I was pleasantly surprised when I found this book. It didn't look like much, but the story is fantastic. It pulls a normal modern day person into a wonderful fantasy land, complete with annoyances and it's own economic problems. The characters are very likeable and it's a very fun read.

"Magic Kingdom for Sale" has a funny premise. Ben Holiday,a lawyer,finds himself winning ownership of a magic country. Real life is melded with fantasy. The fantastical idea works as an idea--not so much in practice. Terry Brooks makes a potentially fun story incredibly dull. There's every fantasy cliche one can imagine-a quest against an evil demon,a beautiful lass,talking animals. Landover is the Generic Fantasyland.

CS Lewis knew how to meld the mundane with the fantasy in Narnia,interweaving the Pevensies' days in WWII England with his allegorical kingdom. On the other hand, Brooks can't. It's a dull,boring book. It's a journey over the rainbow not worth taking.

The first book of the Brook's Landover series was a nice departure from the seriousness of the Shannara line. Don't misread this last statement; I am Brook's #1 fan. But I feel that he did a really cool thing when he created another series and brought more of a fairytale, playful kind of fantasy vibe into the writing. You still have a lot of the magic and characthers such as trolls, but he delves more into a light Arturian type realm, with plenty of excitement and suspense. I think that that this series would be a great place to start for a young reader curious about fantasy. I could truly see the Landover novels being brought to the big screen and becoming a huge success. Think Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings. I hear Terry was working on book #6 for this series. I can hardly wait.

Hey, I thought it was a funny concept! The usual magic kingdom of spells and fantasy galore winds up being sold in an eccentric's catalog. Sweet, cute, and pretty darn creative. Then of course we get the great fun of having the disbelieving new owner/"king" getting to discover what he has just bought.

It's certainly a fun book, and the characters are just a riot. Most of what the book has going for it is the humor and the imagination, and those are not bad reasons to read the book. And yet the emotion is still there, the loss that drives Ben to do something crazy.

It's not exceptionally original, but Brooks pulls it off very well.

What a fun story ! I read it years ago, and then read the series. Now I am ordering it for my grandson. Order it and ESCAPE into another time/space.