The perfect gift!This gorgeous boxed set includes the first three books of The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn, as well as New Spring: The Novel, the exciting prequel to the series.Looking for the perfect gift? Every Robert Jordan fan will want this handsome set for their collection.Also makes an ideal gift for the fantasy reader who has never experienced the thrill of The Wheel of Time.This exclusive set is the only place that the trade paperback edition of New Spring: The Novel will be available.

"Find the Elves and return them to the world of Men!" the shade of the Druid Allanon had ordered Wren.It was clearly an impossible task. The Elves had been gone from the Westland for more than a hundred years. There was not even a trace of their former city of Arborlon left to mark their passing. No one in the Esterland knew of them -- except, finally, the Addershag.The blind old woman had given instructions to find a place on the coast of the Blue Divide, build a fire, and keep it burning for three days. "One will come for you."Tiger Ty, the Wing Rider, had come on his giant Roc to carry Wren and her friend Garth to the only clear landing site on the island of Morrowindl, where, he said, the Elves might still exist, somewhere in the demon-haunted jungle.Now she stood within that jungle, remembering the warning of the Addershag: "Beward, Elf-girl. I see danger ahead for you . . . and evil beyond imagining." It had proved all too true.Wren stood with her single weapon of magic, listening as demons evil beyond all imagining gathered for attack. How long could she resist?And if, by some miracle, she reached the Elves and could convince them to return, how could they possibly retrace her perilous path to reach the one safe place on the coast?

I really struggled with this one, and it took me a month to get through. This novel had serious pacing issues. The beginning and the end were both pretty good, but the middle dragged, and I found myself heavily skim reading just to get through it.I do have issues with the Shanara books in general. They are all pretty samey, and the original novel especially feels like a rip off of LOTR. The previous novel was actually pretty enjoyable and built up a fun cast of characters, and I had been looking forward to continuing the story. Sadly this one chose to focus on only a few of those characters and the questing just got tedious for me.I’ll take a short break the will press on to the Elf Queen. Despite my issues with this novel, I do want to see this series out.

The High Druid of Shannara trilogy draws to a thrilling close as a young hero nears completion of his trial by fire, a banished ruler fights for her life in a wilderness of dread, and forces of darkness and light square off in a battle unto death for the right to absolute rule. Prepare to be spellbound by the masterly hand of bestselling legend weaver Terry Brooks, conjuring at the peak of his skills.For reasons known only to himself, the King of the Silver River has charged young Penderrin Ohmsford, barely more than a boy, with the daunting task of rescuing his aunt, Grianne, Ard Rhys of the Druid order, from her forced exile in the terrifying dimension of all things damned: the Forbidding. With the noble dwarf Tagwen and the prodigal elven princess Khyber Elessedil by his side–and with the outcome of the bloody war between the Federation and the Free-born at stake–Pen has accepted his mission without question. But not without risk . . . or sacrifice.Because Shadea a’Ru, the ruthless Druid responsible for imprisoning the true Ard Rhys and usurping leadership at Paranor, has sent her agents and assassins in relentless pursuit of Pen and his comrades. And in securing the talisman he needs to breach the Forbidding, Pen has paid a devastating price. Now if the Free-born forces–already decimated by the Federation’s death-dealing new weapon–should fall, Shadea’s domination of the Four Lands will be assured. Nothing short of Pen’s success can turn the tide. But Pen’s challenge grows greater when he learns that his parents, Bek Ohmsford and Rue Meridian, have fallen into Shadea’s hands. He must try to help them–but once within the walls of Druid’s Keep, where Shadea’s minions and dark magic lurk at every turn, Pen’s survival is far from assured. Yet it will all pale in comparison to the horrors that wait inside the Forbidding–horrors poised to break free upon the Four Lands when the time is right. . . .From the Hardcover edition.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Expect no end of wonders and suspense, no shortage of adventure and enchantment, as Terry Brooks begins the next extraordinary quest in the magical world of Shannara. . . .Twenty years have passed since Grianne Ohmsford denounced her former life as the dreaded Ilse Witch. Fulfilling the destiny predicted for her, she has established the Third Druid Council and dedicated herself to its goals of peace, harmony among the races, and defense of the Four Lands. But despite her devotion to the greater good as Ard Rhys, the High Druid of Paranor, Grianne still has bitter enemies. Even her few allies—chief among them her trusted servant Tagwen—know of the plots against her. But they could never anticipate the sudden, ominous disappearance of the Ard Rhys, in the dead of night and without a trace. Now Tagwen joins Grianne’s brave young nephew, Pen Ohmsford, and the wise, powerful elf Ahren Elessedil on a desperate and dangerous mission of search and rescue—to deliver the High Druid of Shannara from an unspeakable fate.BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Terry Brooks's The Measure of the Magic.

