Available at Amazon.com

This is the final book of the Genesis of Shannara trilogy. Since I am a huge fan of the Shannara books, I will try to be as unbiased as possible. Although I doubt I can. Things have come to a head in the world.

Angel Perez, a Knight of the Word, lies wounded and recovering from her battle with a ferocious demon. Kirisin and Simralin (elf brother and sister) make the difficult decision to leave Angel to heal and take the Elfstones and Loden stone back to the elvish city of Arborlon.

Also a demon army has approached the elvish city and is on the verge of attacking it. Findo Gas, the highest ranking demon leads this army and he is determined to crush them.

Logan Tom, also a Knight of the Word and the Ghosts have finally found each other. Logan was in a coma from a battle with an ex Knight of the Word. Hawk, heals Logan and has to leave them to go find and help the elves if possible.

This is how the book starts.

The Good. The level of tension is very high in this book. The demons are pushing the survivors to their limits and it brings out the best in them. I really love the interaction between the members of the Ghosts. The story (to me) has always been about them. Yes, there are a lot of other things going on, with the elves and such, but the Ghosts are where the best moments of the books really showcase. Their interaction with each other and their relationships really made for good story telling. For example, toward the end of the book Panther decides to go after Cat (a girl that has joined the Ghosts). She leaves because she has a condition (that was in remission) that is changing her body to be like one of the lizards. The Ghosts have known about this and accepted her anyways. But when it started happening again she panics and leaves them. Panther decides to go after her since they have developed a bond. The moment I am talking about is when he and Hawk say goodbye to each other. They both deep down knew he was not coming back and it was a very touching moment for these two friends to say goodbye to each other. I wept at this and it was a great moment.

Again Logan Tom is amazing. He is still dealing with his own “demons” and failings to protect Hawk and the others. He eventually meets Simralin and falls in love with her. This is a difficult thing for him to understand since he has not allowed anyone to get close to him in years. His life as a Knight of the Word is a life of solitude and he struggles with these feelings. It was very nicely done.

As I said, a lot of tension in this book. There are demons that are searching for them. Including one called the Klee, that would shapeshift into a form and lure children out of the caravan only to murder them. That was a pretty awful thing to read about. Also with the elves fighting off the demons after Kirisin moved the elvish city into the Loden stone. Many died (including the king of the elves and his home guard) in the attempt to give them time to escape.

I love a good fantasy. I love how good comes together to defeat evil. The closeness and camaraderie is what gives them strength. This was shone in the conclusion. It took both Knights of the Word, and Simralin (with the magic of the Elfstones) to defeat Findo Gask. He was a very powerful demon and it took the combined might of all three to defeat him.

His writing style has changed so much over the years. This book was such an easy and quick read. It is nice to get through something fairly quickly (a day and a half) but it still has substance. That is a long way from the Sword of Shannara, which was a very slow read.

The ending was really good. It tied up everything nicely, which Brooks does not always do. So you had a feeling of closure with the story.

The bad. I would have loved to have more of Findo Gask. His story goes all the way back to a previous series from Brooks. He is the ultimate evil and some more of him in the story would have been welcome.

The ugly. Not much here. The children being murdered by the Klee the way they were was a bit disturbing. But that is because we react very strongly to the death of children.

My rating. Pushing the cusp of greatness. 9.0 out of 10. A great finale to a very well written trilogy. The Knights of the Word have grown from what they were in previous books and it was great to see one of them female. This was a great book.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

Tags | historical-fantasy, shannara, terry brooks