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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold (Magic Kingdom of Landover #1) by Terry Brooks

Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold (Magic Kingdom of Landover, #1)Magic Kingdom For Sale/Sold by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book years ago, before I started keeping track of what I read. I remember it as an awesome, amazing story that caught at my imagination. Now, after a lot more reading, and probably some maturing, this book doesn't quite reach that expectation, but I did enjoy it for a few reasons.

This book was obviously a break-out novel for Terry Brooks. He was a lawyer, and his professional background is all over this book, from the characters to the conflicts and even in the resolutions. It makes sense, of course. We spend so much of our waking lives earning a living, how would a fully-employed professional find time to become a writer? The two would have to overlap. I don't hold that against him, but it was both obvious and distracting at times. I have thought about story ideas that also stem from my professional experience, and when I put them on a shelf and come back to them, they never sound as good as I thought they did when I first wrote them down.

I like the originality of the characters and the setting. While some of it is a bit cliche these days, I have to remember how old this book is. It shows how much fantasy writers have gained from the pioneering work of guys like Terry Brooks. Would a high-society lawyer really take to a medieval life so easily? From penthouse living to camping out in a barn without any complaining? Yes, some of that is hard to ignore. But his originality in giving life to mythology in a very consumable way is his strength. This isn't a Tolkien work where you wade through hours of detail every time you encounter a new village. This moves along at a good pace, providing a quick, fun read. I look forward to continuing this series and watching it progress.

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