”The Druids stepped back as the first of those things slouched into the light. It was a Skull Bearer, hunched and massive within its black cloak, claws extended before it. All sharp edges and flat planes, all hardness and bulk, it filled the corridor and seemed to suck away the very air. Red eyes burned into the three who cowered before it, and it shoved its way past them disdainfully. Leathery wings beat softly. With a hiss of satisfaction, it seized the young Elven guard, ripped out his throat, and cast him aside. The Druids flinched as the rending sprayed them with the victim’s blood.”The Druids have been crippled by the horror of the misuse of magic in the first war of the races, which destroyed the old world and sent the race of man into banishment. The Druids have made themselves toothless, shut up with their books and minor spells in the castle keep of Paranor. When Bremen appears, demanding to see the council to warn them of the coming dangers, the last thing they want to do is believe a druid who has been cast out. They’d have done well to listen. The Warlock Lord, Brona, a druid who has been twisted by dark magic, has risen in the north and has browbeaten the trolls into an army of chaos. He has skull bearers, other druids who have been warped into sadistic, brutal, powerful monsters. He is marching south, and the first he will come for are the druids. Bremen can only convince a small band of druids to leave the keep and come with him. Magic will have to be used again, and it may even need the help of the old sciences as well. There is little time to convince the Races to come together as one. This reminds me of the slow responses by countries who were still recovering from the devastation of World War One and couldn’t even fathom the possibility of having to fight yet another world war. ”Only by uniting could the free Races hope to prevail. But it would take time for them to decide to do this if left to their own devices. Politics would slow any decision making. Self-interest would generate an ill-advised caution. The free Races would debate and consider and be made slaves before they realized what had happened to them.”If Hitler hadn’t dithered at Dunkirk, the war might very well have been over before the US could get in the war. In this case, the Dwarves are nearly destroyed before the Elves can muster their army for war. Bremen has a vision of a sword, a very special sword, made with magic and old science and held by a great Elven leader. Like with most visions, clarity is an issue. Bremen dispatches his small band in various directions on different quests as he tries to discover the proper way forward to destroy something seemingly too powerful to stop. ”Dust began to rise from the parched plains, the wind stirring it in wild clouds, and the size of the army seemed to swell even more, to rise on the dust as if fed by it. The silence shattered, and the light changed. In the roil of the dust and thunder of the army’s coming, Death lifted its head in expectation and looked about.”I approached the Shannara canon ass backwards. I watched the TV show The Shannara Chronicles before I decided to approach the books. I rarely do this, but in this case, it might end up working out okay. I was itching, of course, to read The Sword of Shannara, the first and most lauded of the Shannara Chronicles, but after some research, I decided to read First King of Shannara, a prequel to the trilogy. This was a dicey decision because the prequel is far from the book that Sword pertains to be, but I was interested in learning about the lead up to what I already knew about Shannara. I hope that this means that I will enjoy Sword more because I have more background material already lodged in my head before reading the first page. There is a bit of frothing at the mouth about Terry Brooks and the similarities between his world of Shannara and the world of J. R. R. Tolkien. I’m far from an expert on fantasy novels. In fact, I rarely read them, but I do find that throwing one in the reading queue occasionally does pleasantly shake me out of my reading comfort zone. In this case, I did become caught up in the quest aspects of the novel and enjoyed taking an hour or so a day to lose myself in the magical wilds of Shannara. I chose to see Brooks' Shannara books as an ode to Tolkien. I perfectly understand Tolkien purists choosing to see this series as a ripoff. Given the fact that Brooks has published many books in the realm of Shannara to great acclaim, I would say that most fantasy readers have chosen to see the series the same way I do. Please Tolkien purists, do not send large, wart infested trolls after me or ninja dwarf assassins or Elven arrow sharpshooters or *shudder* a Skull Bearer. I will warn you, I do have a fierce Scottish Terrier who prefers a bit of variety in her diet...if you know what I mean. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

I need a way to rate the book and then a way to separately rate the edition I got. I have the audio I got from OverDrive and the gain is so low that with the recording turned up all the way, my speakers turned up all the way and going into my computers audio controls and jacking them up all the way I could barely hear it. Recording value -1 star.The book is a return to the world of the original Shannara trilogy though much later. magic is outlawed and practically gone (funny how often that seems to happen in "fantasy worlds") Our hero(es) are tasked with saving the world, by bringing magic back, by finding the Sword of Shannara. (Hey just because that's how this whole series started don't knock it. When you get a good plot idea [or find a good plot idea] like "recovering a magic sword" use it as often as possible....right?)Anyway, did you get that? It's sort of a multilevel quest. They have to bring back magic to save the world, but they have to find the Sword of Shannara to bring back magic. Well, to find the truth about magic and saving the world.Now if you find that a bit convoluted, "shame on you how dare you criticize a classic work of fantasy"? At least that's the reaction I tend to get when i express opinions like that.Go figure.And by the way...someone's pretty ungrateful as there was already a quest to find the Sword of Shannara and when it was found someone obviously didn't take care of it, AND it seems they've lost the Elf Stones to!!!!We just can't have nice things....Not a bad book. If you get the audio I got, good luck on actually being able to hear it however. *Just had to correct a word.

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