I have loved every Shannara book Terry Brooks has written; except this trilogy. While it had all the necessary components of a good story, I felt it lacked depth. It seemed like it was a story that had been edited severly in order to make it into three books. I think the story could have been expanded into a four-book series in order to tell the story in better detail. Those of you who read the third book will understand what I mean. I do have one question: What happened to Atalan? Was he killed or not? This is just one instance of many that bothered me. Good job, Terry, on your other books. Boo on this one.

I started reading Shannara books in November (First King), and I vowed not to stop until the library had run out of books. Well with Straken my journey has been completed. And i have to say it was an enjoyable one. Straken was easy to read and fast paced, Brooks' writing had really evolved since the Sword. The book has a great ending, there was nothing I wanted to see more than what happened. If you have followed the whole Shannara epic like I have, you have no reason not to read this book. I was just really sad when it was all over.

I enjoyed this story, but some of the pages were hard to read due to printing errors: fingerprint smudges, faint print across the page, ink blotches. If I were to do it again, I'd fork out the money for the hardcover.

I could write this review for all three books in the series. Perhaps I'll just copy and paste it. The unfortunate thing is I could probably write this review for most of his relatively recent works.

What we have here is an author who had some *really* clever ideas way back when, (i.e. Magic Kindom for Sale), had an o.k. and likable writing style, but just kind of leveled off creatively at some point.

I've read nearly every Terry Brooks book ever written, and I can say I've generally felt like it was worth the time and interesting enough to bring me back for another one, but it's really not much more enriching than watching some pointless Star Trek episodes or maybe another hour of "Friends".

Consider that I've actually picked up and started reading TB books, only to realize 100 pages or so in that I've actually already read this one. They're just that unremarkable.

I'd love to see Terry come up with some new and creative ideas (and I'm sorry, but NO... having air ships with all these loose nautical terms simply isn't creative enough to stand on its own), but I wonder if he can do it at this point.

I know it's kind of a blah review, but then it's kind of a blah book. :) They're fine. You won't hate yourself for it, but you may want to pick up a copy of Moby Dick or something to fill the void when you're done.

Terry Brooks has a lot of critics out there, and I can't quite figure out why. Perhaps it is just the fact that he is a one of the few consistently good authors out there in the fantasy business. Perhaps we expect to be dazzled with his books like we were when were so so so much younger reading the Sword of Shannara. I don't know. But I am going to give him some slack. This book is great. It resolves all the conflicts in an action packed unpredictable way that leaves you mesmerized from beginning to end. Perhaps people wanted the more predictable ending. I haven't read the other reviews, so I don't know.

There are very few areas in Terry Brooks writing where I feel he is weak. Perhaps the worst area is in coming up with names. Sometimes the climax is kind of silly, or anticlimatic (which is a lot like Stephen King sometimes). You seldom get a peek into the innermost thoughts of the characters (unlike Robin Hobb who absolutely drowns the reader in every thought of her protagonist) and a lot of the story is left the imagination. Perhaps, this is the fault most people find. That their personal lack of imagination ruins their appreciation of the story. And, I'll admit, I've suffered from this problem myself at times when reading his work. But, overall, he writes a well crafted plot, and paces it expertly, so that you never have a chance to get distracted. In fact, you can hardly put these books down. The characters are interesting, if perhaps a bit stereotyped, and the world is sufficiently developed to create a sense of intrigue as well as a very real sense of plausibility.

This series is drawn to a great conclusion, and I find the writing between all the books in the series to be remarkably "tight" in the sense that the pacing and style is identical in all three books. Which is important to note, as reading any of the other series from Terry Brooks, you will notice each series has its own pacing and feel. This is pretty good, considering he is using virtually the same setting in most of his series, and he could try to be formulaic in his approach to each series. I find he hasn't done that at all, but he tries to reinvent the world with each book by bring in a different tone, or approach, which ends up lending each series its own special flavor.

The High Druid of Shannara is more like an action movie than anything else I have read that he has written. Straken is like the big finale third movie of the trilogy. An immense number of loose ends are all tied up satisfactorily, in this unpredictable and dramatic conclusion. This series lacks some of the emotional buildup of the previous series, and builds a lot of that drama into the last book, though the second book lent a little more to the emotional investment than the first one.

Overall a very satisfying read.