Tolkien Lite

Spent some time the past couple of days starting to read Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara. It’s the first entry of a possibly endless series of something like seventeen or eighteen eight-hundred page books. I got three chapters in – fifty-seven pages to be exact – before I put the book down.

It’s basically Tolkien lite.

I remember a buddy of mine in high school trying to foist the book on me as the next-greatest-thing, but something just didn’t gel with me. It sat on my bookshelf over two decades ago, for as long as I can remember, unopened. The title sounded silly; the backpage teasers seemed derivative; the artwork looked a bit goofy if I recall correctly. A month ago I found it in a book store the other day and bought it for a few bucks. Hey, I have an open mind when it comes to lit, and I’m always on the look-out for a world to escape to, though I know nothing can full well compare to Middle Earth.

But Brooks tries awfully hard.

How is this Tolkien lite? Well, for starters, every person or place in Shannara has a counterpart in the Lord of the Rings. Obviously I don’t know how far into the series this phenomena continues (the dude’s written six times as much as J. R. R., so I should hope it eventually turns original at some point), but I found this copying-substitution to be distracting, preventing me from falling into the storyline.

For any of you in the know, here’s what I found:

Shea Ohmsford = Frodo Baggins
Flick Ohmsford = Samwise Gamgee
Allanon = Gandalf
The Druids = The Wizards (Istari)
Balinor = Strider / Aragorn
The Vale = The Shire
Culhaven = Rivendell
Warlock Lord = Sauron
The shapeless black creatures = the Nazgül
Skull Mountain = Mount Doom

And of course Brooks’ world is populated with Elves, Dwarves, and Trolls, with Trolls seeming to fill the role the Orcs played in LotR. Shea and Flick must flee the Vale (Shea wants to leave by himself, but Flick is fiercely loyal and insists on traveling by his side) because the Warlock Lord is hunting for him (however, because he is the last in a kingly lineage, not because he has the One Ring of Power). Alannon reveals this to the brothers, but cannot help them because of other urgent matters, so he sends Aragorn – I mean, Balinor, to protect and guide them.

It’s the freakin’ whole plot of The Fellowship of the Ring, written just slightly different to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits from the Tolkien estate.

I put the book down, spent the rest of the day doing yardwork and cleaning out my garage for the first time in nearly four years. I’m now awfully achy, so I think I’ll soak in a nice hot tub reading some H. P. Lovecraft.