The Sorcerer's Daughter

March 21, 2016
Lazy writing and unremarkable characters and situations will leave readers disappointed in Brooks’s third Defenders of Shannara epic fantasy (after The Darkling Child) and 28th overall Shannara novel. At a high-level summit to be held in the city of Arishaig, leaders of the Druids and the Federation are to hold wide-ranging discussions with the ambitious goal of ending conflict among all races and governments. Paxon Leah is responsible for ensuring the safety of the event. Before the talks can advance, the meeting chamber is invaded by a ferocious creature that slaughters only the Federation attendees. Paxon and his party flee for their lives and must then try to prove they had nothing to do with the massacre. Meanwhile, Paxon’s sister, Chrysallin, has been abducted, and Leofur Rai, Paxon’s love interest and the titular sorcerer’s daughter, embarks on a dangerous quest to rescue her. The relative lack of backstory, perhaps intended to make the novel accessible to first-timers, instead makes the significance of the characters and situations obscure.

April 1, 2016

Leofur Rai has spent her life distancing herself from her father, the tyrannical sorcerer Arcannen Rai. Now, she lives in Paranor, the Druid's Keep, with her life partner, the Druid's Blade Paxon Leah. Leofur leads a safe, albeit unfulfilling, existence as companion and guardian of Paxon's younger sister, Chrysallin, who wields an ancient and powerful magic. When Chrysallin is captured on the same day Leofur receives news that Paxon's latest mission with the Druids has gone horribly wrong, she must make a difficult decision: abandon Chrysallin to save Paxon, or enlist the help of the mysterious Emeric Cort, the best tracker in the universe, to rescue Chrys. This is the third novel in the latest stand-alone series in the Shannara world, but new readers won't be confused; the narration often returns to past events to clarify the present. The explosive first few chapters promise an action-packed, quasipolitical fantasy thriller, something fans have come to expect. Instead, readers are stuck in a novel that is frustratingly predictable and curiously thin on magic and action. VERDICT The alchemy and mystery permeating earlier "Shannara" books are no longer there, but the MTV series based on Brooks's fantasies may stir some interest.--Tyler Hixson, Library Journal

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