The Sword of Shannara, again

I've written before about Terry Brooks' (or is it really Lester and Judy del Rey's?) The Sword of Shannara, largely a carbon copy of The Lord of the Rings. When I last read it a decade ago, I wrote I'd probably never read it again:

I don’t hate The Sword of Shannara, but I doubt I will read it again. It does suffer in comparison to The Lord of the Rings. As I’ve aged my readings of Tolkien have become deeper and his themes more resonant while Brooks’ first book seems shallower and less successful than it did when I was eleven. The golden cloak of nostalgia — for my youth, for the excitement of reading a big book so quickly, for all sorts of things I associate with Sword — is fading. I fear if I read it again it will vanish entirely, and I think that might be a very sad thing.

The thing, now, is, I might actually read it again as part of my series of articles about Prof. Tolkien's writing. Brooks' novel is inextricably tied to LotR, as is my old affection for it. Since the glow fade from Sword for me, I don't think I've ever read it in close conjunction with LotR and I'm curious to examine them side by side. 

Now, I don't think my somewhat still warm feelings for Sword will fade after a reread. Those feelings were real, and I can never be less than grateful for the world of fantasy reading that it was instrumental in opening. The Lord of the Rings was and will always remain its own thing for me. It stands alone. Sword is part and parcel of the stacks of books I read in its wake, but it is and will always remain the first one. 

I don't get the feeling Sword is anywhere near as popular as it once was. With the death of the Tolkien clones in favor of the GRRM clones, readers' tastes seemed to have shifted from the too-noble heroes to the too-amoral anti-heroes. Brooks has sold 25 million books over about fifty years, whild GRRM has sold over 90 million. That all makes me a little depressed. At least the Tolkien clones, even if poorly, stressed things like honor and courage. 

I probably won't read it until the end of the summer, though, I will advise anyone to never rely on me saying when I'll read what. 

PS: Aside from those of Glen Cook and Terry Pratchett, I don't think I've read more installments in a series than those of Shannara. I've definitely read the first trilogy, the four Heritage of Shannara books, and, I think, First King of Shannara. That's eight, big books.

There's a flatness to Brooks' writing - I said previously that Sword settled for talking when it should've been singing - and his characters never stray far from the standard fantasy/adventure stories tropes, but there's a compelling drive to his narratives that dragged me on to the next book. I actually planned to finish the series (I really wanted to get to the later books that bridge the gap between the demon-cause nuclear holocaust and the world of Sword). At this point, I doubt I will, but I might just skip nine (9!) books, and pick up some of those later ones.