I have been waiting literal decades for this book. I really enjoy the mix of “modern” magic and ancient technology. This is a satisfying conclusion to an epic series.

You know the saying “It’s like riding a bike”? Well, The Last Druid by Terry Brooks isn’t that.

It’s more like learning to ice skate.

And while I suppose this could be said of any series after a year since you read the previous book, it seemed more pronounced here.

When Drisker Arc was first mentioned, I couldn’t remember who Drisker Arc was. Never you mind that he’s our hero. I thought he was the antagonist.

But no, that’s Clizia Porse, whom I remembered very little about.

It’s odd that I forget a story so much I disconnect this badly.

After completing the first two chapters, I went and re-read my review of The Stiehl Assassin. That helped a little bit, but I still felt detached from the characters and story.

So much so that I really struggled to get into The Last Druid. What normally would have taken me 3-5 days, lasted a full two weeks.

So while it wasn’t like riding a bike, it felt more like ice skating.

It wasn’t so bad as starting from scratch, but I had to relearn balance and movement, despite having been quite good at it a few decades ago.

The Last Druid Review

The Last Druid begins literally where The Stiehl Assassin ends.

Tarsha Kaynin is hanging by a thread at the bottom of a cliff. Clizia Porse assumes she is dead.

Tarsha uses the wishsong to raise herself back to the top to find her brother dead and Drisker gone, stuck in the Forbidding.

Meanwhile, Darcon Leah and Ajin D’Amphere, the Skaar Princess, are fighting their way to the Skaar Homeland with a whole host of people in tow hoping to end the eternal winter on Skaarsland.

And Belladrin Rish, having just killed the Skaar infiltrator whose name I’ve forgotten already as well as the Federation leader, Ketter Vause.

This is like strapping on the ice skates.

You’re getting familiar to the feel of your foot in the skate again. Feeling the leather or whatever material it’s made out of. You feel the pressure as the laces are tied.

It’s familiar, yet foreign. Something you haven’t done in awhile.

Then the story propels forward.

Getting on the Ice

After you’re all strapped in, you stand up and take a few wobbly steps toward the rink.

These are stilted and awkward, perhaps a little painful. Once you get on the ice, your movements are erratic and slow.

That’s how I felt during the first few chapters of The Last Druid.

I quickly recalled Tarsha and Drisker, and since the first few chapters were about them, I quickly relished them. Becoming comfortable after some initial discomfort.

But as soon as the POV switches, and it switched a lot, I quickly grew frustrated with the story.

Here were all these characters I’d forgotten and had storylines I don’t care about. I just want to follow Tarsha and Drisker.

And, truthfully, even at the end the only other POV I cared about was Dar and Ajin’s. I skimmed every occasion of Shea Ohmsford, and was only mildly interested in Belladrin.

Even Clizia Porse’s few POV scenes I quickly sped through. I simply didn’t care about the old women’s failed attempts to be idiotic.

This lack of interest made the, say, first 40% of the book really drag and I had the hardest time getting into it.

It all starts coming back

After those first few very awkward moments on the ice, you start to get your rhythm.

Of course, it’s slow, and you might fall or run into the wall, but you get back up again and you get moving again.

If you’re by yourself, it’s easy enough to test the frozen waters, but if your skating with a crowd, some apprehension might exist.

Likewise, the story of The Last Druid quickly came back to me, but my care for it did not.

I loved the initial three books and read them all at once since I had been introduced to the series a little late in the game. And I still ended up enjoying The Last Druid.

A lot more than some of the more recent books I’ve read.

But I’m in no hurry to reread this series, and my interest in picking up The Sword of Shannara after finish The Stiehl Assassin is all but gone.

I may return to Shannara someday, but it is not this day.

Time is up before you know it

Usually when you go ice skating, you’re paying for a certain amount of time. Say an hour or two hours or however long it may be.

The last time I went skating, I was just getting my groove back when my time ended.

That perfectly epitomizes The Last Druid.

About 75% of the way through the story, I hit my stride. I’ve finally redeveloped some interest in the characters and everything starts to come to a head.

Plotlines are resolved, situations come to a head, and where do I go but down. The falling action of the story arc has arrived.

But I was just getting into it!

Time is up, now we’ve got to tie it off so we aren’t left with any disparaging open-ended feelings.

