THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA I: ILSE WITCH
By: Andrew OsmondDate: Friday, October 06, 2000
There's a certain breed of fantasy reader for whom the word 'Shannara' is sufficient to send them screaming to the horizon. Please excuse yourselves while I delve into back-story for the benefit of the uninitiated. Right, now that they're gone, let me explain. You see, despite being a nominal 'Book One,' Isle Witch is no place for newcomers.
In 1977, Terry Brooks wrote The Sword of Shannara. The book was the first modern fantasy novel to make the New York Times bestseller list, for five months no less. It helped spark the publishing phenomenon of the fat fantasy series, still with us today. For better or worse (and many scowl for much worse), Sword is an archetype in this field. The book opened with a map displaying such imaginatively named locations as 'Northland,' 'Southland,' 'Eastland,' 'Westland,' with the hero's idyllic home 'Shady Vale' at the bottom and the subtly named 'Skull Kingdom' at the top. Oh, and there's 'Druid's Keep,' 'Mist Marsh,' mountains called 'Dragons Teeth'...you get the picture.
What we're talking about is a shameless quest fantasy, packed with elves, Warlock Lords, and characters dining on stew and ale. There's a Disneyesque avoidance of sexual and earthy references. The plot mechanics are seemingly lifted from computer adventure games, and early ones at that. Not surprisingly, as Shannara's popularity grew, so did the vitriol of 'serious' fantasy readers, people who adored the likes of Tolkien, Moorcock, Peake and Gene Wolfe. For them, Shannara was symbolic of all that was formulaic and mind-rotting about genre products. (I'm not exaggerating; when I was at college, the fantasy club held a ritual Shannara burning each year.) Shannara was pronounced cozy, unchallenging, for lazy delinquent readers. As the Encyclopedia of Fantasy sternly proclaimed, such pap was anti-fantasy.
This reviewer, you may have guessed, was one of those lazy delinquent readers. All I can tell the jury is, well... It depends on how much you're willing to forgive in a book, and for what. The Shannara novels may be derivative and mechanical, but they're also exciting and compelling, if you're open to a certain class of childish things. Even in the weaker books, many individual scenes, images and emotions have a potency transcending the banality of the story. If this sounds nostalgic, it's meant to; I read Shannara as a schoolboy (after Tolkien, I should add, so I don't have that defense). The Shannara books may appeal if you take guilty pleasure from earnestly immature flicks like Krull, Clash of the Titans or (dare I say it?) The Phantom Menace. Laugh it up all you want about the stilted scripting in Krull, but boy, the Widow of the Web still gives me the jeebies.
Sword of Shannara was followed by a long line of sequels, some considerably more inventive than the first. Any of the three first books (Sword, Elfstones, Wishsong) read fairly well as a stand-alone. The stories are basically separate, and the background is simple to pick up. The second generation of books, starting with 1990's Scions of Shannara, is trickier for newbies, especially as they form a four-part adventure with various sub-adventures built in. (There's that computer analogy again). Ignoring a lackluster prequel (First King of Shannara, 1996), Ilse Witch effectively starts a third generation, set more than a century after the last. For newbies reading this, I'd suggest you backtrack and try one of Brooks' pre-'90s entries. (Not necessarily Sword; Elfstones is better). Away from Shannara, you might consider his gently humorous Magic Kingdom for Sale, still his best book overall.
On to Ilse Witch. As noted, it picks up some way after the last chronological story, Talismans of Shannara, which closed the Heritage quartet. Most of the characters we knew are long gone, with the exception of one-armed Walker Boh, lone inheritor of the Druid tradition, a Ben Kenobi figure feeling the weight of his predecessors. The tale starts with a castaway washed up on a beach. A horribly mutilated elf, he transpires to be a member of a thirty-year old treasure hunt, seeking ancient riches hidden far across the sea. Handily, the elf carries a map of this region. Asked to investigate by the elf king, Walker jumps at the chance, already having inside knowledge of what the treasure might be. After selecting several companions, some seemingly at whim, Walker and his new expedition embark on a flying ship.
You read that right, a flying ship. It's the most obvious addition to the Shannara universe this time round. We're far from the internal combustion engine, but someone's done some inventing in the intervening years. It's a fun addition. Airships are familiar in steam-punk fantasies, but it's not so common to see them ferrying elves and being guarded by rocs (as in the big birds). Coincidentally, the anime series Escaflowne uses them in a rather similar way. (See linked article at the bottom of this page.) The book also gives us a new villain, the titular 'Ilse Witch,' who provides the main threat to Walker's expedition. She appears surprisingly little, but her character is intriguing, and I don't think it gives much away to presume we'll see more of her in later books.
The main thing to know is that Ilse Witch is in no way self-contained, ending on a cliffhanger without even the pretence of closure. Effectively, it's the beginning of another very long story, a la Scions of Shannara. So far the signs are...mixed. The book has a bumpy and rather poor start, straining patience, but picks up impressively when Jerle Shannara takes flight. Unfortunately, that isn't until past the halfway point, and this is a 450-page book. How much you enjoy it may depend (as so often with Brooks) on how forgiving you are.
On the downside, it's not that Brooks' prose doesn't read well, but there is something incredibly artless about it. Once a plot point is established, it tends to be endlessly repeated and recapped; some chapters could be cut by two-thirds. There's also an incredible amount of 'Tell,' so that the reader is crying out for 'Show.' Take this early description of a major character, called (with typical Brooks improbability) Hunter Predd: 'Typical of Wing Riders in general, Hunter Predd was a pragmatic sort. Whatever unwelcome cards life dealt him he accepted as gracefully as he could and went on about his business... He was a blunt straightforward man.' All very interesting, but the most involving way to tell a story? At worst, the book reads like preliminary author notes, not a novel itself.
But when things get going, the book livens up no end. The voyage into a progressively cold and hostile realm has an obviously primal appeal, and it's here that Brooks starts springing surprises and delivering payoffs. One back story involving a character's origins is especially vivid and gritty, with the appeal of a very dark fairy tale. Another episode inventively reworks the Greek Jason myth, and rings true in context. And the apparently predictable plot starts to dissolve, hinting at something far more interesting to come. I won't give away details, but Shannara fans might reflect on one of the few unusual things about Brooks' world. Unlike most genre fantasy, it's set not in some mythic past, but the very far future.
Overall, as the book goes on there's less 'Tell' and more 'Show,' boding well for future installments. Certainly the characters are interesting in principle, and one hopes they get the space to develop in the next episode. Myself, I'll be there, unless the timing clashes with the next Harry Potter. Readers who've stayed with Brooks through the past decades should find this installment worthwhile. As for the rest, see what you make of Brooks' previous work.
THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA: ILSE WITCH, by Terry Brooks. Del Rey Books (Ballantine Publishing, a Division of Random House), September 2000. $26.95 U.S./$39.95 Canada.
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