The Elfstones of Shannara (Shannara, #2)

The Elfstones of Shannara (The Original Shannara Trilogy #2)

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3.91 of 5 stars 3.91  ·  rating details  ·  29,448 ratings  ·  420 reviews
The magical Ellcrys tree is dying, loosening the spell that bars the Demons from enacting vengeance upon the land. Now Wil Ohmsford must guard the Elven girl Amberle on a perilous quest as she carries one of the Ellcrys' seeds to a mysterious place where it can be quickened into a powerful new force. But dark on their trail comes the Reaper, most fearsome of all Demons, ai...more
Mass Market Paperback, 564 pages
Published December 12th 1983 by Del Rey (first published 1982)

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Community Reviews

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Bryce
I notice that everyone's favorite lists are riddled with the literary classics like Great Expectations or modern smartness like Middlesex.

I bet far more people prefer to sit down with some Dean Koonz or a bodice ripper. So I'm going to stand up and say: I like fantasy. I read it. And I think it's good!
Angie
Nov 01, 2010 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Fantasy lovers
Shelves: fantasy
I loved this book. I was a bit disappointed at the beginning when I realized that I wouldn't be reading about Shea, Flick, and Balinor, but I quickly became used to Wil and Amberle, and frankly, I found them to be much more believable and relatable characters. Shea and Flick were a bit annoying at times, and the other characters were too close to LoTR characters for me to really get close to them. This book could stand on its own, and it was a good story.

I enjoyed the character development of An...more
Amy
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Lucy
I don't think you can possibly understand what a formative impact this book had on me.

Picture it: I was nine years old. We were at this massive used book sale, and I was bored silly of all the books at the children's table. I wandered around a bit, and ended up in adult SF/F. And there, like a shining beacon of fascinating glory, was a gorgeous hardcover copy of The Elfstones of Shannara.

Of course I bought it, even though my parents thought I wouldn't understand it. And they were right. I didn't...more
Kandie
This is by far the BEST FANTASY READ by Brooks [in my opinion]. I remember reading this in 8th grade [I think] and just being floored. I wrote him, the author, in 1992 and 1995 and he wrote personal letters back encouraging me, a young writer. That alone said volumes of his character to me, so I have been loyal ever since. I snatch up his books even though the last 6 I have not had time to read yet.

Mr. Brooks's description and narrative are INSANE and he is the author that made me want to write...more
Matthew Legaspi
The Elfstones of Shannara” functions better than “Swords” in terms of showcasing Brooks personality and strengthening the differences between him and Tolkien. While this chapter in his fantasy saga does not pull Terry Brooks out of his predecessor’s shadow, it does take a step in the right direction. It seems strange, almost, reading a book decades after it’s published, and then reviewing it almost a year after. But the fact that I still recall most of the characters and most of the stepping sto...more
Robbie Hall
THIS. This book got me into fantasy. This book was the first adult fantasy story that I read. THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE. I just completed probably my fifth or sixth read of it, so it's lost some of the novelty and excitement, but it's still a great read.

The characters are the best Terry Brooks has to offer, the protagonist Wil Ohmsford is the only Ohmsford in all of the Shannaras that actually has a soul, the demons are awesome (REAPER IS SO COOL).

Brooks can still be a pretty annoy...more
Gaurav Sethi
Terry Brooks’s Shannara Series is my favourite series and my favourite book in that universe would have to be Elfstones of Shannara. It’s hard to describe this world without giving too much away but it has elves, magic-stones, powerful-spirits, demons, trees, epic quests & more. It’s what you expect when you read genre fiction of this nature. I think I enjoyed this particular work more than others in his series (I’ve only read the Sword Trilogy and the Heritage Tetralogy) because of Terry Br...more
Leilani
This has an extra star for nostalgia's sake. When I was 12, I stumbled across this, my first epic fantasy, and I was hooked. I kept up with the Shannara series for a while, but don't remember much about them other than a sense of diminishing returns. This one, though, I remember really enjoying.

Two decades later I felt the need for a good comforting relaxing read & checked this out. I still enjoy Wil & Amberle's storyline, though the Elf/demon battles were less involving. A couple of ann...more
Melissa
I liked this book better than I did the first in this fantasy series by Brooks. While it's not necessary to read the first book (this one could stand alone quite easily) I do always recommend reading a series in order just for background information. As a whole, I'd probably rate this particular book about 3 1/2 stars.

