The Shannara Chronicles: Season One

[owlmoose]

The first adult epic fantasy book I remember reading was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. This was many years before I became familiar with The Lord of the Rings (I attempted The Hobbit when I was eight or nine, but it didn't take), so I didn't notice its derivative aspects; instead, I got sucked into a sprawling story of good and evil and standing up for what's right even when you feel small and powerless, featuring swashbuckling adventures and some appealing characters. Naturally, I continued on with the series, and I loved the second book, The Elfstones of Shannara, even more. The story feels more original than the first, it includes more female characters of significance, and the bittersweet ending is wonderful. I read at least a few more books in the series, but these are the two I came back to again and again.

So when the television adaptation was announced, I was both excited and skeptical. Excited, because of course it's exciting to have a childhood favorite brought to life, but skeptical for all the reasons you might expect: what would they change, and therefore mess up? How could they take such a sprawling story and make it into something coherent for television? (At least it was a TV series -- trying to condense even one of these books to movie length seemed an impossible task. We're talking doorstop fantasy here, especially the first book.) Would they go the Game of Thrones route and make everything unnecessarily grimdark? Many things to worry about there.

Still, I had meant to watch it, but I forgot to record the first episode, and then never got around to catching up. Recently, though, our friend SFbluestocking reminded me of the series and mentioned that she's enjoying it, especially the second season, so I decided I'd give it a shot. Although I have lots (lots) of quibbles with it, overall I'm finding it a good and thoughtful adaptation, better than the source material in some ways, and one of the better epic fantasy shows airing right now.

( A few minor spoilers, for the book and the show both. )

Adventures Elsewhere — October 2017

[helloladies]

Adventures Elsewhere collects our reviews, guest posts, articles, and other content we've spread across the Internet recently! See what we've been up in our other projects. :D

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