Terry Brooks and Teresa Patterson: The World of Shannara

Ballantine Books (Hardcover), ISBN: 0345439058

If you ever wished you could call up your local travel agent and arrange a tour of the fantastical land of Shannara, wish no more. But don’t call your travel agent — ring up your favorite bookstore and reserve a copy of The World of Shannara.

After all, you can only visit the present with a travel agent. Terry Brooks and Teresa Patterson take readers back in time to the beginning — before Shea Ohmsford and Allanon — giving Shannara fans valuable information on the old world and the wars that changed it forever.

Another nice little detail you won’t get from Wally over at Fly Me Anywhere Tours: illustrator David Cherry not only kindly provides readers with killer detailed maps but also includes the locations of secret passages for intrepid treasure hunters. Plus, a detailed family tree shows the connections between the Ohmsfords, the Leahs (the Ohmsfords’ ancestral friends) and the elves. Always good to know where kin lives when one travels. Free meals and beds make travel expenses go that much farther, don’t you think?

As a Shannara fan, I definitely give this book two thumbs up. Teresa Patterson’s crisp text gives readers clear and understandable insights into the how and why of Shannara, past and present. David Cherry’s artwork, as always, delights the eye and truly brings Brooke’s heroes, heroines and their foes to life.

For Shannara fans, this book rates as a must-read. If you know a Shannara fan, you’ve just found the perfect Christmas present. And if you’ve been thinking of starting the Shannara series, go ahead and buy The World of Shannara. You’ll want to refer to it again and again as you read Brook’s excellent series.

Teri Smith

Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith (nee Dohmen) was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.