Book Review: The Gypsy Morph

Even though this is one of the first fantasy series I've started reading [1], it's taken me a while to get around to reading this book, the third installment in the Genesis of Shannara trilogy by Terry Brooks. It was published in 2008 and Brooks has cranked out four more books since then.[2] I'm a little unsure that Terry Brooks can bring this around and smoothly transition into the world of Shannara with its many races and plenitude of magical objects. I guess I'll find out whenever I get around to reading the next few books in the series.

My verdict: I felt like surprisingly little happens in this book. It felt like most of the narrative simply served to fill up pages until the rush of events at the end. Admittedly, though, that rush of events did satisfactorily conclude a lot of hanging threads. I haven't really noticed this before in Brooks' writing, but in this book he often skips over scenes in a way that's a little jarring.[3] I was also confused by the way he wrote the Klee. There was no good reason given for why it suddenly stops attacking main characters after menacing them for a few moments. (Especially since Findo Gask commanded it to kill everything it encounters along the way to attacking the Gypsy Morph.) Most of the characters are interesting, but Panther is so one-dimensional it's painful. And Angel Pérez' Spanish is a bit simplistic.

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Notes:

[1] Before it I read The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and The Prydain Chronicles. Though I can't remember for sure whether I read The Dark is Rising Sequence before or after I started the Shannara series.

[2] A Princess of Landover (2009), Bearers of the Black Staff (2010), The Measure of the Magic (2011), and The Wards of Faerie (2012).

[3] e.g. in one scene Angel Perez sets out to rejoin Helen Rice and the children. In her next appearance she's already there (no warm reunion) and complaining to Helen that a demon (the Klee) is kidnapping and killing children.

Image attributions:

Mount Rainier (a.k.a. Syrring Rise) is by majorsteel25 (Jim L), available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/12977071@N00/4839078243.