Wil Ohmsford has been studying with some gnomish healers when the mysterious Allanon (powerful druid mentioned in first book) comes to disrupt his day and whisk him off across the...more
Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt
Visto che si parla di un prossimo film della Warner su questo ciclo (di ben 14 libri!!) e la Mondadori ha appena stampato un volumone che racchiude i primi tre romanzi di questa saga, mi permetto di recensire i primi tre episodi tutti insieme. Prima di tutto spero mi perdonerete se non entrerò specificatamente nelle tre trame delle opere proposte, in quanto questa fu una lettura di tanti anni fa. Posso però esprimere un giudizio globale su questi tre primi libri (Spada - Canzone - Pietre) che pu...more
Bruno Silva
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Timothy
In The Elfstones of Shannara, author Terry Brooks continues his storyline of a future earth where magic and creatures of myth have re-emerged to inhabit and impact the world once again. While I personally preferred the first book, The Sword of Shannara, to this one, there is a reason why this novel is remembered as the one that cemented Brooks' place as a heavyweight in the pantheon of American fantasy writers.

The story begins approximately fifty years after the conclusion of Sword, with the gr...more
veronica
Jun 24, 2009 veronica rated it 2 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to veronica by: Chris Williams
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Batsap
"they arrived at a massive body of stagnant water, choked with roots and deadwood that protruded like the earth's broken bones"

Wonderfully, deliciously melodramatic, no? And it's like this all the way through. But what else would you expect from a book in which the entire Elf race is threatened with extinction by a ravening demon horde?
I think I may be getting just the slightest bit addicted to the Shannarah series.
When I started this book, I was slightly disappointed that it dealt with a later...more
Darth Sparhawk
A brilliant second novel of the "Shannara" series, in which Brooks really demonstrates his writing talent. Young healer Will Ohmsford possesses the magical Elfstones - and that's why the mysterious Druid Allanon orders him to protect Amberle, an Elven Princess, who is the only hope of her race and the Four Lands against a dark tide of evil demons. The two of them must travel deep into wild lands with the most horrifying demon hot on their heels, while Allanon and the Elven Army try to buy them t...more
Sonia
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Julie
This is the 2nd book in a trilogy. I read that it was the best of the 3 and was easily read as a standalone book, so we decided to go for it. This book did not disappoint. We read it as a family read aloud while in the car, at home, or any time we wanted to. This is a LONG book. At times, it was difficult for me and my daughters to wait until we were all available to read the book, and sometimes, one or the other of us would sneakily read ahead, and then feel guilty about it. But we always provi...more
Steve Roach
Elfstones was, as I hoped, somewhat better than Brooks' first book The Sword of Shannara. Clearly in the 5 years between books he learned better writing techniques. As a result I enjoyed this book much more. The story was original, the characters were well-represented, and the pace was generally just right, with a good mix of standard battle scenes and magical "fantasy" scenes.
I especially liked that Brooks always has a psychological aspect to his characters, a "flaw", if you will, that they mus...more
Carolina
I loved this more than the first book, the Sword of Shannara which rumor is, there is talks in the works to make the trilogy a tv mini series or full series following the success of a song of ice and fire by GRRM.
However I was rooting for Amberle and Wil Ohmsford (the protagonist from the first book's grandson) ship and while I liked the ship of him and Eretria I feel that their unofficial union with them running off in the end with Ander watching them from afar, was very forced and as a way to...more
Neill Smith
The Ellcrys was an ancient tree that was a symbol and the power behind the corralling of the demons underground, defeated centuries before by the peoples of the land. Now it was dying creating the possibility that the demons would be unleashed again. The Chosen, elves selected to serve the Ellcrys, had to travel to a mysterious region called Safehold, unknown in modern times, in order to replant the Ellcrys from her last seed. Shea Ohmsford’s son, Wil, is recruited by Allanon, the fabled druid,...more
03katieb
This was a really good book! It is written in a very descriptive and captivating way.
"The legend was not legend. The legend was life. Evil did indeed lie beyond a Forbidding that the Ellcrys maintained. Only she kept the Elven people safe. And now she was dying." Chapter 1, p. 6.
Wil Ohmsford is chosen by the mysterious Allanon to guide Amberele, the last of the Chosen on a journey to renew the Ellcrys. They face demons, the Reaper, Rovers, witches, and perhaps their greatest challenge, self-dou...more
Tristin
This is a very interesting book because it has very descriptive writing that pulls you in and want to read more it also makes you feel that your right their in certain parts. I gave this book 5 out of 5 because I think that the author just did everything right in the being able to picture the land scape the characters and their every move. I would recommend this book to anybody who is into fantasy books and adventure books or anybody who want's to try reading different type of book because it ha...more
Richard
4 1/2 Stars
Much better than book one. The story is excellent and original. It is set fifty years after the first book and therefore most of those characters have little or no role in this book, Allanon has a major role again, and the Elf king is also in the book. As Shea and Flick were uninteresting characters it's not a loss, although I would liked to have found out what happened to the other characters. The new main characters are very interesting and have excellent development.