And The Last Druid does a pretty good job of this. It is the final book in the entire Shannara Chronicles of course.

The final words of the book answer every single question but one.

What is to become of the Druids?

Brooks specifically leaves it up to you to decide what our heroes choose to do, raise it up again or let it die.

We’ll never know.

Or Brooks is leaving it open in case he decides this wasn’t the end and he wants to write some more.

I guess only time will tell.

Final Thoughts

I know I didn’t talk about The Last Druid hardly at all, and I’m sorry. If you came here wanting to know what the book was about, you just need to read it for yourself.

I’m giving The Last Druid a solid 4/5 stars.

Brooks is an seasoned writer who knows his stuff, and this book is no exception. You won’t be disappointed in this epic conclusion to a decades old franchise.

What an epic end to an epic fantasy series. I’ve really enjoyed reading about these wonderful characters that Brooks has created. They are so colorful and full of depth, but it’s sad to let them go. We’ve been together for so long.

This story tied up all the loose ends and came to a close in a sad, but wonderful way. I don’t think I would have wanted it any other way. I will miss these characters.

Review will be live on Book Confessions blog on 4-22-20

I hadn’t been planning to read this. I found the Shannara books early on after I found Tolkien, and devoured all of them, and kept on reading them as new ones came out - but that stopped a while back, and I’ve missed two or three series that Brooks has since published. I was maturing as a reader, and coming to recognize just how *samey* they were (though Brooks’ reputation as writing Tolkien clones is actually extremely off base, but that’s a subject for a different post). But I was aware that Brooks had said *The Fall of Shannara* would be the conclusion of the Shannara world, not just the next series, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt the need to actually read it. Revisit something from childhood, as it were.

I didn’t approach it without trepidation. I have a sort of tradition where every few years I will feel compelled to get a Hostess or Little Debbie cake, remembering how much I used to like them as a kid, and find that they mostly taste like corn syrup and disappointment. This felt like that sort of thing. But, as with my every-couple-years tradition of eating a bite or two off of a Hostess cupcake, I nevertheless felt compelled to give this a go.

Thanks to the Del Ray folks for the ARC of the final book in the quadrilogy.

I’ll be reviewing this series on two levels. First, as a series on its own merits, then as a conclusion to the Shannara saga.

As a series on its own, this is OK. It’s better than most of the more recent Shannara books I’ve read, but not as good as *Elfstones* or *Wishsong*. I’d rank it somewhere below the *Scions* quadrilogy, more or less on par with the *Voyage of the Jerle Shannara* trilogy. (my personal ranking is *Elfstones/Wishsong* > *Scions* > *Voyage* > *several series that all kind of blur together* > *Sword* > *First King*) Brooks has always been able to write a page turner, and he doesn’t disappoint here - I burned through all four books in a little over a week. In some ways this was very familiar. You have a Leah swordsman, an Elessedil prince, an Ohmsford descendant or two. You have a Druid order that’s gradually devolved into petty power politics and is neglecting its duties, and as such is vulnerable to being wiped out except for one last survivor left to continue the order and fight the evil of the day. You *don't* have the Sword of Shannara itself, or a McGuffin, or the Vastly Outnumbered Good Guy Army fighting a Desperate Holding Action at Strategic Choke Point.

As to how things developed - it went in some directions I expected, and a lot I didn't. Not going to say much more than that. Characters were a mixed bag. Some I liked a great deal, others just fell flat. Brooks has always been kind of weak at creating believable bad guys who don't just go "Yay Evil!" and the bad guys here aren't anything to write home about. It all adds up to a series that, on its own, is a decent but ultimately forgettable popcorn read.

But it *doesn't* stand on its own, so now let's talk about it as a conclusion to what I'm pretty sure is the longest running of fantasy sagas.

Here, I have to say, it works very well. One of the reasons we don't have McGuffins is that Brooks has always been the Lord of McGuffins, and he leans into all the assorted talismans he's created over the years rather than invent new ones in a way that feels very organic. All the history of the Ohmsfords and Druids and the rest of the Four Lands is built on to get things where they are today. (Though I do think Brooks was being a little cheeky to name a character Shea Ohmsford, even if he did hang a lampshade on it) ("Shea Ohmsford? Really? Are you having me on?" "No, that's just my name.")

