Brooks, Terry

• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (7)

  • This is the official novelization of the first chapter of the Star Wars saga envisioned by George Lucas. Judged purely as a story, it is all right, and I'd probably give it very high marks just for the richness of the Star Wars universe in which it exists. Judged with the movie as its basis, and this book isn't all that great. Oh, it follows the story-line close enough with a few minor discrepancies (in the book, Anakin blurts out "I will marry you someday" to Amidala, a far cry from the innocent "Are you an angel?" comment in the movie), but the book doesn't go into much depth about any characters, adding little for anyone familiar with the movie.

    Perhaps the most space in the book is given to further revelations about the relationship between Obi-Won and Qui-Gon, which is portrayed as far more antagonistic in the book than in the movie. I can't decide if I like this or not, but I suppose it helps to give the Jedi a little more than "boy scout" depth. On the other hand, does Lucas really intend that Obi-Won thinks Qui-Gon is occasionally a buffoon, more or less? I find that hard to fathom, but such is life as an author shackled with the Star Wars rules in order to get a healthy payday. The only other interesting revelation in this book not explicitly mentioned in the movie is that the population of Jedi at the time of this story is in the neighborhood of 10,000 (!), far more than I expected. I'm sure this well be explored more at length during later movies dealing with the clone wars, though. I can't wait!

• Series: The Shannara Books

  • The Sword of Shannara (5 r)
  • The Elfstones of Shannara (6 r)
  • The Wishsong of Shannara (4 r)

    • I could just stick to the classic one-line review of this and say "Lord of the Rings with global substitution," but I liked it a little more than that. Sword was a definite ripoff, but Elfstones/Wishsong had a little more originality, and I liked the story. I didn't like it enough to go back to the series later when newer books were released, though.

      Since I wrote the first paragraph of this review upon starting up my reviews page, I've gotten my share of unhappy mail from Brooks fans, so allow me a little time to clarify my opinion on this series: First, I *DID* enjoy Sword and Elfstones to some extent, but I can't deny that I was distracted to a large extent by the similarities between Sword and elements of LotR. I normally review books based upon my enjoyment alone, without giving pause to consider more abstract properties like "literary merit", but when the other qualities of a book infringe upon my enjoyment of the book, the review suffers. That happened here.

      With that said, I would recommend Sword and Elfstones to younger readers who haven't had much exposure to the genre, but I would definitely *not* recommend it to serious Tolkien fans (i.e. if you've read anything by Tolkien more than once) of any age. If you enjoy Sword/Elfstones, then you'll also like Wishsong, though not as much as the first two.

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