Antrax is the typically brisk read that Brooks usually provides. There's nothing extremely deep in his books, but they usually make very good light adventure reading. This one certainly adds to that reputation.

The first book in this series, The Ilse Witch, suffered from a very disjointed narrative that had no pacing whatsoever. It covered months and months of time, started out very slowly, then raced past the acquisition of the keys until it skidded to a halt with a cliff-hanger ending. Antrax, on the other hand, only covers a week or so and is all the better for it. Brooks limits himself to five groups of people for point of view, which makes the book seem a lot more tight and contained. I still have a little trouble with some of his pacing, and the order in which he presents certain scenes (he has a scene with the elven prince and the seer right before a scene with Walker; the first scene totally ruins the twist at the end of the Walker scene). Overall, though, it felt a lot better to read.

The main problem with the book is that, for a long period of time, nothing seems to happen. Brooks has his characters constantly thinking about the situation they're in, sometimes using quite a few pages for their thoughts before they actually do something. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it gets very repetitious when the same characters are doing that, mulling over thoughts that they've already had and the reader has already read.

As for the plot of the book, it is getting quite good. Shannara has always lent itself to the technology vs magic plot idea, given how many references have been made to "the old time" in the previous series. I've always wondered what happened back then, and was hoping to find that out. It's a bit disappointing not to, but that wouldn't be fair to the book, criticizing it for something I'd like to see, rather than criticizing it for what it contains. There are still enough fascinating hints about the past to intrigue the reader.

When the characters stop thinking for a few moments, there is plenty of action. I could have done without all of the descriptions of druid fire blowing everything up and creepers falling to pieces (the description got very repetitious), but the rest of the action is produced very nicely by Brooks. I've never had a problem with his writing in this aspect, which may be why all of his previous Shannara books have had wars in the background. He writes action a lot better than he writes moving character scenes.

Finally, I have to give Brooks credit for the ending, compared to the Ilse Witch. I'm still a bit annoyed that these books are ending in cliffhangers for the next books, but that's mostly because Brooks' earlier Shannara series never really did that before. However, there is no comparison between the ending of Ilse Witch and Antrax. The Ilse Witch raced to its conclusion and then came to a crashing halt. Antrax's ending felt very appropriate. The story eased its way up to it, and settled. I didn't feel like I'd run into a brick wall. I appreciated that.

Other books by Terry Brooks
Antrax
Morgawr
Jarka Ruus
Tanequil
Straken
Genesis of Shannara Book 1: Armageddon's Children
Genesis of Shannara Book 2: The Elves of Cintra
Genesis of Shannara Book 3: The Gypsy Morph


Recommended: Yes