The only proble...more
Travis
I enjoyed Sword of Shanarra...this was much better. I have often read and heard comments about the Shanarra stories being derivative so lets get this out of the way. All fantasy is derivative of what came before. Most of the fantasy work that has been written since the 70s have drawn heavily from LoTR and this will always be the case. With that being said, the important thing to me is how well was the story executed and how well were the characters fleshed out. In my opinion Terry Brooks does a...more
Tim Wilson
Fantasy has always been one of my favorite genres. While my all-time favorite series will always be Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, Terry Brooks (and this book in particular) is a big reason as to why I love fantasy. The Sword of Shannara was a good book. Not excellent, but good. This book, however, is where Brooks really got into his writing groove, in my opinion, and remains his best book to date. I'm not going to give a detailed synopsis of the book, as there are plenty of those already, but I...more
Zack Parks
You could say the Sword of Shannara does have a ton in common with Lord of the Rings, but I think the second book in the series definitely moves away from that comparison. The descriptions were much more vivid in this book, which made it easier to get lost in the world of Shannara this time. There were some geographical references that confused me a bit, especially early on, but I ignored them and enjoyed the story anyway. The characters really developed well throughout and I feel like we got to...more
Mary Rose
This is the second in a series my aunt got me for Christmas (see the 1st post), and this book was actually better than the first. The dynamic between the characters was more interesting than the first book. It sort of had the same corny theme about believing in yourself and having self-confidence like the first, but...sometimes I like corny. And I actually didn't see the end coming, which is saying something because I can usually guess an ending. But I assumed Brooks would have a conventional an...more
Shannon
After giving The Sword of Shannara a break for a few months, I read the next and second book in the series, The Elfstones of Shannara. While I did enjoy this book slightly more than the first one, I still found something lacking. The storyline was fine, but I wanted more from the characters. I wanted them to make me believe they were real. I wanted more from the overall description of events, too. In short, I wanted more from the actual writing!

That being said....

This book focuses mostly on the...more
Branwen
This book, no... this SERIES is awesome. And yes, I can tell that even after only finishing the second book! *laughs* This book follows Wil and Amberle as they travel into dangers unknown, pursued by an evil demon called the Reaper, in search of the Bloodfire which can save the world from the onslaught of demon hordes. But really, this story is simply about love, adventure, magic, friendship, and the responsibility of honor. This second installment of the Sword of Shannara series has everything...more
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Elfstones of Shannara Website 11 71 Dec 21, 2011 03:31pm  
Elfstones Of Shannara  (The Original Shannara Trilogy, #2)
The Elfstones Of Shannara (The Shannara Series)
The Elfstones of Shannara (Paperback)
Le pietre magiche di Shannara (Paperback)
The Elfstones of Shannara (Shannara, #2)

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Terry Brooks was born in Illinois in 1944, where he spent a great deal of his childhood and early adulthood dreaming up stories in and around Sinnissippi Park, the very same park that would eventually become the setting for his bestselling Word & Void trilogy. He went to college and received his undergraduate degree from Hamilton College, where he majored in English Literature, and he received...more
More about Terry Brooks...
The Sword of Shannara (The Original Shannara Trilogy #1) The Talismans Of Shannara (Heritage of Shannara #4) The Wishsong of Shannara (The Original Shannara Trilogy #3) First King of Shannara (Shannara, #0) Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold (Magic Kingdom of Landover, #1)

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