A theme going all the way back to *Sword of Shannara* has been the conflict between magic and science as to which was the "better" source of power. Science is more reliable than magic, but does have the rather significant mark against it of having destroyed the old world. Brooks' world has never been stuck in pseudo-Medieval stasis, and science has been advancing somewhat steadily for the thousands of years covered, while magic has ebbed and flowed. The conflict (or synergy) between the two is a central theme to this book, and it felt like a good wrap up to that debate.

The ending is ambiguous in the best way possible. It gave me the same kind of feeling as the last moment of *Star Trek: The Next Generation,* when Picard finally joins the poker game and the series ends with him saying "five card stud, nothing wild, and the sky's the limit." The last scene felt absolutely perfect.

So well done, Terry, and thank you for years is entertainment and providing loads of fuel for a young reader's imagination.

I commented earlier about the whole Tolkien clone thing being unfair. I think for my next audiobook relisten I'll do the original Shannara trilogy, so keep an eye out for my thoughts on that in a few months.

This is final book (maybe) in the Shannara series by the author. I have greatly enjoyed the series and this book does not disappoint, but does leave the ending up in the air making me wonder if it will truly be the last book. The author is starting a new series that I am looking forward to.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook  page.

I was a bit hesitant to request this book. Having grown up in the world of Shannara, I was saddened to hear that this would be the last book set in that realm. Terry Brooks has done a marvelous job with all the books in this series, and this final one was no different.

Loved how the story moved along at a good pace, while even closing up all the "loose ends" that many writers tend to close off too early, or not at all. The writing style was easy to read, which is Mr. Brooks' style, and is great for young adult readers. Descriptive writing was good, and I felt the imagination fill my head with what scenes I was reading.

All in all, this was a great finish to a series. Thanks for an ARC in exchange for a review through NetGalley.

Wow! The Last Druid is an incredible fantasy epic that was a joy to read. It is a conclusion to the 29-book Shannara series that Terry Brooks has nurtured for four decades. For those who have been on the bus for the whole journey, it is a landmark event. For those of us who just hitched a ride in the previous book (The Steihl Assassin), it was a fantastic little sprint through an amazing fantasy universe. Even without the vast background of the other books, this book was great. Brooks is an incredible writer and here he gives us wild adventures, magical battles, flying airships, and a journey into the Forbidding, a twisted corner of hell populated by demons beyond imagining from which there may be no escape.

There are a lot of pieces in play and the action shifts from one theater to another. Each story within the story is filled with excitement, adventure, fascination, and magic. It's hard to decide which story is the best. Indeed, putting aside the fact that there have been almost too many Shannara novels to count in various trilogies and quartets, this book could have been further divided into more books, each endlessly fascinating.

Tarsha is left struggling for her life, wondering how many lives she has left, struggling to find her mentor, Drisker, who has been banished to the Forbidding. And a great battle is coming. Has she learned enough from her mentor. Is her magic strong enough? How long can a mere apprentice like her stand against the most powerful witch imaginable, one who runs with a fell demon at her side, a hungry, vicious monstrosity of a demon? This story told from Tarsha's point of view is a whole story onto itself with her desperation portrayed so well as she uses her intuition and her magic to accomplish what she could barely imagine.

Drisker, Tarsha's mentor, an extraordinary druid in his own right, has his own tale told through his point of view. He finds himself as the book opens s in a landscape far more foreboding than anything he has ever imagined. The descriptions of this world are amazing in detail. Brooks let his imagination run wild in creating the most incredible beasts and demons, each one creepier and more repellent than the last. This story takes the form of a quest and the fell company that sets off into the netherworld of caved and tunnels is like the worst nightmare one could ever have. The Forbidding is like a different universe that itself could hold numerous tales.

Meanwhile, the Federation and Skaar armies are ready to face off. The machinations of these two warring camps are intriguing as are the endless betrayals and surprises.

And an airship is a world away with a secret plan to change Skaarland. This is like something out of Burroughs' imagination. Yes, you have elves and princesses. But you also get scientific inventions and secret incursions and curious natives in hot pursuit.

The pace is terrific. The story is everything you could want in a great fantasy. What a wonderful conclusion to a series.