Terry Brooks – the beloved uncle of the epic fantasy

In the beginning of March, American writer Terry Brooks announced that he was giving up writing, at least as far as his Shanara series was concerned, one of the most significant works in the history of the fantasy genre. The news seems to be normal because of the old age of the author, who is already 81 years old, and the reasons he emphasized – an inability to focus a long and some physical infirmity – also sound within the expected stage of life, after which the future does not seem irrelevant.

However, for connoisseurs of this type of literature, especially if they are of the older generation, this news caused strong emotions. Many of them grew up, and some even aged with Brooks’ books. For others, it was the first contact in the genre. Even in Bulgaria, where his books appeared late, he was one of the key writers for the promotion of fantasy literature in the 1990swhen the embargo above it imposed by communism fell.

Terry Brooks was born on January 8, 1944 in the town of Stirling, Illinois. She ignites fiction as a student, and her fairytale part is directed after reading the « Lord of the Rings », the eternal novel by Professor John R. R. Tolkien. And although he initially works as a lawyer, his dream of creating his own story never extinguishes, and for several years he has written his novel The Sword of the Shanaara, which has been released on the 1977 book market.

The context when publishing this book should be taken into account. After its appearance in the United States, the Lord of the Rings became a cult read for the young people there, and even became an icon for the hippie movement, in a wonderful way, an attached to her ideas for a pastoral past, facing almost industrialized as vision and atmosphere Mordor.

But although interesting attempts in the genre have emerged in the coming years, such as the « Nine Prince of Amber » by Roger Zelazie and the « Earthline Wizard » by Ursula Le Guin, they are quite aside as a Spirit from Tolkien. People want to read something like this, but it just doesn’t offer one on the book market.

Until the appearance of the Del Ray family. Leicester del Ray is a really famous editor who has gained experience from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, but with an exceptional flair for fantasy. The latter also helps his wife, the petite Judy-Al, who has an innate sense of readers’ needs and can skillfully assess the potential of any book. It is her responsibility for the release of the novel on the script of the original Star Wars months before the movie is released, which is one of the reasons for his success. He and Leicester see Brooks’ potential, but the editor warns the author:

Del Ray turns out to be right about everything. The « Shannara’s » sword « is very similar to the lord of the rings as a dramaturgical structure, but there are some significant differences with Tolkien’s book. In the first place, the world described by the author of the four lands is not in the legendary past, but in the distant future of humanity, which survived a nuclear war and sunk in a new Middle Ages. The hero is not an ordinary man taken out of his daily life as the hobbies Bilbo and Frodo, but a descendant of the Elven King, who forgot about his origin.

He does not seek to destroy the mascot of magic, but to find it and to use his powers against evil. Brooks’ decision is extremely cunning about what can distract darkness – instead of opening devastating magic, Shanara’s sword reveals the truth and the whole truth, and it proves to be unbearable for the antagonist in history.

The book becomes the first fantasy included in the New York Times bestsellers ranking And it gives way to the first major commercial successes for the epic direction of the genre beyond Tolkien’s creativity. Some of them, like Stephen R. Donaldson’s « Master Gad » and « Pierce Anthony’s Chameleon Spell, come out the same year, again with the sign of Del Ray – the Balantine Books’ Imprint for Fantasy.

Indeed, Brooks is not lacking criticism, with the author of Conan Barbarian novels Lin Carter accusing him of plagiarism. Frank Herbert, who wrote the famous science fiction saga « Dune », defends Terry and expresses admiration for his ability to describe negative characters. According to him, in his descriptions of the monsters created by black magic, Brooks manages to reach the horror that the child has for the vague shadows in his room. For him, this is a remarkable achievement.

Perhaps even more impressive is that Brooks not « cobed iron while it’s hot », as do Donaldson with the instant sequels for his character Thomas Coanthn. On the contrary, Terry carefully praises the next parts of « Shanara« And he even gave up his original manuscript to a book, which Del Ray warns him that he was fit for publishing, but would harm his career. Brooks is patient and starts from the beginning, and the result comes in 1982 with » Elves Stones « , perhaps the greatest novel in his entire career.

The style is much tighter and more clean than in his first book, the plot is far more original and not so influenced by Tolkien, the battles are unprecedented for this stage in the history of the genre, and the villains praised by Herbert are even more frightening. The main antagonist, called the Kosacha and bearing the image of death from medieval paintings with his low -down black hood, is relentless and silent, almost like a replica of the killer Michael Myers of John Carpenter’s Halloween, but in the stylistics of a fantasy novel.

In the coming years, Brooks tried to in the humorous fantasy with the Landor series, which began by the absurd novel « Magic Kingdom for sale – sold! »S In it, a Chicago lawyer, who is depressed, buys a magic world for a million dollars, expecting it to be some kind of amusement park. Instead, it comes across a true fairy -tale country like Clive S. Luis’s Narnia, but she was bankrupt.

The book has sufficient success to stimulate sequels, but it does not enjoy the commercial success of Shanara. At this stage of the genre history, the epic fantasy seems to be invincible and more voluminous and ambitious works appear on the market, including Tad Williams’ Remembrance, Profit and Tran and Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. So Brook’s return to the genre is inevitable.

It happened in the 1990s with the « Shanara’s Heritage » tetralogy, far darker than the original three books. It is also the first series of the author to emerge Bulgarian. At that time, we did not have a sufficiently accumulated number of texts from the genre and terminology impeded translators more accustomed to science fiction, all the more so that the level of editorial work drops sharply after liberalization of the market. However, I can only imagine how the « Shanara descendants » sounded in 1992, when they read how the dwarf people were experiencing the occupation of the federation, which took their property.

The saga is more ambitious than its predecessors, but also much more depressive. The characters are experiencing cripples and loss of their freedom, and magic seems to be corrupt and threatens to perverse anyone who uses it, though without it salvation is impossible. The darker tone is obviously liked by Brooks himself, who then betrays the trilogy for the speech and the abyss, the action in which it is developing these days. Only the third part was published in Bulgarian, « Angel fire to the east », But in it, readers will see Stephen King’s strong influence, though Brooks is not so naturalistic.

The works of the author are partially reprinted into Bulgarian at the beginning of the century by Infodar Publishing House, which in most cases significantly improves their translations. They also publish in our country the novel « The First King of Shanaara », playing the role of prelude to the original trilogy. Unfortunately, the next books about the world of the four lands that continue to publish in English do not reach the native reader. At that time, the fantasy genre underwent a real revolution with J. Harry Potter’s books. K. Rowling and the market is hungry for such readings.

In the United States, however, Brooks remains successful and continues to write novels about Shanaara, most of them at a very good level. In search of the new generation, the author compromises when giving them rights to MTV. They create a very controversial television series, only vaguely related to their literary prototype. However, the great recognition of the author came in 2017, when the once disliked him for the similarities with Tolkien criticism was presented with the World Fantasy Prize for his overall contribution to the development of the genre.

His series remains so popular that it is expected to continue after the author’s refusal, as he has already cited as his successor the writer Dilala Dawson, known for the novels of the Star Wars Universe. Only time will show whether she will really be able to hold Brooks’ level, reminded of her best years with her last saga novel Galaphilewent to the book market this spring.

For Brooks, however, the curtain falls in the best possible way while it is still on top. The accurate assessment for him is given by his colleagues:

Even if your beloved uncle’s career has graduated, the love of readers and colleagues continues.