & Dragons and continue to be avid role-players. Apparently, whatever mediocre writing other fantasy genres have (not just that of Terry Brooks, which
may still have some merit, but also that of the
Dragonlance series), it is exactly the fuel role-players need and crave for. I mean, the role of Hobbit was parodied and ridiculed on Dexter's lab and nobody I know wanted to be one in any of our games. They wanted to be elves or rangers, heck! even trolls, but not any hole-burrowing hobbit. They want characters with real abilities and with even
real attitude.
LotR, unfortunately, isn't built Dungeons and Dragons style. There are no dangerous quests to get weapons, magic or abilities. You don't see anyone trying to gain a lot of experience and use it on the battlefield. So, except for the detailed histories, LotR is left on the shelf and safely criticized for its 'detail'. Shannara, on the other hand, has sentient weapons, dangerous quests for such weapons, etc. LotR have several different characters, none the main protagonist, but within a central storyline. Shannara (as I understand from my friends trying to explain it to me; I may be wrong) have several small sub-plots, with each character the main protagonist in each one.
When role-playing fantasy, it is normal I guess to want to be the main hero or heroine. No one wants to be a side character comparable to a lowly NPC. No one I know wants to role-play in Middle Earth ever since the Ruling Ring was destroyed, whereas in Shannara, evil will always come back to threaten everybody. In a sense, Shannara and other titles may present an evil that cannot be conquered absolutely so that there will always be a need for heroes. Role-players want not only to emphatize with characters like Frodo, they need to actually <em>be</em> the hero that saves the day.
Or at least be the git who gets a lot of experience points at the end of the session.
I would still want to read the Shannara titles. Who knows?
Quote:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.
<div align=right>LotR, Book I, Chapter 10</div>
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Maybe Shannara will be worth reading.
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